Roll of Honour 2023

P AGE 89

W ORLD W AR O NE (1914 - 1918) INCLUDING THOSE WHO DIED LATER AS A RESULT OF THIS WAR

S T . E DWARD ’ S S CHOOL , O XFORD R OLL OF H ONOUR

Name THOMAS EDWARD PARES (Lt)

Lef SES 1901

Roll Number 1028 Died 01:06:1917

Set / House C

Arrive SES 1899

Where VIMY RIDGE, ARRAS, FRANCE Serving with 47TH, WESTERN ONTARIO REG’T

Age 32

Buried Villers Station Cemetery, Villers-au-Bois, Picardie, France Remembered

La Ferte, Sous-Jouarre Memorial, The Canadian Visual War Memorial (Page 305), The St. Edward’s School Shape (Wooden Plaque) and the Cloisters Stone Memorial

Born 1885 in Derby, the only son of a regular Army Major. He was at the School only a short time and there is little in the records; he was in the Shell Form. After leaving School he was remembered as ‘one of our Okanangan Colony in 1909’. At some point he left for Canada, married and made his home there and when war was declared, he was commissioned in the 11th Battalion Canadian Mounted Rifles (Okanagan) in 1911. He then waited 2 and a half years for any action, followed by three and a half years of non-stop fighting. Promoted to Lieutenant with the 47th Battalion, Western Ontario Regiment in 1917, he was killed in action near Vimy Ridge, waiting in a trench prior to an attack. He and his men were so close to the Germans that they could hear them talking. ‘They were throwing over ‘pine-apple’ bombs and Pares and his Colonel were joking that they were not doing any harm, when suddenly Pares was hit in the chest. He laughed ‘I’ve got a Blighty’ (His Commanding Officer). He was taken to a Dressing Station, ‘absolutely without pain, then drifted into unconsciousness and died early the next morning’. ‘He died with a smile on his face’ (his Batman). ‘The War has taken many good men, but few finer and better pals than he’ (a tent mate).