1894/5 - 2nd May 1915 (age 21)
Private 1562
4th Bn. Yorkshire Regiment
In 1911, the Banks family were living at South Terrace, and Thomas was
the third of four sons. Their father William, a railway clerk, and his
wife Margaret were natives of Husthwaite and Helperby respectively. It
appears that the family had settled at Brafferton Helperby, which is where
Thomas enlisted into the army, his parents later giving the village as
their address.
At the outbreak of war, Thomas was probably a member of the Territorial
Army, at least his low regimental number 1562, indicates early enlistment.
He went to France on 18th April 1915 with a territorial battalion, 4th Yorkshires.
They had little time to acclimatise before they were in action later that
month in front of Ypres in Belgium. The medieval town of Ypres was important
to the Allies, if it fell, then the Channel ports were likely to fall
also. The British had made a stand there in the First Battle of Ypres
in 1914 but in so doing they created a salient or a bulge in the line.
The Ypres salient was to become notoriously dangerous, being over-looked
by the enemy from the front and on both flanks. In the Second Battle of
Ypres the Germans attacked at St.Julien, where they used poison gas for
the first time. The 4th Yorkshires suffered under a gas attack on 1st
May and they were attacked again on the following day with total losses
during this period 34 killed and 74 wounded.
Thomas was one of those killed, he had survived just 14 days overseas
and is remembered on panel 33 of the Menin Gate Memorial along with over
54,000 officers and men who have no known grave. Menin Gate is one of
four memorials covering the Ypres salient, the location for the memorial
was chosen because hundreds of thousands of men would have passed through
it on their way to the battlefield, many of them never to return.
Thomas is also remembered on the village memorial at Brafferton Helperby.
The medals of Thomas Edward Banks include 1915 star, Victory medal and
British War medal and they are stored at the Green Howards (Yorkshire
Regiment) Regimental museum at Richmond where they were donated by Mr
M. Banks of Darlington. Attempts to contact Mr. Banks failed because he
had not been known since 1988 at the address given. Reginald Banks, an
elder brother of Thomas served with the 11th Bn. Yorkshire Regiment and
he survived the war.
The information on this page was compiled by Steve Billings.
Information about Thomas Edward Banks on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website
Information about Thomas Edward Banks on the War Graves Photographic Project website
Information about Thomas Edward Banks on the Yorkshire Regiment - First World War Remembrance website