Tomlinson, John

John Tomlinson was born in Little Weighton, near Beverley, East Yorkshire in 1896 to parents John (1846-1934) and Ellen Bentley (1860-1920) who had married in 1879.

His father, John Snr had begun his working life as a shepherd. By 1891 he was a farm foreman and in 1901 a farm bailiff.

John had five siblings, Robert (1880-1949), Eliza b 1884, Martha (1888-1945), George (1893-1955) and William (1898-1968).  There had been another child born to the family, who was also called John.  He was born in  Q41 1890 but died in Q2 1893, aged 2.  As the next born, we think that ‘our’ John was named after him, continuing the family tradition of the name John.

According to the 1881 census it appears that John also had four half siblings, Elizabeth (b 1869), Thomas (b 1872), Jane (b1873) and Mary (b1876). The 1871 census gives their mother’s name as Susannah, this must have been John Snr’s first wife.

By 1911 John Jnr had left home and was working as the ‘fourth lad on the farm’ at Kirk Ella Hall. In 1914 he enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, in Warwick.

Whilst serving, John married Annie Winnifred Fox (1892-1955) in the first quarter of 1915.  Annie was from Warwick but the couple married in Sculcoates, now a suburb of Kingston upon Hull.

On 13^th May 1916 John and Annie had a son, also named John, born in Warwick.  By the time of the 1939 census, Annie had not remarried and was living with their child John and her parents at 24 Priory Road, Warwick. John was now 23 and working as an aircraft benchwork fitter.

Annie died in Warwick in 1955.  Her son John married Una Dorothea Pass (1922-2007) in 1955 in Warwick. He died in Coventry in 1971.