Dmr Alexander Thwaites

Alexander Thwaites was not from Brentwood, nor strangely did his family live nearby - but he has the distinction of being the only soldier from the first world war buried in the churchyard of Brentwood Cathedral

He was born in Cahir, Tipperary, Ireland, in 1881, the son of Alexander and Ellen Thwaites - his father was a soldier in the 1st Royal Scots, who was stationed in Ireland with his family when his son was born.

Alexander himself enlisted in the same regiment as his father on 9th October 1895 as a drummer, and went to South Africa during the Boer War. He earned the Queen's medal with clasps for Transvaal, Orange Free State, and Cape Colony, and the King's medal with two clasps. On returning to Britain in 1902, he transferred to the Army Pay Corps, settling in Liberton on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Here he married and had at least six children, although his work in the Army Pay Corps seems to have regularly taken him between Edinburgh and Chatham in Kent.

Tragically, at the end of July 1914, just at the outbreak of the first world war, his son, Thomas Charles Thwaites was killed when accidentally thrown from a wagon. He had been playing with his sisters, hanging onto chains at the back of the wagon, when he was thrown into the road by the movement of the chains. Alexander was stationed at Hounslow barracks at the time, and his son was only two and a half years old. Only one week later he was sent to France, on 18th August 1914, many of the Pay Corps ended up in France at the start of the war to organise the payment of the newly mobilised army. He had returned to Britain by November 1914, when he was based at Warley barracks, presumably his family joined him there as they seem to have done with other postings.

Alexander died in the military hospital in Cambridge on 23rd December 1916, aged 35. He is buried in the churchyard of Brentwood Cathedral, where his grave is marked by a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone, presumably his wife and children lived in Brentwood for some time after his death for him to be buried there. They had moved back to Edinburgh by 1919.