Thomas Nelmes was born in Coleford in 1876, the son of Mary Ann Nelmes, who was single. He was brought up by his grandmother Jane Nelmes, who kept a lodging house near Coleford. He started working in the mines after he left school. Jane died in 1906, leaving him with no close family. In 1899 and 1905, he was convicted of drunkenness and in 1910, he was found guilty of using obscene language.
In April 1914, Nelmes was convicted of housebreaking and stealing beef, butter and bread in Shropshire. He was arrested at the workhouse in Market Drayton and described as a tramp, but considered by the police to be of good character and was therefore bound over and discharged.
King’s Liverpool Regiment.
Nelmes enlisted in the Army at Horfield in Bristol in April 1916 and joined the King’s Liverpool Regiment.
The King’s Liverpool Regiment played a notable role in the Battle of Arras, which took place between April and May 1917 as part of a larger British offensive on the Western Front. It was likely that Nelmes was involved in the opening attack, which included advancing towards the German lines behind a creeping artillery barrage. This tactic helped them capture sections of German front-line trenches near Arras. Units of the regiment were involved in actions around strategic points such as the outskirts of Arras and nearby villages. These areas were heavily defended, and progress often came at a high cost.
Siegfried Sassoon’s experience of the Battle of Arras possibly exceeded in horror even the Somme campaign of the previous year.
The dead bodies lying about the trenches & in the open are beyond description…. Our shelling of the line—& subsequent bombing etc—has left a number of mangled Germans—they will haunt me till I die.’
On 16 April, while leading an attack on the Hindenburg Line, Sassoon was wounded by a rifle bullet which narrowly missed his spine and jugular; he was evacuated to a hospital in England.
Desertion
Nelmes was also probably traumatised by the experience and deserted in early May 1917, within a month of active service. This was a very risky decision. Julian Putkowsku and Julian Sykes, in their book Shot at Dawn, identify six men from King’s Liverpool Regiment executed by the British Army for desertion while on active service abroad btween July 1916 and May 1918.
Somehow, Nelmes made his way back to England and tried to survive by petty crime. On 24 May 1917, Nelmes broke into a house in Highnam, near Gloucester and stole five silver bangles. He then sold one of the bangles to a man who had agreed to give him a cup of tea. He told the man that he had been gassed in France and was given the bangles by a comrade on the Somme. He later sold the remaining bangles to a watchmaker. He was arrested at his lodgings in Newent. He pleaded guilty at his trial on 12 June. His character, whilst in the army, was described as bad. He was imprisoned with hard labour for four months.[1]
On release from prison, Nelmes was handed back to the military and appeared before a court-martial on 1 November 1917 and convicted of desertion. He was sentenced to six months in a military prison, remitted to eighty-four days.[2]
As his sentence was remitted and the army was very short of men, it was likely that on his release, he was returned to active service abroad. However, it is unclear what happened to Nelmes when he was released from prison.
| Place of Conviction | Date | Offence | Sentence |
| Coleford | 28/03/1899 | Drunk in charge of a horse and cart | Fined 2s 6d plus costs |
| Coleford | 3/05/1905 | drunkenness | Fined 2s 6d plus 4s costs |
| Coleford | 2/08/1910 | Abusive Language | Fined 5s plus costs |
| Shrewsbury | 7/04/1914 | Housebreaking and larceny | Bound Over and discharged |
| Gloucester | 24/5/1917 | Housebreaking and larceny | Prison with hard labour for four months |
Thomas E Nelmes died in Ross in 1920
[1] Gloucester Journal 9 June 1917 and Gloucester Journal 16 June 1917. [2] Fold3