Notes
The Parish Council website (see References) is the source of the extra information and carries this biographical detail: 'Thomas (Tom) Hinch was born in Nettleton in 1895, in 1901 when Thomas was 6 he was living with his parents John (a farm labourer) aged 50 and Elizabeth aged 45 and his four sisters, Jane (14), Mary (11), Henrietta (3) and Bertha (1) in the Civic Parish of Claxby. The 1911 Census records that the Hinch family were now living at Scrub Hill in Irby, John Hinch was working as a ‘Garthman’ which is a cattleman in charge of stock.
Jane, Mary and Thomas have left home and John’s mother Jane Hinch aged 89 was living with the family. Thomas was now 16 in 1911 and was living in Irby with William Blythe Pennel and Janet Pennel and their seven children, working on Manor Farm with his occupation described as a ‘Waggoner on farm’. We can only assume that Tom must have come to work on a farm in Great Coates in or after 1911 before joining the army after 1914.
Thomas served with the 9th Battalion of the Sussex Regiment and died on the 21st March 1918 aged 23 and his military record states that he was ‘Killed in Action’ and is on the Poziers Memorial which commemorates those from the Allied Fifth Army killed when driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields in March and April 1918. Poziers Memorial Cemetery is in a village 6 kilometres north-east of the town of Albert, in France.
The Great Coates Parish Magazine for 1918 records: ‘We are sorry to have to announce that Thomas Hinch was killed in April in France, that Robert Adams has been wounded (but not severely), that Christopher Neale and George Mew are prisoners of war, and Jack Allard is missing, and Ellis Allard is wounded, but not badly’.
It is unknown why Christopher Neale, George Mew, Jack and Ellis Allard are not listed on the memorial as having served, when Robert Adams is listed.'