William Henry Thompson signature

On this day in 1918 William Henry Thompson, a telegraph operator, was conscripted into the army at Kingston. Thompson was born in Deseronto on November 1st, 1893, the son of Robert Thompson and Mary Ann (née Harvey).

William joined the 1st Depot Battalion of the Eastern Ontario Regiment with the regimental number 3055731. He was five feet seven inches tall, with a dark complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. His service record shows that he left Canada on February 24th on the SS Metagama and served in England until September 1918 when he went to join the Canadian Corps Reinforcement Camp in France.

Thompson returned to Canada on the SS Empress of Britain in July 1919 and was demobilized on July 12th in Kingston. He married Aletha Georgina Joyce on June 2nd, 1926 in Deseronto. He gave his occupation as ‘railway clerk’ and Aletha as ‘clerk’. Family tree information on Ancestry suggests that he died in Oshawa on February 4th, 1973.