Joseph Tombs (1888-1966)

KING’S School old boy Joseph Tombs, lived on London Road.

An Australian, he would later serve in the Second World War as a naturalised Canadian.

His real name was Frederick Griffith Tombs but he adopted the name of Joseph  to prevent his father taking him out of the Army.

Tombs was educated in Grantham and topok an apprenticeship in Halifax, but ran away to join the Army.  He returned to King’s School on a recuperational visit after being seriously wounded in action in 1915.

A Lance Corporal in the Liverpool Regiment, he was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery at Rue de Bois on May 16, when he crawled into a battlefield under machine gun fire to rescue wounded comrades.

Four times he crawled across the 100-yard open area and four times he returned with a rescued soldier.

One he dragged back by his rifle sling around the man’s body and his own neck. Another he put on his back and raced across the exposed area.

He died in Toronto.