Now I doubt I will ever come across a photograph of young Thomas John Loveland.
He was buried in Southern Cemetery in 1918 and was just 21 years old.
Not of course that there is anything unusual in that. Plenty of people still died young in the early 20th century and not everyone could afford to have their picture taken in a photograph.
But in the course of the last few days I have come to know a lot about him.
He is one of the 26 men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who are buried in a neat line in the cemetery.
Each will have a story and it was only by chance I settled on his grave. He enlisted in the August of 1915 and was in the First Battalion of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, and here the story becomes a little personal.
Like me he was born in London not that far from where I grew up and was a British Home Child like my great uncle who also enlisted in the August of 1915.
I had suspected he was a British Home Child because his Attestation Papers showed that his next of kin was an Eliza Loveland living in London and she was his sister..
Their father who had been a gas labourer had died in 1903 at the age of 35 leaving his wife Eleanor to bring up five children on her own.
The eldest who was Eleanor was eleven years old and the youngest was just two.
By 1911 they were living in a four roomed house at number 4 George Street at Walsoken in Cambridgeshire.
But only Eliza and her mother are in the property which they share with a William Fearis and his daughter who was 18 months old.
Both Mr Fearis and Mrs Loveland give their status as widowed and she describes herself as “Domestic housekeeper.”
In time I am minded to explore the story of Mr Fearis but for now I am content just to record that on the night of census Mrs Loveland’s youngest son was visiting.
He was eleven years old, is described as a “scholar” and this offers up the possibility that he too was in care.
I doubt that he could have been living with either of his elder siblings because they were only sixteen and fourteen.
And with the help of friends it seems I was right. Liz Sykes who is the Archivist at the Together Trust thought that he may have been a Barnado boy and Catherine West and Dawn Heuston dug into the archives of the Library and Archives Canada and confirmed it.
He arrived in Canada on board the SS Dominion in 1907 and had been migrated by the Barnardo Charity.
Like my great uncle he was the only one of the direct family to have been sent to Canada.
Somewhere there will be the records of how that migration came about and the decisions which led him to Canada but his siblings to stay in the UK. Some of these will be locked away in the Barnardo records and as I am not a family family I will never get to see them.
That said I am in contact with a relative via ancestry and so maybe they will be able to get permission to reveal what happened.
Later I will also try and find his siblings. One of his brothers I know was killed on the Western Front in the August of 1917. He was Edward Loveland who was 27 when he died and he is buried atLijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Belgium.
All of which underlines the enormity of the Great War, and like Private Thomas Loveland and his brother Bombardier Edward Loveland my family made a huge contribution.
Along with my great uncle in the CEF the family roll of honour includes my grandfather, another great uncle, two uncles and my great grandfather, and some who served in the German armed forces.
I hadn’t expected when I first came across his grave that Private Loveland would take me on my own personal journey which will for now conclude with a visit to his resting place in Southern Cemetery which is just ten minutes away from where we live.
And I intend to go on July 1 which is timely given that it is the centenary of the first day of the Somme and of course Canada Day.
I will also call in at the special exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge devoted to the Battle of the Somme. It is maintained by David Harrop who in honour of the men of CEF buried here has included a special item of remembrance to those Canadians.
Nor should we forget that the cemetery also holds the graves of men of the ANZAC forces as well as the British army.
And something of the story of Southern Cemetery and the history of Manchester during the Great War is revealed in Manchester Remembering 1914-18 published today.
Location; Southern Cemetery
Research; Liz Sykes, Catherine West and Dawn Heuston
Pictures; Southern Cemetery 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, grave of Private Thomas John Loveland, courtesy of David Harrop and Maple leaf from Lori Oschefski
*Manchester Remembering 1914-18
 |
| Southern Cemetery, 2015 |
Not of course that there is anything unusual in that. Plenty of people still died young in the early 20th century and not everyone could afford to have their picture taken in a photograph.
But in the course of the last few days I have come to know a lot about him.
He is one of the 26 men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who are buried in a neat line in the cemetery.
Each will have a story and it was only by chance I settled on his grave. He enlisted in the August of 1915 and was in the First Battalion of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, and here the story becomes a little personal.
Like me he was born in London not that far from where I grew up and was a British Home Child like my great uncle who also enlisted in the August of 1915.
I had suspected he was a British Home Child because his Attestation Papers showed that his next of kin was an Eliza Loveland living in London and she was his sister..
 |
| Thomas John Loveland |
The eldest who was Eleanor was eleven years old and the youngest was just two.
By 1911 they were living in a four roomed house at number 4 George Street at Walsoken in Cambridgeshire.
But only Eliza and her mother are in the property which they share with a William Fearis and his daughter who was 18 months old.
Both Mr Fearis and Mrs Loveland give their status as widowed and she describes herself as “Domestic housekeeper.”
In time I am minded to explore the story of Mr Fearis but for now I am content just to record that on the night of census Mrs Loveland’s youngest son was visiting.
He was eleven years old, is described as a “scholar” and this offers up the possibility that he too was in care.
I doubt that he could have been living with either of his elder siblings because they were only sixteen and fourteen.
 |
| from his Attestation Papers, August 1915 |
Like my great uncle he was the only one of the direct family to have been sent to Canada.
Somewhere there will be the records of how that migration came about and the decisions which led him to Canada but his siblings to stay in the UK. Some of these will be locked away in the Barnardo records and as I am not a family family I will never get to see them.
That said I am in contact with a relative via ancestry and so maybe they will be able to get permission to reveal what happened.
Later I will also try and find his siblings. One of his brothers I know was killed on the Western Front in the August of 1917. He was Edward Loveland who was 27 when he died and he is buried atLijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Belgium.
All of which underlines the enormity of the Great War, and like Private Thomas Loveland and his brother Bombardier Edward Loveland my family made a huge contribution.
Along with my great uncle in the CEF the family roll of honour includes my grandfather, another great uncle, two uncles and my great grandfather, and some who served in the German armed forces.
 |
| In honour of the Canadian Expeditionary Force |
And I intend to go on July 1 which is timely given that it is the centenary of the first day of the Somme and of course Canada Day.
I will also call in at the special exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge devoted to the Battle of the Somme. It is maintained by David Harrop who in honour of the men of CEF buried here has included a special item of remembrance to those Canadians.
Nor should we forget that the cemetery also holds the graves of men of the ANZAC forces as well as the British army.
And something of the story of Southern Cemetery and the history of Manchester during the Great War is revealed in Manchester Remembering 1914-18 published today.
Location; Southern Cemetery
Research; Liz Sykes, Catherine West and Dawn Heuston
Pictures; Southern Cemetery 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, grave of Private Thomas John Loveland, courtesy of David Harrop and Maple leaf from Lori Oschefski
*Manchester Remembering 1914-18
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