Category: Conscientious Objector, Military
Rank: Private 2816
Regiment or Ship: No. 8 Eastern Company Non Combatant Corps
Service Number(s): 2816
Occupation: Stationer, Toy & Fancy Goods Dealer
Date of Birth: 1878
Place of Birth: St. Leonard’s, Hastings, Sussex
Date of Death: 15.11.1951
Place of Death: 8 Eastwood Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex
Place of Burial / Memorials:
Bexhill Cemetery – buried 20.11.1951 (Plot ref: ECS1)
Address: 27, St Leonards Road, (1901 & 1911 censuses), Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex
Photos and newspaper articles
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Family Information
Father – Alfred Thomas Gammon, b.1852, in Greenwich, Kent
Mother – Amelia J Gammon, b.1850, in Crondall, Hampshire. Married 1875 in Hastings district
Siblings:
Flora Gammon, born and died the same year, 1875, in Hastings, Sussex
Alfred George Gammon b.1877, died 1887, in St. Leonards, Sussex
Amelia Gammon b.1881, in St. Leonards, Sussex. She married Percy Arthur Roe Lymbery, in Bexhill and they went to live in Market Harboro, where, in 1910, they had a son Philip and a daughter Enid in 1912.
Wife: Annie Elizabeth Forest. The married in late 1913. Annie Elizabeth Forestwas born in Battersea in 1890, and was 23 when she married and living at 10, Eversley Road, Bexhill – just a few doors down from where Thomas lived. There is no record of them ever having children.
First World War Experience
Anthony Thomas Gammon was a Conscientious Objector who went before a Local Tribunal, and was refused total exemption and given non-combatant service. He took it to an Appeal Tribunal where the decision was upheld and he was refused any further appeals.
He served all his time in England but was far from being a soldier of good conduct, as his Army Form B103 (Casualty Form – Active Service) shows. He was called up for service on the 22.08.1916 and posted to the 8th Eastern Company, N.C.C. but failed to turn up. He was arrested by the Civil Police, and, on 26.08.1916 he was fined £2 to be deducted from his pay by the Court of Summary Jurisdiction and was then handed over to the Military Authorities. The Police then had to write to the Military to get the fine paid, as directed by the Court. The fine was still outstanding almost one-and-a-half years later!
Six days after this first offence he committed a second one as the same form shows:
Place: Chichester
Date of Offence: 28-8-16
Rank Private
OFFENCE: When on Active Service disobeying a lawful command given by his superior officer.
WITNESS:- Sgt Niederauer, CSM Funnell, Sgt Chainey, Major N. A. Layton
PUNISHMENT awarded: To be imprisoned with Hard Labour for six (6) months.
By Whom Divisional Court Martial
The rest of his time in the Army, according to his Army records, seems to have been uneventful and on 6th March 1918 he was put on Reserve, Class W.
C0009 (2) GAMMON, Anthony Thomas (Private) Army Records
Additional Information
He went before two Tribunals, “Local” and “Appeal”, both hearings being reported in the Bexhill Observer and the Bexhill Chronicle.
What happened to him after the war is not known, other than he carried on his business for a few years, eventually dying on 15th November 1951, aged 73.
In his Will (recorded in the National Probate Calendar, of 1952) he left £7907 5 shillings 4 pence, (worth between £200,000 and £300,000, today) to an Alice Elizabeth Marsden but so far it is not known who she was or her connection to him.
Addresses:
5, Alexandra Terrace, St. Leonard’s, Hastings, Sussex (1881 census)
13, Alexandra Terrace, St. Leonard’s, Hastings, Sussex (1891 census)
27, St Leonards Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex (1901 & 1911 censuses)
104, High Street, Battersea, London, SW11.
Tribunal Reports
C0009 (3) GAMMON, Anthony Thomas (Private) Tribunal Reports