CORPORAL THOMAS LEONARD PHIPPEN: 1508
1/4th. Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment.
Thomas was one of seven children born to Ellen and Thomas Phippen in Axminster. Only four of those children survived infancy – John, Frank, Maud and Thomas with the eldest child, William dying aged four and twin girls, Lucy and Louisa dying at birth.
Thomas Snr. was a boot and shoemaker and he shared his home with his parents Esther and Frank – who was also a shoemaker by trade.
However, neither John nor Thomas worked in the family business when they left school. Both became cabinet makers/apprentices and in 1911 Thomas was working in Bridport, lodging with the Follet family in King Street.
After the outbreak of war, Thomas enlisted with the 1st/4th Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment. He embarked for India in early September 1914- arriving in Bombay a month later.
He did not remain there. In 1916 he was in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq).
The Dorsets were in action early on, but in August 1916, when there was little active fighting, Thomas contracted Enteric fever – a waterborne disease, common in areas where sanitation and hygiene are poor, causing fever, sickness, diarrhoea and other debilitating symptoms.
Conditions for the troops in Mesopotamia were often appalling – heat dust, flies and almost unavoidable exposure to water borne diseases like Enteric. Some men recovered from the disease, but Thomas was not one of the lucky ones. He died on August 26th, 1916.
Thomas is remembered on the Basra War Memorial.