Company Sergeant Major
Thomas William OATWAY
Infantry
Died: 14th September 1914 - Age: 36

Commemorated:

1. Memorial:La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre Memorial
2. Book:The (1921) Masonic Roll of Honour 1914-1918Pg.131
3. Memorial:The (1940) Scroll - WW1 Roll of Honour44A GQS
4. Memorial:Rayleigh Cemetery, EssexD.45
    

Awards & Titles:

Queen's South Africa Medal 3 clasps
1914 (Mons) Star
British War Medal
Victory Medal
 

Early Life :

An extract from the Great War Forum provides a more detailed biography (Researched, written by and with thanks to user handle: Voltaire60):

"Thomas William Oatway was born at Aldershot in the July/September quarter of 1879, while his father was serving in the 1st Dragoon Guards. The Oatways were originally a Devonshire family, from the neighbourhood of Exeter, and Thomas’s grandparents of that name, James and Elizabeth, had migrated to London, where James worked as a carpenter in Bethnal Green. Their son, also Thomas Oatway, born in 1840, had enlisted for 12 years in the Dragoon Guards in January 1860, having tired of being a brassfounder. A cavalry regiment, almost superfluous after the disasters of the Crimean War, it meant that Thomas Oatway never served outside Great Britain, served in no campaigns-and never rose beyond the rank of Private, although he did win 4 good conduct badges and the resultant small pay increases.

What brought Thomas Oatway to Wanstead was marrying a local girl, Ann Davis, in Wanstead on 30th December, 1868. That 2 of their children were born in Scotland (James) and Ireland (Anne) showed the humdrum life of home postings and the poor life of an army couple. Thomas completed his army service of 21 years for pension in January 1881 and subsequently worked as a coachman and domestic servant in Wanstead. The 1881 Census shows the family at 4 Tylney Cottages, George Lane. Thomas William Oatway attended Wanstead Church School and was for many years a chorister at Christ Church, Wanstead. The Census of 1891 shows Thomas William working as a domestic servant at 24 Grove Road. By the years before the war, the Oatways were a numerous and popular local family, ruled over by Annie Oatway who lived for many years at 5 Wellington Road and died in August 1914.

It is not known whether Thomas William continued for long as a domestic servant but his service number indicates that he volunteered for the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards at Stratford sometime in 1897, almost certainly as soon as he reached his eighteenth birthday. The Guards regiments, then as now, were an elite, performing their traditional ceremonial roles yet maintaining their high reputation for military professionalism and efficiency. Thomas William fitted well into this regime- he served with the battalion in the Boer War and took part in 3 serious battles against the Boers in 1899-1900 at Belmont, the Modder River and Driefontein, for all of which he received bars to his Queens South Africa medal. The Coldstreams took part in the heavy defeat by the Boers at the Modder River at the beginning of the war in 1899 but Thomas Oatway’s bar for Driefontein shows that he served all through Lord Roberts’ advance into the Boer Republics, Driefontein being the last Boer defensive line before the British captured Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State in June 1900. By the 1901 Census he was in barracks in Orange Street, just behind Leicester Square, already a Lance Corporal after some 3 years of service - someone clearly of ability and marked out for promotion to be a senior NCO.

In the Spring of 1904 , with a secure soldiering future ahead of him, he married in Wanstead, Emily Edith Lane, who hailed from Stapleford Abbots and had been working as a domestic servant in Wandsworth. Their marriage produced 3 sons by the 1911 Census, Thomas Noel, James Albert and William Alfred. The first, Thomas Noel Oatway was born in Wanstead on Christmas Eve 1904 and baptised at St. Mary’s on 5th March 1905. (The entry in the Register of Baptisms lists Thomas William Otway as a clerk, so it is possible that he had left the army on marriage and later re-enlisted) The 1911 Census showed Thomas William Oatway as a Drill Sergeant based in Windsor, while his wife and family were nearby in army married quarters. He was also inducted into the freemasons' lodge, Comrades 2740-a lodge founded in 1899 and specifically for guardsmen NCOs, on 11th April 1913."

Service Life:

Campaigns:

Unit / Ship / Est.: 1/Coldstream Guards 

1st Battalion August 1914 : in Aldershot. Part of 1st (Guards) Brigade, 1st Division. 25 August 1915 : transferred to 2nd Guards Brigade, Guards Division.

