The Thomas William Cooper on the Sawley War Memorial was from Nottingham. We’re not sure if/when he lived in Sawley, but he married Ethel Cater of Lime Grove in 1916. She’d been born in Codnor, but her family had moved to New Sawley to work in Birchwood Mills.
During WW1 Thomas served with 1/7th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, a Territorial Army unit.
In May 1916 they moved to Fonquevillers on the Somme to prepare for the upcoming offensive. The huge Somme offensive was meant to take the pressure off the French at Verdun to the south, and their attack on Gommecourt on the first day of the campaign was essentially a diversion.
The 1st of July 1916 was a bright, warm summer’s day. At 7.30 am their brigade, consisting only of Sherwood Forester territorials, set off across no man’s land. 1/7th battalion was in the first wave.
Some progress was made on the southern end of the Somme offensive, but the northern part was more heavily defended and losses in the initial attack were catastrophic. At Gommecourt the artillery bombardment had been largely ineffective and the breaks in the British barbed wire were too small, making the men easy targets where there were gaps in the smokescreen. The first wave was virtually wiped out by German artillery and machine guns
Thomas Cooper was one of those who died that morning. His name is on the Thiepval Memorial, which lists more than 72,000 British and South African soldiers who died in the Somme sector during WWI but have no known grave, mostly in the 1916 campaign.
Ethel received a widow’s pension and by 1921 she was still living with her parents on Lime Grove. But she seems to have died in 1926.
There was another Thomas Cooper from New Sawley who died in the First World War.
Thomas Frederick James Cooper was born in Shardlow in 1884. His family moved to Sawley about 10 years later. In 1901 they were living in Birchwood Terrace (the row of 6 terraced houses later incorporated into Birchwood Avenue). In 1910 he married Eva Ellen Eliza Banner and on the 1901 census they were boarding in Pleasant Row, Long Eaton (now the site of Romorantin Place). Thomas was a lace worker and they had a 5 month old baby, Daisy. In 1913 Thomas was back living in Birchwood Avenue when he was fined for being drunk and disorderly outside the Royal Oak, before soldier and sailor friends escorted him home.
Thomas must have joined the regular army before WWI because by August 1914 he was serving with 1st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment. The unit joined the British Expeditionary Force at Le Havre on 14th August, although Thomas may have arrived 11 days later (perhaps he’d been ill, or was completing training). As they arrived in France the German offensive was pushing the French and British armies back towards Paris. The fighting retreat continued until 5th September, when the allies stopped, just past the River Marne, southeast of Paris and started to counterattack. On 9th the BEF re-crossed the Marne against stiffening German resistance.
The fighting in the early months of the war was fluid and confused. Thomas disappeared on 9th Sep and was later declared as having died that day. He has no known grave and is listed on the La Ferté-sous-Jouarre Memorial to the Missing. Thomas is not on the Sawley war memorial, but is on the Long Eaton Roll of Honour.
In 1921 Eva was living with her parents in Salisbury St, Long Eaton. She married again in 1924, to Seth Webb. Eva died in 1959. Their daughter Daisy married in 1939 and later moved to Australia.