Thomas Orde Lawder Wilkinson

Thomas Orde Lawder Wilkinson VC (29 June 1894 – 5 July 1916), was an English-born Canadian and British Army officer who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Early life

Wilkinson was born, son of Charles Orde Wilkinson and his wife, Edith, at Lodge Farm on Dudmaston estate at Quatt near Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England and attended Parkside School, Surrey and then Wellington College where he showed both academic and athletic prowess. The family emigrated to Canada, (where his father had worked at Vancouver at the time of his birth) before the outbreak of World War I.

Military career

On 23 September 1914, Wilkinson joined the 16th Battalion, Canadian Scottish at Vancouver. After the regiment arrived in England he transferred as a temporary Lieutenant to the 7th Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment as Gunnery Officer. He was in this role with the regiment during the opening days of the Battle of the Somme when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross at the age of 22.

On 5 July 1916 at La Boiselle, France, during an attack, when a party of men from another unit were retiring without their machine-gun, Lieutenant Wilkinson with two of his men, got the gun into action and held up the enemy until relieved. Later he forced his way forward during a bombing attack and found four or five men from different units stopped by a wall of earth over which the enemy was throwing bombs. He at once mounted the machine-gun on top of the parapet and dispersed the bombers. Subsequently, in trying to bring in a wounded man, he was killed.

As his body was never recovered intact, Wilkinson is commemorated with thousands of other British and Commonwealth soldiers on the British Memorial to the Missing at Thiepval. In 2004 a plaque to his memory was unveiled in Quatt churchyard, commissioned by the Shropshire War Memorials Association after unsuccessful attempts to locate relatives.

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Imperial War Museum in London, England.

References

• Monuments to Courage (David Harvey, 1999)
• The Register of the Victoria Cross (This England, 1997)
• VCs of the First World War - The Somme (Gerald Gliddon, 1994)

External links

• Thiepval Memorial
• Legion Magazine article on Thomas Orde Lawder Wilkinson
• Find-A-Grave profile for Thomas Orde Lawder Wilkinson

• The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 29765. p. 9418. 22 June 1915. Retrieved 8 April 2015.