Tom had grown up in Filey and after leaving school worked in Haxby’s butchers in the town centre.  He gained an apprenticeship in 1914 to a Mr. Everingham in Scarborough who was a fisherman and he stayed there until being conscripted in early 1916.  His parents were Richard and Mary Major, and the family resided at Mount Pleasant Cottage, Ship Inn Yard, off Queen Street.

          When he joined Tom was placed in the Yorkshire Regt. (Green Howards) and after training joined the 9^th Battalion in France where he served for a couple of months before being wounded with a gunshot wound to the right hand on 29^th April 1917.  He was sent home and convalesced in Filey until he was sent back to France on 27^th September 1917.  He survived virtually unscathed for another year following this, and was due to come home on leave for a fourteen days around the time he was wounded again during the final stages of the Battle of Cambrai.  Unfortunately, his wounds were fatal this time and a matron from a casualty clearing station wrote to his parents stating that he died of gunshot wounds to the ‘buttocks, thighs and abdomen’.  He was laid to rest in Tincourt New British Cemetery along with Albert Clark and William Harland.