Thomas, OC

Lieutenant Oscar Clifford Thomas

Clifford was born on January 31^st 1888 in Liverpool, the third son of steel merchant Llewelyn Thomas and his wife, Letitia. He came to the College in the spring of 1900, nine months or so after his elder brother, Claud, had left, and like his brother was a boarder in Elm Lawn. He left seven years later in the summer of 1907, having been a member of the 3^rd XV in his final year, and went on to take up a place at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He graduated from Cambridge in 1909, with a 3^rd in History, and was for a period training to be a lawyer. He abandoned his training before qualifying and instead went out to Argentina where he worked for Messrs. Drysdale, Dunn & Co.

In October 1914 Clifford returned to England to help with the war effort, where he reunited with his brother, Claud, who had himself returned from South Africa. They eventually joined the Anglo-American Field Ambulance, a unit attached to the French Army, which consisted of a fleet of privately owned and driven vehicles being operated as ambulances. After spending much of 1915 serving in France he became dissatisfied, wishing to take a more active part in the war, and in early 1916 returned to England to join the O.T.C. at Oxford. After almost a year in training he took up a commission in the Grenadier Guards in early 1917 and returned to the continent with his new unit later that year. Between September and November, he was back in England once more, convalescing from wounds received at Poelcappelle. On December 1^st, not long after he had returned to the front, he was killed by a German sniper at Cambrai, at the age of 29.