Action : The Battle of the Aisne 1914 and subsidiary actions 

12 - 15 September 1914. Following the defeat and retreat from the Marne, the German army stood and defended the next defensible river, the Aisne. This offered significant defensive potential on the high bluffs overlooking the river but the BEF succeeded in pushing back the Germans. The first examples of trench warfare emerged on the Aisne as trenches became necessary to offer protection from concentrated artillery barrages.

Detail :

1486 Company Sergeant-Major, Thomas William Oatway, 1st. Bn. Coldstream Guards. Killed in action, Battle of the Aisne, 14th September 1914.

De Ruvigny's shows "OATWAY, THOMAS WILLIAM, Coy. Sergt.-Major, No. 1486, Coldstream Guards; served with the Expeditionary Force; killed in action at Vendresse 14 Sept. 1914."

Continuing with Voltaire60's biography:

"When war came, the 1st Coldstream Guards were part of the Guards Division and immediately ready for foreign service-landing in France on 13th August 1914, only 9 days after war was declared. It is probable that Thomas William Oatway was advanced to Company Sergeant Major as the battalion moved off to France. The 1st Coldstreams spent the first month of their service in France retreating southward in the face of the overwhelming German swing towards Paris. The victory of the Allies at the Marne, which saved Paris, left many British units in unexpected positions north of Paris. Thus, when the British and French counterattacked the Germans early in September 1914, the battalion was in the Laonais, the area around Laon, northeast of Paris and close to Reims.

The Laonais is a hilly and heavily wooded area and the Germans held a good defensive line, the high ridge known as the Chemin des Dames. The centrepoint of this defensive line was an old sugar factory (La Sucrerie) at Cerny en Laonois, latterly producing not sugar but industrial alcohol. It sat atop the ridge, walled and with a high chimney that gave the Germans additional advantages for artillery spotting. As a redoubt it was heavily defended by the Germans-by 3 German battalions (16th Reserve, 39th Fusilier and 53rd Reserve), as well as 2 artillery batteries and numerous machine guns. In addition, the Germans had 4 11” howitzers sited further back. These positions had to be taken and on the morning of 14th September 1st Coldstream Guards were ordered to take part in an attack, coming at it from the south in support of other battalions already finding it hard going against heavy artillery and small arms fire.

1st Coldstreams advanced on the factory through woods, 2 companies forming a front line, the other 2 in support, in short rushes but incurred heavy losses- the War Graves Commission records 69 dead for the day, while the battalion war diary records 162 Other Ranks as missing. As the battalion reached the walls of the factory, Thomas William Oatway was hit and died instantly. His end was noted in the diary of the Commanding Officer, Lt-Col. John Ponsonby: “We reached a brick wall round the factory. I saw then that Grenville Smith was wounded, also Lane. Drill Sergeant Oatway fell and I believe was killed outright.”

Thomas William Oatway’s body was not recovered for burial, even though the British stormed and captured La Surcrerie. Once lost, the Germans put in an intense artillery barrage to destroy the factory and prevent the British using it for observation. It is likely that his body was destroyed in this shelling. He was awarded the British War and Victory medals, and the 1914 Star with clasp, for having been under fire. He is remembered on the memorial to the missing at La Ferte sous Jouarre, along with 46 other Coldstreamers killed that day. He is remembered on the Wanstead War Memorial, on that for the Parishioners of St. John’s, Westminster in Smith Square, Westminster and at St. Philip with St. Bartholemew’s Church in St.Philip Square, Battersea.

Sources: War Diary 1 Coldstream Guards, 1st August 1914-31st July 1915, WO 95/1263/1, The National Archives; Kendall, Paul: Aisne 1914:The Dawn of Trench Warfare (Stroud,2012)"

Thomas is further commemorated on the side of the headstone of his wife Emily's father, Joseph & Elizabeth (sister-in-law?) Lane, at Rayleigh Cemetery (Plot D.45) as discovered in 2021 by Essex researcher and archivist Terry Joyce. The inscription reads: "Thomas W Oatway Drill Sgt 1st Bn Coldstream Gds. ???? at the Battle of Aisne Sept 14 1914 Aged 36."

Masonic :

TypeLodge Name and No.Province/District :
Mother : Comrades No. 2740 E.C.London

Initiated
Passed
Raised
11th April 1913
10th October 1913
14th November 1913
 

Thomas is commemorated in both the 1921 Book and on the 1940 scroll, Rolls of Honour. He is listed as a 34 year old, in 1913, Non-Commissioned Officer and resident of Aldershot. The contribution register shows dues paid up to Q3 1914, followed by the annotation: "Killed Sept. 1914."

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

Additional Source:

Last Updated: 2021-02-15 07:43:02