Thomas William Mason was born in Berkhamsted on Wednesday, 26th November 1873 the third son of Alec (Alexander) Mason and Emily Dean. Alec and Emily had eleven children during their thirty-seven-year marriage and the children were; John, Alexander, Thomas, Albert, Emily, William, Herbert, Charles, Edward, Joseph, and Alice. At one point six of the Mason boys were on active service in the Great War, resulting in a congratulatory letter from King George. The oldest brother John fought in the South African war and Alexander was killed along with Thomas at the Battle of Jutland. 

The family moved to Boxmoor near Hemel Hempstead when Thomas was a small boy and settled in Caitlin Street, around the corner from the Baptist Church in Russell Place. Thomas grew up in this area and started work with Dickinson & Co. Ltd. at Apsley Mills straight from school.

He left Dickinsons and enlisted with the Royal Marines on the 26th July 1892 when he was eighteen years old and was sent to the Royal Marines Depot at Walmer in Deal, Kent to begin training. He was described as just over 5 feet 7 inches in height (at the start of the War he had grown four inches and was taller than average), with a fair complexion, fair hair and grey eyes and throughout his naval career his character and ability were rated as ‘good’ or ‘v. good’.

Thomas served for seven years before being discharged at his own request on the 27th March 1909 when he transferred to the Royal Fleet Reserve. Later in the year he married May Harrington, a younger sister of his brother Alec’s wife, at St John’s Church in Boxmoor. Thomas and Mary had one daughter May who was born in 1911.

On the outbreak of war, Thomas as a ‘Class B’ reserve was immediately recalled and re-enlisted at Plymouth with the Royal Marines on the 21st August 1914. He was posted to HMS Queen Mary a week later where he would be joined a month later by his older brother Alec in September.

Thomas saw action as part of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, when HMS Queen Mary was engaged in attempting to intercept a German force that bombarded the North Sea coast of England in December 1914. This action was raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on the 16th December 1914, when the towns were attacked by the Imperial German Navy. The attack resulted in 592 casualties, many of them civilians, of whom 137 died. It caused public outrage that the German navy had attacked civilians and anger that the Royal Navy had failed to prevent the raid. The incident resulted in the first death of a British soldier from enemy action on British soil for 200 years, when Pte. Theophilus Jones, aged twenty-nine, was killed. Eight German sailors were killed and twelve wounded.

Thomas then fought at the Battle of Jutland in mid-1916. Early on the first day of the Battle HMS Queen Mary was hit first by the German battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz and then twice more in late afternoon by SMS Derfflinger. Queen Mary’s magazine exploded shortly afterwards, sinking the ship in just six minutes. In all 1,266 crewmen were lost and only eighteen survivors were picked up by the destroyers HMS Laurel, HMS Petard, and HMS Tipperary, and two by the Germans.

Thomas was killed when the ship exploded, and he died on Wednesday, 31st May 1916. The wreck site of the Queen Mary is designated as a protected place under the “Protection of Military Remains Act 1986” as it is the grave of the officers and men.

Thomas’ death was reported, along with that of his brother Alec, in the Hemel Gazette shortly afterwards in June 1916. 

He is commemorated at St Mary’s Church in Apsley.

Thomas is Remembered with Honour on the Plymouth Naval Memorial, Devon, United Kingdom, Panel 18.

He was 42 years old when he died.

Thomas was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.