Lance Corporal Thomas Rose

 

The background of this North Irish Horseman is not known for certain. He may have been the Thomas Henry Rose born on 14 December 1887 at Glengormley, County Antrim, the second of four children of block printer Thomas Henry Rose and his wife Margaret (née Warwick). After his father died of pneumonia when he was just six years old, and his mother of typhoid two years later, Thomas was raised at nearby Carnmoney by church officer Andrew Ramsey and his wife Eliza. By the time of the 1911 Census he was living at Sugar Island, Newry, where he worked as a shop assistant.

Rose enlisted in the North Irish Horse on 15 or 16 November 1915 (No.1886 – later Corps of Hussars No.71617). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve depot before embarking for France sometime between 1916 and 1918, where he was posted to one of the squadrons of the 1st North Irish Horse Regiment.

Rose remained with the regiment throughout the war. On 25 February 1919 he was demobilised and transferred to Class Z, Army Reserve.