223759 Rflmn. Thomas Joseph Andrews DCM.British Army 1/5th Btn. South Lancashire Regiment from:Salford, Lancashire My late grandfather Thomas Andrews was listed in the London Gazette on the 2nd of December 1919. He was awarded the DCM for 'Marked gallantry and fearless leadership on the 7th November 1919'.
His personal history was just tragic. He was born in 1893. His mother committed to an asylum when he was 10 months old. His father died 4 years later and he was, after a short stay with aunts, sent to a Catholic children's home. I was unable to track down the name of the home. He surfaced again at 18 in Salford and married a year later, his wife Jane in 1912. They had 2 children, my mother and her brother, Tommy.
He joined up in 1915 and was with the 1/5th South Lancashire Regiment where he obviously served with great bravery. In 1918 his wife died in the Spanish Flu epidemic at the age of 24. He was demobbed in 1920, no job, no wife and the children in the care of his mother-in-law. We, his daughter's children, have little contact with our grandfather, although we did meet with him on occasion, as his mother-in-law had very jealously kept his children to herself.
Thomas married again in 1937 when he was working at a cable works in Prescot, to a lady named Frances Winifred Lewis. They had two boys, Philip and John whom I've unfortunately been unable to make contact since my mother and all the family left England in the late '50's. Through research I found that Thomas died at Oldfield, Whiston in July 1975 at the age of 82.
|