Thomas Wood was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, in the summer of 1862. The third of ten children, he was the oldest son to Thomas and Emma Wood. Thomas Sr was a cabinet maker, but his son was not to follow in his father’s footsteps, seeking a life of adventure instead.

Thomas enlisted in the army and, while documents relating to his early life are not readily available, the 1891 census recorded him as being billeted at the Cambridge Barracks in Portsmouth, Hampshire. A member of the Royal Artillery, he seems to have been enlisted for a while, as he had risen to the rank of Corporal.

In 1894, Thomas married Leah Barrett, who was born in Oxfordshire. The army life underscored where the family would settle. They had four children and, according to their ages, the Woods were in Liverpool by 1895, Gosport, Hampshire, in 1896 and Cork in Ireland by 1899. The 1901 census found the family living in Wicklow, with Thomas having now achieved the rank of Company Sergeant Major.

Ten years later, and Thomas had stepped away from the army life. Now 48 years of age, he and Leah had been married for 17 years. The couple had settled in the Worle, on the outskirts of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where Thomas had set himself up as a butcher, with Leah assisting him.

War came to Europe in 1914, and it seems that Thomas felt drawn to play his part once more. He joined the Royal Defence Corps as a Serjeant when it was formed in the spring of 1916, and was assigned to the regiment’s 263rd Company.

Little information is available about Serjeant Wood’s army service, but by the autumn he had been admitted to the Shell Shock Hospital (now the Maudsley Hospital) in Denmark Hill, London. His entry to the hospital, however, was actually due to kidney disease, and this was what would claim his life. Thomas died from a combination of nephritis and uraemia on 21st November 1916. He was 54 years of age.

Thomas Wood was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Martin’s Church in Worle.

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