Birth

Enlistment Information

Military Service

Embarkation Information

Military Awards

Death

Biographical Notes

Thomas Franklin Parkes, perhaps known as Franklyn, was born on 24 November 1892 at Washdyke and baptised (Parke) Anglican on 1 July 1894 at St Mary’s, Timaru. He was the first-born of Thomas James and Adeline (née Nicholls) Parkes. Parke may have been the original spelling of his father’s name. Thomas and Adeline married in 1892 at St Mary’s, Timaru and had five children, two of the boys dying in infancy. In 1894 the family was resident in York Street, Timaru. In 1904 Thomas James Parke was charged with having deserted his wife, Adeline Parke, on 5 February 1898 (three weeks before younger brother Harold was born). Mrs Parke, however, no longer wished to proceed against her husband. In 1902 Adeline married Charles Henry Horsham, by whom she had seven children. Thomas went to Edendale School in Southland in 1898, his grandfather Henry Nicholls being named as his guardian. Grace Horsham, an infant twin half-sister of Thomas, died of suffocation in October 1907. The family – parents and seven children – lived in a very humble house in the bush at Kennington near Invercargill. By that time Thomas was working away from home. It is not known when Thomas left New Zealand but possibly when he was quite young. He served with the Royal Machine Gun Corps in World War One, his service number 7530. He had served also with the Shropshire Light Infantry and the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Of Bromwich, Staffordshire, England, Private Thomas Parkes was discharged on 7 April 1919, suffering disability. He was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. Thomas Franklin Parkes married firstly Edith May Jones, presumably in England. Thomas and Edith adopted a boy born in 1925 in Dunedin. This son served with the military in England in the 1840s. Edith died on 30 December 1934 at Fairfax, Southland, and was interred at the Eastern Cemetery, Invercargill. In 1938 Thomas married Isabell Ettie Cherry, who was many years younger, and they had four children. F. Parkes was a pall-bearer at the funeral of his half brother at Riverton in 1941. Mr and Mrs F. Parkes were guests at the 87th birthday celebration of Charles Horsham in 1942, and they hosted the wedding recepteion for a relative of Isabell at their Riverton residence in april 1942.. Charles Henry Horsham had not very robust throughout his life. A war pensioner, Thomas died on 24 March 1975 at Invercargill and was buried in the Eastern Cemetery, Isabell with him in 1994 His younger brother, Harold Parke(s), served with the New Zealand Forces, as did cousins Artileur and Gordon Hoskin, while another cousin, Tararua Augustus Wesley Lawson Nicholls, served with the Royal Flying Corps, and an uncle, William Sidney Valentine Nicholls, enlisted for service. Another uncle, George Albert Hoskin, had served in the South African War.

Sources

NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [21 [November 2020]; NZ Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com.au) [07 December 2020]; School Admission records [07 December 2020]; Eastern Cemetery, Invercargill headstone image & burial records (Invercargill City Council) [07 December 2020]; St Mary’s Baptism records (Transcriptions held by South Canterbury Branch NZSG) [07 December 2020]; UK World War I Pension Ledgers (ancestry.com.au) [07 December 2020]; UK Medal Card (UK Archives – Discovery) [07 December 2020]; Timaru Herald, 18 November 1904, Southland Times, 26 Oct 1907, Mataura Ensign, 26 October 1907, Western Star, 5 January 1934, 24 January 1941, 6 February 1942, 10 April 1942 (Papers Past) [07 & 19 December 2020]

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Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

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