Person

On 15 September 1911, Thomas Leeming left London with his wife and daughter to start a new life in Melbourne, Australia. He could hardly have imagined that just five years later, he would be a soldier in the Australian Army, returning to Europe to fight in ‘the War to end all Wars’.

(John) Thomas Leeming was born in December 1874 in Darlington where his father, also Thomas, ran a Tailor’s shop. He was the third of the four children of Thomas senior and his wife, Margaret. When he left school, Thomas went to work in the local foundries in Darlington, eventually he became a moulder, a trade he would use all his working life.

In July 1903, Thomas married a local girl, Margaret Bennison, and five years later, they had a daughter, Freda. Thomas senior had died in 1900 and by the time of the 1911 census, Thomas’ mother had moved in with the young couple.

Thomas, Margaret and Freda set sail for Australia on the “Athenic” on 15 September 1911, with the ship’s passenger list showing that Thomas intended to work in farming. That never happened and when the family settled in Melbourne, Thomas again went to work as a moulder in a Foundry.

At the age of 41, on 22 December 1916, Thomas enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a Private in the 1st Light Railway Operating Company. Just three months later, on 19 February 1917, he embarked on the “Ballarat”, bound for Devonport. On the voyage over, the ship came under torpedo fire from a German submarine; a taste of what was to come. Luckily, the ship survived and the recruits arrived in England in one piece.

Thomas was stationed at Bordon Camp in Hampshire for further training at the Royal Engineers Training Centre before finally proceeding to France on 29 May 1917. The work of the Railway Companies was dangerous, transporting men, equipment and munitions to the Front, then returning with the injured and dying troops back to the hospitals in the rear.

Thomas was soon promoted to the rank of lance corporal and made sergeant within a year.

Despite the constant danger, Thomas was unharmed and once the Armistice was signed, whilst waiting to be repatriated to Australia, he was granted leave with full pay to attend at the Albert Hill Foundry, back in Darlington.

Thomas finally returned home on 8 September 1919, and received his discharge papers on 2 April 1920.

He remained an iron moulder in Melbourne until he died on 15 May 1939.

Civil Parish: Darlington

Birth date: 1875

Death date: 15-May-1939

Armed force/civilian: Army

Residence: 12 Bruton Street, Darlington (ecclesiastical parish of St John’s 1881, 1891 & 1901 census)
21 Brinkburn Road, Darlington (1911 census)
226 Church Street, Richmond North, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (1914 electoral roll)
32 Swan Street, Richmond, Melbourne (1916 attestation papers)
464 Union Street, Brunswick, Melbourne (1924 electoral roll)
266 Union Street, Brunswick, Melbourne (1937 electoral roll)

Employment: Iron Moulder worked after the war for three months in Darlington Iron Company, Albert Hill Iron Works, Springfield, Darlington

Family: Parents: Thomas Leeming (1846-1900), Margaret Davison Leeming (nee Cundle (1847-1914)
Siblings: Margaret Jane Leeming (b 1872), Walter James Leeming (1873-1941), Frederick Leeming (1879-1943)
Wife: Margaret Leeming (nee Bennison b 1879 in Darlington Married Jul-1903
Child: Freda Leeming (b 1908)

Military service:

Service number 576
Private
Australian 1st Railway Company
Enlisted 22-Dec-1916 in Melbourne
Promoted to Lance Corporal 01-Sep-1917
Corporal 08-Dec-1917
Sergeant 22-Jun-1918
Discharged 02-Apr-1920

Medal(s): British War Medal
Victory Medal

Gender: Male

Contributed by Kelloe Visitor, Trimdon Station