Thomas Percy Chapman MM

Epehy Wood Farm Cemetery, Epehy, France

Thomas (Percy) S. Chapman MM. (Military Medal)

Sergeant No. 8359 (48355?) 

1st Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment.

Killed in action in France 22 March 1918. Age 32.

Buried in Epehy Wood Farm Cemetery, France. IV.4.F10.

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Born in 1886.

Locating Percy’s family history in Ancestry has proved difficult and the best possibility is that he grew up in the York workhouse, which was in Clifton. There is a record for a Chapman family with Percy of the right age.

Son of Thomas Chapman.

Percy married Maud M. Mould of Kidnal House, Malpas at St. Oswald's Church on 14 July 1917.

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Percy Chapman came to Malpas in March 1915 as a patient for The Bolling VAD Hospital on Church Street, after being injured at Ypres. (Gunshot wound to the right shoulder.)

This is where we think he met his future wife Maud Mould of Kidnal House, Malpas.

In May 1917 he was awarded the Military Medal for acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire.

Percy was then sent back to fight, leaving his wife and future widow in Malpas.

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We have established that Maud is recorded as a visitor to Kidnal House, Malpas in the 1911 Census and have to assume that Percy Chapman's widow had associations with the place as she was shown to be living there after her husband's death.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) record indicates Percy's widow lived in Malpas.

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Percy died in France on 22nd March 1918 in the final German offensive of the war.

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Note*

Percy is not currently recorded on the Malpas War Memorial or any other UK civic memorial.

It is suggested that this is because he was only in Malpas for a short length of time whilst he was recovering from his wounds, had no association with the local community in Cliffton.