STAPLETON, Thomas

ă 52810 Pte West Yorkshire Regt, then 45296 K.O.Y.L.I. and eventually transferred to 509988 Pnr R.E. Transportation Branch, Inland Waterways, (towards the end of the war men were used for a variety of re-organizational purposes). On his enlistment papers his occupation was a ‘fireman’ later shown as a ‘furnaceman’.  b 1879 Canning Town, 1919 Voters Register address; Station Road, Hathersage. According to his Military Record he was living in Hathersage in 1918, married in 1915 to Eva Marrison b1885, and his son was born there in July 1918, but dies a month later of congenital syphilis! His son’s death certificate lists father Thomas as a coal-miner and his grandmother as Emily Smith. The address given is 3 The Hills, (Outseats). He seems to have moved back to Sheffield by 1920 and he then disappears entirely as his medals were returned. His wife and a second son remained in Sheffield. His wife Eva Marrison was the daughter of Emily Marrison, who remarries in 1913 to Harry Smith. Hence her name as grandmother to the dead child was Emily Smith. However it turns out that Thomas Stapleton was already married to an Annie Baxter (West Ham 1899). This could explain why he disappeared after the War?