Thomas Alexander McReynolds was the son of T.A. McReynolds, Kingsmills, Stewartstown. Thomas volunteered for service when war was declared having previously served with the North Irish Horse before the war. He enlisted with the Dragoon Guards and was sent to France in 1914 where he was wounded twice. He transferred to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in the autumn of 1917 during the Third Battle of Ypres and shortly after joining he was reported missing during an advance at Polygon Wood, Belgium.
Further Information
Thomas Alexander McReynolds was the eldest son of Thomas Alexander and Mary Eliza McReynolds (nee Stinson). Thomas was born about 1893 in Scotland.
The 1901 census records the family living at Edernagh, Coagh, County Tyrone. Thomas was 8 years old. His father was a farmer.
The 1911 census shows that the family were still a farming family in Edernagh. Thomas was now 18 years old and working on his father’s farm.
Family: Thomas Alexander McReynolds, Mary Eliza McReynolds, Thomas Alexander McReynolds (born about 1893), Edward Norman McReynolds (born 20th September 1895), Austin McReynolds (born 24th March 1897), Mabel G McReynolds (born about 1899), William McReynolds (born 25th January 1900), Samuel McReynolds (born about 1901), George Ernest McReynolds (born 28th March 1901), Albert Edward McReynolds (born 26th August 1902), Ivy Violet McReynolds (born 31st October 1904).
His father, Thomas Alexander McReynolds, was a Rural District Councillor (R.D.C.).
Thomas volunteered for service when war was declared having previously served with the North Irish Horse before the war.
Thomas McReynolds enlisted in Glasgow with the Dragoon Guards and was sent to France in 1914 where he was wounded twice.
From the Mid Ulster Mail dated Saturday 22nd January 1916:
Private McReynolds, son of Mr Thomas McReynolds, R.D.C., Kingsmills, who joined the 5th Dragoon Guards soon after the outbreak of war and who has been at the front in France for several months, has been home on a few days furlough. He is in excellent health and spirits.
He transferred to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in the autumn of 1917 during the Third Battle of Ypres and shortly after joining he was reported missing during an advance at Polygon Wood, Belgium. This advance led to very heavy casualties with sixty-one men, killed or missing from the 16th Battalion. A witness observed him being wounded
Private Thomas McReynolds was killed in action on 9th October 1917. He was twenty-five years of age.
From the Mid Ulster Mail dated 23rd February 1918:
Private McReynolds, son of Mr Thomas McReynolds, R.D.C., Kingsmills, who joined the 5th Dragoon Guards soon after the outbreak of war and who has been at the front in France for several months, has been home on a few days furlough. He is in excellent health and spirits.
From the Mid Ulster Mail dated 23rd February 1918: Private T A McReynolds
Mr Thomas A McReynolds, R.D.C., Kingsmills, Cookstown, has received official intimation that his eldest son, Private T A McReynolds, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who was reported missing on the western front on 9th October, was then killed or died of wounds. The deceased, who was in his 25th year, had been on the North Irish Horse before the war, and was in a situation in Scotland. He immediately volunteered for service when war was declared and joined the Dragoon Guards, and was in France in September 1914. He was twice wounded when in the Guards. Last autumn he was transferred to the Warwickshires, and shortly afterwards he was reported missing. He was seen wounded during the advance, but as he was only a short time in the regiment, and as the survivors of the gallant attack were comparatively few, it has proved impossible to get definitive evidence of his death. His younger brother, Austin McReynolds, is in the Royal Garrison Artillery. He got through the Gallipoli campaign without a scratch, except from a spent bullet. He then served in Egypt and in France, and is at present with the guns in Italy waiting for the Austrians.
From the Mid Ulster Mail dated 18th May 1918: East Tyrone Unionist Association – The Toll of the War
The chairman said that since their last meeting, three of their delegates had lost their sons at the front, and he moved that a resolution of sympathy be adopted and forwarded to Messrs John Beatty, Dungannon; Leonard Stephenson, Curr, and Thomas A McReynolds, R.D.C., Edernagh, Ardtrea. The resolution was passed in silence.
From the Mid Ulster Mail dated 3rd October 1918:
MCREYNOLDS – In loving memory of Private T A McReynolds, Royal Warwick Regiment, eldest son of T A McReynolds, Kingsmills, Stewartstown, officially reported killed in action or died of wounds on 9th October 1917.
Private Thomas McReynolds has no known grave and is commemorated on Tyne Cot Memorial.
At the time of Thomas’s death his younger brother, Austen McReynolds was serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery. Austen had seen service in Gallipoli, Egypt, France and Italy.
Thomas is commemorated on St. Andrew’s, Ardtrea Church of Ireland Roll of Honour.
The CWGC record Thomas as the son of Thomas A. and Mary E. McReynolds, of King's Mills, Ardtrea, Stewartstown, Co. Tyrone.
