On 5 September 1914, the first day of the Battle of Marne, Thomas Highgate, a 19-year-old British private, was found hiding in a barn dressed in civilian clothes. Highgate was tried by court-martial, convicted of desertion and, in the early hours of 8 September, was executed by firing squad. His was the first of 306 executions carried out by the British during the First World War.

Thomas Highgate was born in Shoreham in Kent on 13 May 1895. In February 1913, aged 17, he joined the Royal West Kent Regiment. Within months, Highgate fell foul of the military authorities – in 1913, he was upbraided for being late for Tattoo, and ‘exchanging duties without permission’. In early 1914, he was reprimanded for having a rusty rifle and deserting for which he received the punishment of forty-eight days detention.

First Battle of the Marne

On 5 September, the first day of the Battle of the Marne and the 35th day of the war, Private Highgate’s nerves got the better of him and he fled the battlefield. He hid in a barn in the village of Tournan, a few miles south of the river, and was discovered wearing civilian clothes by a gamekeeper who happened to be English and an ex-soldier. Quite where Highgate obtained his civilian clothes is not recorded but the gamekeeper spotted his uniform lying in a heap nearby. Highgate confessed, ‘I have had enough of it, I want to get out of it and this is how I am going to do it’.

Having been turned in, Highgate was tried by a court-martial for desertion. The trial, presided over by three officers, was brief. Highgate did not speak and was not represented. He was found guilty. At 6.20 on the morning of 8 September, Highgate was informed that he would be executed. The execution was carried out fifty minutes later – at 7.07, he was shot by firing squad.

Highgate’s name is shown on the British memorial to the missing at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre on the south bank of the River Marne. The memorial features the names of over 3,000 British soldiers with no known grave.

Shoreham

By the time the war had ended, Highgate’s parents had moved away from Shoreham, settling in Crayford in southeast London. Highgate had four brothers, two of whom were also killed during the war. Their names, including that of Thomas, appear on the Sidcup war memorial.

In 2000, the parish council in Highgate’s home village of Shoreham replaced its war memorial plaque bearing the names of those who had fallen during the war of 1914-1918 as the original had become worn. The original did not include Highgate’s name simply because, as mentioned, the family had moved away. Nonetheless, in 2000, after some debate, the council voted not to include Highgate’s name on the replacement plaque. However, a space was left should, at some point in the future, the people of Shoreham want his name added.

But Highgate is not alone. A correspondent informed me that “eight other lads who were born in Shoreham and fought in the war, died and are not on the Memorial”.

In November 2006, the UK government pardoned all 306 servicemen executed in the First World War but, at the time of writing (May 2015), the name Thomas Highgate still does not feature on Shoreham’s war memorial.

Rupert Colley.