1/5th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment.

Awarded the M.M., in the London Gazette of 9 July 1917, Mentioned in Despatches in the London Gazette of 5 November 1915.

Hargreaves was a native of Burnley, Lancashire.

The Burnley Express of 8 August 1917 reported: - RECOGNISED AFTER TWO YEARS. Territorial's Medal. Yesterday, news was conveyed to ex-Corporal Thomas Hargreaves, who resides at 29, Crowther Street, Burnley Wood, that he has been awarded the Military Medal for bravery on June 5th, 1915, at the Dardanelles, and after such a long interval, during which time he has been discharged from the army, the distinction came as a surprise. The medal will be publicly presented at a convenient time. Corporal T. Hargreaves, (2079), 5th East Lancashire Regiment, was one of the original Territorial Division mobilised when war broke out, but he had been a territorial since 1906. From Egypt he went to the Dardanelles, and it was on June 5th, 1915, that he went over the top three times to bring in wounded men, two of whom he rescued. Corporal Hargreaves was wounded in October, 1915, very severely, receiving shell injuries in his chest, back and shoulder. For a long time he was in hospital, and was discharged from the army in May, 1916. Since then he has been working as a warehouseman at Witham's Mill, where before war broke out he was a weaver.

The Burnley Express of 10 November 1915 shows Corporal Hargreaves as having been mentioned in despatches. Hargreaves Medical record also shows that he received a bullet wound in the back in action on the 8 August 1915.


Thomas Hargreaves was born at Burnley, Lancashire in 1885. The photo (right) shows Thomas with his wife May and first child Dora taken shortly after Dora's birth in 1906.