Thomas Stanley Norman

Thomas was born with his twin brother, Ellis William on the 12th May 1899 in Aston Lane, Preston Brook. They were the second and third of eight children born to Thomas and Sarah Norman. Their father was a porter for a railway company and had also been born in Preston Brook, around 1866. Their mother, Sarah Yarwood, had been born in High Leigh around 1870.

Thomas’s elder sister Olive May was born in 1898 and then the family moved to Norton Cottages when Thomas senior became a night watchman. Two more children were born while they were living at Norton Cottages, Albert Victor in 1902 and Doris Winifred in 1903.

The family then moved to Aston when Thomas senior became a tonnage clerk for the canal company. By 1911, three more boys were born in Aston; Edmund Cyril in 1906, Sydney Raymond in 1907 and Gilbert Bernard in 1909.

The family worshipped at Aston Lane chapel in Preston Brook.

Thomas served as a private with the 8th Battalion of the Royal  West Kent regiment (service number G/30572) and was awarded the Victory Medal and the British War Medal.

After the War Thomas returned to Aston and became a market gardener, living on Northwich Road. 

On the 1st June 1929 Thomas’s  twin brother Ellis married Annie Lloyd, at the Trinity Chapel in Runcorn. Sadly only two months later Annie died on the 29th August from complications during pregnancy.  On the 20th April 1935 Ellis married for a second time (Elsie Hulse from Frodsham). 

Four days later Thomas married Mabel Webb at the Aston Lane chapel. Mabel had been born in Aston Lane on the15th October 1901 and was one of six children to Albert Edward and Mary Alice Webb (formerly Miller). Her father was a blacksmith working for the canal company.

In 1939 they were living at Cotton’s Bridge and Thomas was working as a general labourer on bridges and roads.

After Thomas’s death at Cotton’s Bridge on the 1st June 1967, Mabel went to live in Hillcrest Residential Home, 1 Clifton Road, Runcorn. She died in Halton General Hospital on the 21st July1989, aged 87.