Tom Cartmell was born in Thornton and baptised at Christ Church on 5 October 1886. He was the son of Margaret Cartmell, the fifth of eight children of Thomas Cartmell, a platelayer, and his wife Elizabeth Garner who had married at Christ Church, Thornton on 2 February 1856. It seems likely that young Tom was named after his grandfather who had been killed in a railway accident near Poulton Station on 8 August 1879.
Margaret was employed as a live-in domestic servant and, consequently, Tom was raised by his widowed grandmother alongside her own younger children. The family lived in Occupation Road, Thornton, since at least 1861. When the 1901 Census was taken, Tom had left school and was employed as a grocer's errand boy.
In the first quarter of 1911, Tom married Naomi Humphries, who was born in Ketley Bank, Shropshire on 30 August 1886. Naomi was the youngest of twelve children of Daniel Humphries, a coal miner, and his wife Mary Ann Swift who married at All Saints, Wellington on 26 December 1859. In the Census on 2 April 1911, Tom and Naomi were recorded at Thornleigh Cottage, Station Road, Thornton and Tom was as a domestic gardener.
The couple had two children; Margaret was born on 7 December 1911 and Thomas Humphrey followed on 27 February 1914. On the outbreak of war, Tom joined the Royal Army Service Corps. His war service record has not survived but we know that he served throughout the war and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. Tom died at No. 17 Casualty Clearing Station, Düren in Germany on 19 February 1919. His death at age 32 resulted from influenza which led to pneumonia. Corporal Thomas Cartmell, M2/018050, 2nd Division Mechanical Transport Company, Royal Army Service Corps is buried in Plot 19 at South Cemetery, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Naomi and the children were living at Norcross Cottage at the time of Tom's death but by the next Census on 19 June 1921 they had moved to Holme Nook, both locations being in Carleton. The children attended Thornton Council School in Church Road and on 8 July 1921, when His Royal Highness the Price of Wales paid a visit to our area, Margaret was chosen to present the Prince with a bunch of pink sweet peas. Naomi never remarried and lived for many years at 32 Hawthorne Road, Thornton, in a house she named "Ketley Bank" after the place where she was born.
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