Profile

SHEARS, Thomas Edward
(Service number 294)

Aliases	Birth registered as Thomas Edward Henry SHEARS
First Rank	Gunner	Last Rank

Birth

Date	06/11/1889	Place of Birth	Timaru

Enlistment Information

Date	24 August 1914	Age	24 years 11 months
Address at Enlistment
Occupation	Mechanic
Previous Military Experience	Cadets South Canterbury Battalion - 5 years; completion of service
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	B. SHEARS (father), Stafford Street, Timaru, N Z
Religion	Unitarian
Medical Information	Height 5 feet 5 inches. Weight 130 lbs. Chest measurement 33-34½ inches. Complexion dark. Eyes brown. Hair black.

Military Service

Served with	Australian Imperial Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	1st Australian Field Artillery Brigade
Unit, Squadron, or Ship
Date
Transport
Embarked From		Destination

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals	1914-15 Star; British War Medal; Victory Medal
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date		Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

October 1915 - admitted to hospital in London, suffering from dysentery. 1 August 1917 - admitted to First London General Hospital, suffering from malaria.

Post-war Occupations

Electrical engineer

Death

Date	16 December 1960	Age	71 years
Place of Death	New South Wales, Australia
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Woronora Cemetery, Sutherland, New South Wales
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Thomas Edward SHEARS, born in 1889, was the son of Benjamin and Annie (née COOKE) SHEARS. Benjamin and Annie had married in England and come to New Zealand in about 1880. Thomas started at Kakahu Bush School, then moved to Geraldine in 1902. He enlisted with the Australian forces at Sydney on the outbreak of war. He married Arthuretta Alison MacKENZIE in 1920 at Sydney.

Sources

Attestation Paper for Australian Imperial Force (National Archives of Australia) [22 July 2014]; Australia Cemetery Index (ancestry.com.au) [29 July 2014]; Timaru Herald, 16 October 1915, 17 August 1917 (Papers Past) [12 July 2014]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [29 July 2014]; Australian Electroal Rolls (ancestry.com.au) [29 July 2014]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Lois Shears, SC brnach NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

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