This man is a candidate for addition to Keighley's Supplementary Volume under the proposal to add further names in 2024, the centenary of the original roll of honour.
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Supported by the National Lottery's Heritage Fund, our project intends to submit about 120 names for peer review to add them to the book which is kept at Keighley Library. The unveiling of the book with it's new names is planned for November 2024, 100 years after the unveiling of the original war memorial.

Private. 2/6th Battalion, Duke of Wellington's West Riding Regiment. Service number 17408.

Private Tom Nixon

Early life:

Tom was born in Barnsley in 1893, registered there in the third quarter of the year. Parents Oscar and Selina Nixon.
In 1901 he was nine and living at 23 Albion Square in Keighley with parents, four sisters and two brothers. Oscar was an ironfounder's labourer.

In the years leading up to the next census the family lived at a few houses, namely 30 Colne Street 1904 to 1906, 7 Hill Street from 1907 to 1908 and then moved to 4, Damems in 1909 which were all part of Keighley South Ward. The first two no longer exist but were located close to where the Oakworth Road Medical centre is today.

By the time of the 1911 census Tom was seventeen and living at 4, Damems, near Keighley with his parents, two sisters and four brothers. His father Oscar was still an iron foundry worker and Tom was a labourer for a joiner.

War service:

Tom attested with the West Riding Regiment at Keighley on August 11, 1915 aged 22 years 11 months. He was living at 39, Vale Mill Lane in Oakworth and working as a foundry labourer.
Joined at Halifax the next day, August 12. He was posted to the 11th Battalion on August 21.
He was later transferred to the 10th battalion on January 14, 1916, which was when he arrived in France.
He received a gun shot wound in his right hand at Beaumont Hamel on November 13 and was transferred through the casualty evacuation chain, ending up in a North London hospital by November 19. He spent 54 days in this hospital.
Tom was transferred to the 2nd Battalion on March 3, 1917 and embarked at Folkestone for Boulogne on March 8. He arrived at the 34th Infantry Base Depot at Etaples the next day. He was moved to the 2/6th Battalion West Riding Regiment on March 29 and joined them in the field that day. Just over a month later, Tom was reported missing on May 3, 1917. On February 2, 1918 his death was presumed to be on or since May 3, 1917.
His body must have been buried, as he was exhumed along with several others after the war and concentrated to grave 27, row A, plot IV of H.A.C. British Cemetery at Ecoust-St-Mein. Most of the other men originally buried with him were never identified.

War diary extract for 2/6th Battalion West Riding Regiment May 1917:

(Click here to see a trench map from March 1917, which covers this area)

MORY. May 2. A & B Companies under Lt Col S W Ford proceeded to RAILWAY EMBANKMENT in order to take part in an attack which the 62nd Division was making at 3.40 am on the 3rd May 1917 on BULLECOURT and trenches of the 9th HINDENBURG LINE West of BULLECOURT.
May 3. RAILWAY EMBANKMENT. The battalion suffered severe losses during the attack on this date.
Casualties: Officers - 1 killed, 5 wounded, 3 missing. Other ranks - 15 killed, 155 wounded, 88 missing.
Keighley News November 25, 1916:
OAKWORTH. Private T. Nixon, West Riding Regiment, of 39, Vale Mill Fold, Oakworth, has sustained a bullet wound in the right hand. He had been slightly wounded previously.

Private Tom Nixon - photo from Keighley News, dated 26th May 1917.

Keighley News May 19, 1917, page 5:

OAKWORTH. Private Tom Nixon, of the West Riding Regiment, an Oakworth soldier, whose home is at Vale Mill Fold, has been posted as missing since May 3. Private Nixon was employed by Mr James Wharton, packing case manufacturers, Ingrow. He responded to Lord Kitchener's first call for men, and was wounded four or five months ago.

Tom Nixon was posthumously awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal for his war service. These would have gone to his mother who was his next of kin and sole legatee in his will.
She would also have received any personal effects, and Great War memorial plaque and scroll inscribed with his name and his remaining back pay which amounted to £3 2s 6d on 30th April 1918.
She also received a war gratuity of £7 10s 0d on 5th November 1919

Tom is named on the Cross Roads war memorial in Cross Roads Park.

His brother Fred Nixon died of wounds on December 20, 1917.

Oscar and Selina were still living at 21, Vale Mill Lane in the 1921 census.

Information sources:

England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915
1901 England Census
1911 England Census
WWI War Diaries (France, Belgium and Germany), 1914-1920
National Library of Scotland Trench mapping service
Keighley News records at Keighley Library
Army Service Records, National Army Museum.
Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects, 1901-1929
British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920
WWI Service Medal and Award Rolls, 1914-1920
1921 Census Of England & Wales