225470 Pte. Thomas Cyril Perry British Army 10th Btn Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) from:Chilvers Coton, Nuneaton, Warwickshire (d.15th May 1916) Thomas Cyril Perry was born in Kidderminster, Worcestershire in 1894. He was one of five children born to William Edward Perry and Emma Jane Pugh. The family moved to Chilvers Coton near Nuneaton in Warwickshire around 1896. In 1911 Thomas was a printer's apprentice, still living with his parents and siblings.
He enlisted in Nuneaton after the outbreak of the war in 1914. It appears that local regiments must have been oversubscribed because Thomas Perry was posted to 10th (Service) Battalion Scottish Rifles then forming at Hamilton as part of Kitchener's Second New Army.
Thomas Perry landed at Boulogne in France with 10th Scottish Rifles on 10th July 1915 as part of 46th Infantry Brigade / 15th (Scottish) Division. The battalion entered the line near Festubert in September 1915. In the Battle of Loos on 25th Septemebr, the battalion took its objective (Hill 70) but was later forced to retreat. The 15th Division spent the 1915-16 winter in the Loos area holding the line at the Quarries, the Hohenzollern Redoubt and Hulluch.
On 11th of May 1916 the Germans launched an attack in the Quarries sector with heavy artillery support. The main assault fell on 13th Btn. The Royal Scots to the left of 10th Scottish Rifles. Over the next few days the latter were called upon to mount a series of counterattacks which failed to dislodge the Germans. Eventually a new British trench line was dug further back.
Thomas must have been killed in one of the counterattacks or the consolidation that followed. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial at Dud Corner Cemetery and in Kidderminster Town Cemetery.
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