Private Thomas Bradley Holden
13074 10th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
Killed in Action 23rd August 1917, aged 25
Born in Burnley
Commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium
Burnley Express 22nd September 1917


I've finally found the link between the Thomas Bradley Holden in Burnley, and a man of the same name who's commemorated on the Great War Memorial of St Aldates Church in Oxford.

It would appear that his father, Joseph Holden, had left his mother, and he had ended up in Oxford by the beginning of 1901. On the 1901 census, he claims to be a widower, and just a few months later, he marries a local woman and has another family. It's also possible that Thomas Bradley was living here around the same time, as a Thomas Holden appears living with the father, but he's 90 yrs-old, although it looks like the zero was added at a different time, making the age nine, the correct age for Thomas Bradley.
The connection to St Aldates comes with the fact that Joseph and his new family was living just a few hundred yards from the Church, (and he had been for a number of years), when his son was killed.
This still doesn't explain why there is no mention of Thomas Bradley in the local press, when his father I presume went to the trouble to have his son added to the local war memorial.

(information courtesy of Barry Burnham)

N.B The 1901 census shows Martha Anne Holden as living with her brother Arthur Bradley and his family in Burnley.
So it appears that Thomas took his mothers maiden name after his parents separation