Lance Corporal Thomas George Beattie
Thomas George Beattie was born on 29 October 1894 at Whiteabbey, Belfast, the second of seven children of linen tenter John Beattie and his wife Deborah (née Laverty). By the time of the 1911 Census he was living at 5 Abbey Gardens, Whiteabbey, with his parents and siblings, and working as a message boy in a mill.
Beattie enlisted in the North Irish Horse on 1 November 1915 (No.1770 – later Corps of Hussars No.71548). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve camp before embarking for France sometime between 1916 and 1918, where he was posted to one of the squadrons of the 1st North Irish Horse Regiment. This regiment served as corps cavalry to VII, XIX, then V Corps from its establishment in May 1916 until February-March 1918, when it was dismounted and converted to a cyclist unit, serving as corps cyclists to V Corps until the end of the war.
Beattie remained with the regiment throughout the war. He was wounded in September or October 1918 during the Advance to Victory offensive.
On 18 March 1919 he was demobilised and transferred to Class Z, Army Reserve.
After the war Beattie returned to Belfast, where he worked as a tenter. On 10 December 1920 he married widow Agnes Galbraith (née Kelly) in the Bloomfield Presbyterian Church, Belfast.
Image sourced from Ancestry Public Member Trees - contributor 'nich_thompson'.