6th Battalion Machine Gun Corps 121803
Thomas was born in October 1898 in Kingsthorpe, the son of Henry Wadhams, a county police constable, and his wife Mary Elizabeth. The family moved house a number of times because of Henry’s work and when he retired on a police pension they were living in Station Road, Spratton (now The Stone House, Brixworth Road). Of the nine children, five were still living at home in 1911 - William, John, Charles, Thomas and Agnes.
Four of the brothers served in the First World War and although William and Charles returned home safely, sadly John and Thomas were killed in action. The three sisters, Annie, Edith and Agnes, all worked for the Red Cross in military hospitals.
At the start of the war Thomas was only 16 but he enlisted in the Machine Gun Corps as soon as he was old enough and was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force. He was killed in action in Flanders on 21st March 1918 aged 20, only six days before his older brother John. Thomas has no known grave, but is remembered on the Arras Memorial in France and on the Spratton War Memorial. He was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
