People on board

HARRISON, Thomas Walter

Thomas was born in 1883, the eldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth Harrison of Kelston Grange, Louth, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Magnus Grammar School, Nottinghamshire. Thomas started a career in law and enlisted at Lincoln’s Inn, London in May 1915. He trained with the Officer Training Corps. He was commissioned in the Lincolnshire Regiment in August 1915. He married Katie Ella Wilcock in May 1916 and they settled in Horncastle, Lincolnshire. The following year he was in France with the Lincolnshire Regiment involved in trench fighting at Lens, France.  In June 1917 Thomas was diagnosed with shell shock. After treatment in several hospitals he was declared fit for home service in July 1917. He was attached to the 2/1st Battalion Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons at Bantry, Cork. He was presumably travelling home on leave on the RMS Leinster on 10th October 1918. Another past pupil of Magnus Grammar School, Alfred Ford, was also on the RMS Leinster and both of them were lost in the sinking. Thomas Harrison’s body was not recovered although that of Alfred Ford was. Thomas Harrison is remembered on the Magnus War Memorial and the War Memorial at St. Mary’s Church, Horncastle.