Person

Thomas Charles “Tom” Foxton was the sixth of the seven children born to William Foxton and his wife Dinah Lawson. His parents had married in the autumn of 1869 in Hartlepool where his father worked as an iron founder. Sarah their eldest child was born in 1871 and the youngest Hannah Mary in 1888. When Tom was six the family were living in Stranton and taking in lodgers. The three oldest children were working.

William Foxton died in 1898 and Dinah and the children moved to live with her father where Tom became an apprentice bricklayer. By census time 1911 Dinah only had William, a joiner, Thomas a time-served bricklayer, and youngest daughter Hannah at home. Just months later Tom left for Canada, settling in Toronto, Ontario and finding work as a bricklayer. Dinah and the two youngest girls, Hannah and Alice, sailed on the Empress of Ireland the following summer to join Tom and they set up home together in Toronto.

On 3 October 1917, after receiving his Military Service Letter, Tom was conscripted into the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). He was passed as fit at his medical in Hamilton, Ontario on 20 February 1918. By the end of May 1918 he had arrived in Liverpool, Lancashire and was posted to Witley, Kent with the 19th Battalion. In September Tom was posted to France with the 20th Battalion and joined them on the front line near Buissy, Pas-de-Calais, France.

His unit stayed on the front line until on 11 November 1918 when they occupied the village of Saint Symphorien, Mons, Belgium at 2am. This was just nine hours before the armistice was signed. The Battalion then marched through the Ardennes and was welcomed at each village they passed through. They celebrated Christmas in Siegburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, between Bonn and Cologne. Tom’s unit was posted back to England by April 1919 for return to Canada and demobilisation at the end of May 1919 in Kingston, Ontario.

Tom returned to the family home In Toronto where Dinah, his mother, died in 1926. Tom resumed working as a bricklayer and in 1935 was staying at the same address and living with his sister Alice. He had retired by 1953.

Thomas Charles Foxton died in Toronto, Ontario on 15 November 1958.

Civil Parish: Stranton

Birth date: 30-Oct-1885

Death date: 15-Nov-1958

Armed force/civilian: Army

Residence: 34 Albion Street, Stranton, West Hartlepool (1891 census)
24 Gill Street, West Hartlepool (1901 census)
16 Melrose Street, West Hartlepool (1911 census)
45 Hiawatha Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (1917 enlistment papers)

Religion: Church of England

Employment: Bricklayer (1911 census)

Family: Parents: William Foxton, Dinah Foxton nee Lawson
Siblings: Sarah A Foxton, John Henry Foxton, William Foxton, Alice Foxton, Robert Foxton, Hannah Mary Foxton

Military service:

3107865
Private
1st Depot Battalion, 2nd Central Ontario Regiment
19th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force
21st Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force

Gender: Male

Contributed by Jean Longstaff, Durham