THOMPSON, Benjamin

ă 785056 C Battery R.F.A. Joined up in 1909 at Norfolk Barracks, Sheffield. 591 Gnr  1/3 West Riding Brigade R .F.A. (T) 9 Battery. Discharged after serving 7 yrs 15 days on 4/4/1916, his intended place of residence then shown as ‘Brick Huts’, Grindleford, (actually Padley, Hathersage), where his mother and Annie Hounam were living in 1911C. These were probably the cottages built for railway construction workers and later Bole Hill quarry workers, where stone for the Howden & Derwent dams was excavated, early 20thC. b Blackpool Aug 1886. Also lived in Bury, Lancs. His mother was Kate Hounam, (she became Thompson and later Allen). 1891 Benj Thompson was living with his grandfather George Hounam. (‘Hope Valley Line’ book p 174; ‘Feb 1893 a Benjamin Thompson suffered from smallpox and was taken to Bakewell Workhouse’). 1901C, living with Uncle William Hounam, at Sheffield. It is thought he married Lily Staniforth, in 1908. There were two children. Lillian, b 1911 Ecclesall Bierlow, and Harold B, b 1913 died 1918. Both births registered in Bakewell District.  He possibly went to Canada as quite a few of the family did. There was also a brother John Hadfield Thompson who served with the East Yorks Regt, but in 1914, before war broke out he went to Canada. He had a half-sister Emma, born out of wedlock in 1911, she was a servant at Stoke, Grindleford. Lily Hounam, his cousin, married George Blagden in Canada (see above).