This man was a candidate for addition to Keighley’s Supplementary Volume under the proposal to add further names in 2024, the centenary of the original roll of honour.
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Supported by the National Lottery’s Heritage Fund, our project submitted 103 names for peer review to add them to the book which is kept at Keighley Library. The unveiling of the book with it’s new names took place on 9th November 2024, 100 years after the unveiling of the original war memorial.
See the list of 103 new names added in 2024 here
Private. 2/6th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment. Service number 17408.
Early life:
Tom was born in Barnsley in 1893 with his birth registered there in the third quarter of that year. His parents were Oscar Nixon and Selina Nixon, née Kaye. They were married at Pogmoor in Barnsley where Oscar was employed as a coal miner, probably at the nearby Slackhills Colliery. Their family lived at 92, then 66, Pogmoor before moving to Keighley by the time of the 1901 census.
In 1901 he was aged nine and living at 23 Albion Square in Keighley with his parents, four sisters and two brothers. Oscar had changed jobs and was now an ironfounder’s labourer.
In the years leading up to the next census the family lived at a few houses, namely 30 Colne Street 1904 to 1906, 7 Hill Street from 1907 to 1908 and then moved to 4, Damems in 1909 which were all part of Keighley South Ward. The first two addresses no longer exist but were located close to where the Oakworth Road Medical centre is today.
By the time of the 1911 census Tom was aged 17 and living at 4, Damems, near Keighley with his parents, two sisters and four brothers. His father Oscar was still an iron foundry worker and Tom was a joiner’s labourer.
The family were living at 4, Damems in the South Ward of Keighley Borough. The two eldest girls had moved out.
Tom was living with his parents Oscar and Selina and siblings George aged 19 and a dyer’s labourer; Fred aged 15 and a cotton spinner. The youngest children were Mary aged 12, Lenard aged nine and Harold aged six and they were all at school. Also living here was Amanda Whitaker a weaver aged 22, who was the third child of Oscar and Selina but was now widowed having married George Whittaker in 1907, who had died in 1909.
War service:
Tom attested with the West Riding Regiment at Keighley on August 11, 1915 aged 22 years 11 months. He was living at 39, Vale Mill Lane in Oakworth and working as a foundry labourer.
Joined at Halifax the next day, August 12. He was posted to the 11th Battalion on August 21. He was later transferred to the 10th Battalion on January 14, 1916, which was when he arrived in France.
He must have been posted to the 2nd Battalion West Riding Regiment because they were in trenches at Flers on the day he was wounded on 13th November, during the Battle of the Somme. Tom was reported to have received a gun shot wound in his right hand at Beaumont Hamel and was transferred through the casualty evacuation chain, ending up in a North London hospital on the 19th of November. It must have been a serious wound because he spent 54 days at this hospital.
The 2nd Battalion was the only one near enough to Beaumont Hamel at the time for this to be accurate, and they were in front line action on that date.
Keighley News November 25, 1916:
OAKWORTH. Private T. Nixon, West Riding Regiment, of 39, Vale Mill Fold, Oakworth, has sustained a bullet wound in the right hand. He had been slightly wounded previously.
After recovering and being sent back to duty, Tom embarked at Folkestone for Boulogne on the 8th March 1917. He arrived at the 34th Infantry Base Depot at Etaples the next day. He spent a couple of weeks here before being posted to the 2/6th Battalion West Riding Regiment on 26th March and joined them in the field. The 2/6th Battalion war diary reported a draft of 24 men from the Reserve were taken on strength of the Battalion on 27th March.
Just over a month later, Tom was reported missing on 3rd May 1917.
His body must have been buried near to the date of his death, as his grave was exhumed along with several others after the war and they were concentrated to H.A.C. British Cemetery at Ecoust-St-Mein. Tom was placed in grave 27 of row A, in plot IV.
Most of the other men originally buried with him were never identified.
War diary. WO95/3087/1:
Extract for 2/6th Battalion West Riding Regiment May 1917:
MORY. May 2:
A & B Companies under Lt. Col S. W. Ford proceeded to RAILWAY EMBANKMENT in order to take part in an attack which the 62nd Division was making at 3.40 am on the 3rd May 1917 on BULLECOURT and trenches of the 9th HINDENBURG LINE West of BULLECOURT.
May 3:
RAILWAY EMBANKMENT. The battalion suffered severe losses during the attack on this date.
Casualties: Officers – 1 killed, 5 wounded, 3 missing. Other ranks – 15 killed, 155 wounded, 88 missing.
[Tom would have been one of the men posted missing that day.]
Keighley News May 19, 1917, page 5:
OAKWORTH. Private Tom Nixon, of the West Riding Regiment, an Oakworth soldier, whose home is at Vale Mill Fold, has been posted as missing since May 3. Private Nixon was employed by Mr James Wharton, packing case manufacturers, Ingrow. He responded to Lord Kitchener’s first call for men, and was wounded four or five months ago.
Almost a year later on 2nd February 1918, his death was officially presumed to have been on or since 3rd May 1917.
Post war:
Tom was posthumously awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal for his war service. These would have gone to his mother who was his next of kin and sole legatee in his will.
She would also have received any personal effects, and Great War memorial plaque and scroll inscribed with his name and his remaining back pay which amounted to £3 2s 6d on 30th April 1918.
She also received a war gratuity of £7 10s 0d on 5th November 1919
His brother Fred Nixon died of wounds on December 20, 1917.
Tom is named on the Cross Roads war memorial in Cross Roads Park along with his brother Fred. They are also named on the Oakworth Centenary roll of honour at Oakworth Village Hall.
In November 2024 Tom’s name was add to the Supplementary Volume of the Borough of Keighley’s Roll of Honour book which is held at Keighley Library.
Oscar and Selina Nixon were still living at 21, Vale Mill Lane in the 1921 census. Oscar was aged 64 and a lamplighter for the Keighley Corporation at Cooke Lane in Keighley. Selina was 62 and on home duties.
Still living with them were Leonard aged 19 and a woolcomber for Merrall and Son at Haworth, Harold aged 16 was a jobber lad at a spinning mill for Holmes and Laxton. Also with Oscar and Selina were their grandsons Percy Thorpe aged 14 who was a spinning mill doffer also for Holmes and Laxton, and Charlie Thorpe aged 12. They also had Edward and Mary Peel boarding with them with their baby son Fred Peel.
In 1937, Fred’s mother Selina died aged 74, her death was registered in Keighley in the first quarter of the year.
Oscar died aged 78 in the same year and his death was registered in the last quarter.
Information sources:
England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915.
1901 England Census.
1911 England Census.
WWI War Diaries (France, Belgium and Germany), 1914-1920.
Keighley News records at Keighley Library.
Army Service Records, National Army Museum.
Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929.
British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920.
WWI Service Medal and Award Rolls, 1914-1920.
1921 Census Of England & Wales.
England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007.
