Thomas George Cook, known as Tom, was born in Hemel Hempstead in early July 1891 and baptised in St. Mary’s Church on Sunday, 19th July in the same year. He was the third child and first son born to Joseph Cook and Mary Chilton who had five children together. Tom’s siblings were: older sisters Cissie and Alice, and younger sister and brother Mercy and Ernest. His mother Mary died in August 1900 aged forty and she was buried in Heath Lane Cemetery where she was joined by Tom’s father Joseph in 1935.

In 1911 the Census records that Tom worked as a ‘Journeyman Baker’, but he found employment with John Dickinson & Co. Limited sometime after this date and went to work in Apsley Mills. On the outbreak of war Tom was amongst the early volunteers when he travelled to Watford and enlisted with the 1st Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment in August 1914. He went straight to Ampthill to carry out his basic training and five short months later he was sent to France.

Tom disembarked on the 2nd February 1915 and six days later he joined his Battalion at Bailleul and within days saw his first action in the trenches. He fought at Neuve Chapelle, and in the defence of Hill 60 in 1915, before the Battalion was sent to the Somme in 1916 where it was engaged throughout the Somme offensive.

Early in 1917, Tom found himself at Cuinchy, just to the east of Bethune, as the 1st Bedfordshires prepared for the next major offensive at Arras. February and March were relatively quiet times and the Battalion War Diaries record that on "13 Feb 1917 Inspected by Sir Douglas Haig C-in-C British Armies in FRANCE." 

The Battle of Arras began on the 9th April 1917 but Tom did not see action until the second phase of the offensive, when the 1st Bedfordshires carried out an attack on La Coulotte in what became known as the Second Battle of the Scarpe. The assault was carried out in poor visibility and freezing weather and in two days of intensive fighting the British forces failed to achieve their objectives at a heavy cost.

The Bedfordshires War Diaries record that at one point early on the first day two Companies were held up and surrounded and "…bombed from the front like rats in a trap." In all eleven Officers and 320 other ranks were killed or wounded and it was early on the first day that Tom was killed.

He died on Monday, 23rd April 1917. He was buried where he fell before being exhumed and re-interred at the end of the war in a nearby military cemetery.

Tom’s death was reported in the Hemel Gazette in June 1917 when two letters, received by one of his sisters, were published. The first came from his C.O. and the second letter was from one of his comrades, Private J. Parker who echoed the C.O.’s description of Tom’s popularity amongst the men:

He was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited War Memorial in Apsley.

Tom is Remembered with Honour in La Chaudiere Military Cemetery, Vimy, Pas-de-Calais, France where he is interred in Grave: IV.D. 13.

He was 25 years old when he died.

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