Private Thomas Walker

Private Thomas Walker, 14th ( Service ) Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was killed in action in Belgium, aged 38, during the Battle of Third Ypres.  He had been born in Melrose and was the son of Isabella and the late Alexander Walker of Newstead. He is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. Before enlisting he had been employed as a jobbing gardener in the Melrose area. Originally he had enlisted in the 1st ( Royal ) Dragoons but at some point he had been transferred to the Warwickshires. The photos show the atrocious condition of the battlefield where the incessant shelling had destroyed the fragile Flanders drainage systems and caused the autumnal rains to flood the ground.