Headstone to be placed on unmarked grave of Worksop WWI soldier – 100 years after death

After almost four years of correspondence with the commission, the Worksop branch of the Royal British Legion has received notice it will be placing a headstone on the resting place of a World War One soldier Lance Sergeant Thomas Highton.

He has also had his burial site added to the official database.

L/Sgt Highton, whose name is on Worksop’s war memorial, was born in Worksop in 1892 and died in 1919 after contracting several illnesses during his service in India.

He enlisted in the Sherwood Foresters Special Reserve at age 17 in 1909.

He later transferred to the 3rd Battalion of the North Staffs regiment in 1917, shortly after marrying his wife Winifred Buchanan, in Sunderland.

The soldier was found to be in an unmarked grave in Retford Road Cemetery after a campaign in 2018 by the RBL which saw poppies placed on lampposts and street signs outside homes in Worksop where men who fell in the Great War had previously lived.

Gary Kyriacou, of Park Street, found out through the project that L/Sgt Highton had lived in his home, but when he went to find out more he discovered the unmarked grave.

After raising it with the RBL, Adie Platts, former interim branch chairman,contacted the CWGC to persuade them to mark the grave.

“It just needed to be done – it was the right thing to do,” he said.

“My sacrifice of a few hours in the warm on my laptop looking for a bit of information is far less compared with the sacrifices he put down 100 years ago.”

For the last 18 months, L/Sgt Highton’s resting place has been marked by a temporary cross made from ancient oak thanks to Age UK’s Men in Sheds group.

Mr Platts, a veteran himself, is now hoping to reach some descendants of L/Sgt Highton, to invite them to a ceremony that will be held when the headstone has been installed.

He said: “It would be nice if we could get a professional on it to find out if he has any ancestry in the area, or even in a different country.

“Even if it goes to show he doesn’t have any living relatives, he is still being remembered.”

Discussions are also being held with the Mercian Regiment to hold a three-volley salute when the headstone is placed.

Mr Platts said: “All of this has come about because of that campaign in 2018, and the way Worksop residents engaged with that.

“It was so heartwarming, it reinstalled faith, and the amount of people touched by it, it was fantastic.”