READER STORY
Debra Charnley knew her ancestor had vanished after returning home from the First World War – but his story didn’t end there, Gail Dixon reveals
How Debra Charnley solved the mystery of her great grandfather’s disappearance
Many family historians face the challenge of tracing a mystery man or woman, who pops up in their family tree only to disappear without trace. For WDYTYA? reader Debra Charnley that person was her great grandfather, Thomas Anderton.
“Thomas was born in 1874 in Manchester and became a tramcar driver,” Debra explains. “He married Ethel Heaton and they had six children together, born between 1900 and 1912. One child, Ethel, passed away in 1902, but the rest of her siblings all survived into adulthood.“Life carried on as usual for the family until war broke out in 1914. Thomas was aged 39 and almost too old to fight, so he volunteered to join the Royal Army Veterinary Corps (RAVC). As a tramcar driver, he would have had a lot of experience working with horses.”
Thomas survived the war and returned home to his family, who lived in the Openshaw area of Manchester. Settling back into the routine at home was to prove challenging for him. According to stories passed down to Debra, Thomas felt that there wasn’t a place for him within the family anymore.
“One day in 1920 he walked out and was never heard of again. No one had a clue what had happened to him and my grandmother Alice never spoke of him.”
Alice married William James Charnley and they had a son, also called William, who is Debra’s father. “Dad is interested in genealogy and has always wanted to know what happened to his grandfather. I felt very motivated to find Thomas on Dad’s behalf.”
Family rumour had it that he had emigrated to Canada or Australia, but Debra was unable to find any concrete leads. She says: “I consulted with the experts at Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE who told me that such disappearances were common among First World War veterans. Tragically, many of them ended up becoming homeless and ‘ died in a ditch’.
“I didn’t want to accept that picture and I had a gut feeling that Thomas’s story was different. I couldn’t accept that he had become homeless.”
Debra had few clues to work from. She had Thomas’s birth certificate, giving the date and place of birth, plus his parents’ names. His service record was among the huge numbers of First World War documents destroyed during enemy bombing in 1940. The family did, however, have a letter that Thomas sent home from the 6th Veterinary Hospital in Rouen in 1915. “He was clearly a loving father and husband because the letter is full of concern for his wife and children.”
After many conventional searches in the UK and overseas, Debra continued to draw a blank. However, the online publication of the General Register Office (GRO) Consular Death Indices in 2016 gave her a huge breakthrough.
“Idly browsing through these details on findmypast.co.uk, I noticed a death record from 1955- 60 for a Thomas Anderton, aged 81, in Rouen. At first I discounted it, but then I had a ‘ light bulb’ moment.
“What about the letter that Thomas wrote to his family in 1915 from Rouen? Immediately, I sent for the British death certificate from GRO and this indicated that Thomas died in a suburb of Rouen called Grand Quevilly. I realised that I would have to order French death certificates (or État Civil) from the local authorities, typically the town hall.
French connection
“The French ‘acte de décès’ also gave the correct date and place of birth for Thomas in Manchester. I jumped for joy. This was definitely him and I couldn’t wait to share the news with Dad.
“I was astonished that Thomas returned to France, where he must have witnessed such horrors. We can only speculate on why he returned but undoubtedly his marriage to Ethel had turned sour and he felt compelled to leave.”
Times were about to get even tougher for the family. In 1921, a year after Thomas’s disappearance, Ethel passed away from tuberculosis and exhaustion. Two of the children, Arthur and Marie, were barely in their teens and had to enter the local industrial school. “This is such a mystery to me because the family was close and they usually looked after their own.”
To gather more clues about Thomas’s life in France, Debra contacted local archivists in Grand Quevilly. “My French isn’t great, but the staff there were really helpful and we struck up an email conversation. They gave me amazing support and were just as excited as I was when we made a breakthrough.”
Thomas must have been in contact with someone living in Manchester because, despite the fact that he had disappeared without trace a year earlier, he knew about Ethel’s death. Debra discovered this because after Thomas returned to Rouen, he remarried.
“Ethel died in May 1921 and the archivists found a record for Thomas and Hélène Jeanne Gathe who married in July of that year. On the certificate he states that he is a widower. I wonder who told him that Ethel had died?
“I can only speculate over why Thomas returned to France. There was a massive British military base in Rouen during the war and soldiers and locals were well integrated. Perhaps Thomas had already met Helene during his service in Rouen and thus had good reason to return.
“I was keen to visit the archives in France, so in September 2016 Dad and I travelled there together. We visited the SeineMaritime departmental archives in Rouen, and the staff were more than helpful, digging out census data, maps, newspaper articles, probate and land records.” Census returns were collected during 1921, 1926 and 1936 in Rouen and Debra found Thomas living with Hélène and her father. By the time they married, Hélène was in her late thirties and Thomas was aged 47. It appears that they didn’t have any children together.
Another surprise came when Debra saw that Thomas was employed by the ‘gouvernement anglais’ as a gardener for the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC).
“I discovered that there was a big push after the war to memorialise the fallen. It was an enormous task. Who better to do it than former servicemen?”
Thomas worked in St Sever Cemetery in Rouen and Debra was able to trace his employment record via the Commonwealth Graves Commission (the successor of the IWGC). This outlined his career progression, pay and pension on retirement in 1939.
“Thomas may have joined up with a group of fellow Lancastrians to return to France. I’ve found newspaper records of regiments advertising for ex-soldiers to work for the IWGC.
“A 1920s magazine article offered tantalising detail. It advised visitors to Rouen, as they sailed down the Seine towards Paris, to visit St Sever cemetery and meet the group of “brawny Lancashire lads”
I was astonished that Thomas returned to France, where he must have witnessed such horrors
who tended the gardens there. I’ve no doubt that Thomas was among them.
“It amazes me that anyone who survived the First World War would want to return. I’ve seen war diaries for the 6th Veterinary Hospital in Rouen and the sheer volume of horses and other animals that they had to treat or destroy makes for grim reading. Despite this, Thomas, and others, were keen to come back. I think it was a noble action to tend the graves of their fallen comrades.”
War was to scar Thomas’s life once more after Rouen fell to the Germans during the Second World War. Thomas was interned, as was Hélène who, by virtue of marriage, had become a British subject. “I discovered this via the burial notice Hélène placed for Thomas in the local newspaper, the Journal
de Rouen. She was clearly very proud of him because the notice states that Thomas was a “combatant in the First World War and a British internee (1940- 44)”.
“I applied for Thomas’s internee report from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. It begins in 1942 when he was imprisoned in Vittel in North Eastern France. Apparently conditions were better there than in most internment camps. Food was limited, but they were allowed books and entertainment.”
Thomas passed away on 21 April 1955 and was buried in the municipal cemetery at St Sever. Hélène lived on until 1963.
Thomas’s life took some extraordinary turns. How does Debra feel about the decisions that he made? “I have a real soft spot for him. He may have been thoughtless in his treatment of his family, but he could have felt rejected by them when he returned home from France.
“Thomas could have crumbled after his experiences during the war, but he went on to have a good life and I’m proud of his work for the War Graves Commission. His five surviving children had successful lives, working and bringing up families, which is reassuring to know. I’m proud of them all and it has been such a thrill to solve the mystery.”