Army
Brant, Thomas A
Thomas A Brant
Rank: Driver
Regiment: 124th Field Company, Royal Engineers
Parents: Mr & Mrs O Brant
Address: 2 Edward Terrace, Hollington
Other Info: An article published in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer on 30th November 1918 reads; “aged 21; died of wounds received in action. Elder son of Private & Mrs Brant”
According to CWGC, Thomas is remembered at Forest Communal Cemetery, grave reference C.17.
Additional information from the Lives of the First World War website.
Published: November 1918
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In the 1901 census the Brant family were at 5 Edward Terrace, Hollington. Father Peter was 33, a general labourer. Besides Thomas there were two sisters. Everyone except Olive, the mother, was born in Hollington.
In the 1911 census the family was at 2 Edward Terrace. Uniquely, the census says it was a four-roomed house. The details were similar except that he had three sisters and mother Olive was a flower seller.
Thomas got into trouble when with another youth he stole a “drag”, apparently an iron agricultural device, from a field in Hollington Park, and sold it on for a shilling. This was reported in some detail in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 29 March 1913. The case was dismissed. He was also mentioned in the same newspaper, 14 March 1914, a “lad” from Edmund Terrace [no such road in the area, a mistake for Edward Terrace], He was a witness in a case about a stolen pet bird.
Thomas attested on the 19 October 1914 at Hastings as a Private in the 5th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment. He gave his address as 2 Edward Terrace, St Leonards on Sea. His father was Peter of the same address. He was under going training until the 11 December when a letter stated that he was not strong enough to serve.
Thomas Alfred Brant is listed in the absent voters electoral registers in 1918 at 2 Old Church Road as 534386, Driver, 124th Field Company, together with Peter Brant, a Private in the AVC [Army Veterinary Corps], the father. His mother Olive was the only voter listed in the main register.
The Hastings and St Leonards Observer has a brief notice in the 14 December 1918 issue saying that they are grieved by the death of their elder son who had succumbed to wounds. I have not identified a younger brother.
His mother died in 1938 in the Hastings area, his father in 1947. Father Peter occasionally got into trouble: these citations are from the Hastings and St Leonards Observer. In the 18 June 1910 issue he was charged with mistreating a pony with a whip on the road from Silverhill to the Harrow Inn. He was fined 10 shillings and costs. He was summonsed for being drunk and disorderly in the 11 January 1913 issue, in Battle Road, when he was fined 10 shillings and costs. In the 24 October 1914 issue he was charged at the Quarter Sessions with fraudulently taking and converting to his own use a a pony, cart and harness, the property of Abel Jennings of Robertsbridge. It was stated that he had 23 previous convictions. He was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude.