b. 23/01/1895 Nelson, Lancashire. d. ? 1965 Nelson, Lancashire.
DATE OF EM ACTION: 01/10/1917 National Shell Filling Factory, Morecambe, Lancashire.
Thomas Stuttard was born on 23rd January 1895 in Nelson, Lancashire, the fourth of six children born to John Thomas and Elizabeth Tattersall (nee Stuttard). His father was a cotton weaver, and by the age of 14, Thomas had followed in his footsteps and also become a cotton weaver. On the outbreak of World War I. Thomas enlisted with the Royal Field Artillery as a Driver, and was badly wounded at the Battle of the Somme, and his wounds saw him invalided back to England. His injuries were so severe he was invalided out of the Army. On his recovery, he became a fireman for the remainder of the Great War, and it was in this capacity that he was awarded the Edward Medal in Silver (one of just 25 ever awarded) for his actions at the Munitions Factory near Morecambe on 1st October 1917.
At the end of the Great War, he returned to his previous occupation as a cotton weaver, and remained in this occupation for the rest of his working life. In 1920 he married Mary Jane Holden in Burnley and by the 1939 England and Wales Register they were living with no children in Nelson, and he was still a weaver and his wife was a firelight maker. Thomas died in 1965 in Nelson, aged 70.
EM CITATION:
On account of their gallant conduct on the occasion of a fire which occurred at a Munitions Factory on 1st October 1917.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: PRIVATELY HELD. SOLD AT AUCTION IN 2010.
