Thomas Speak was aged 33 when the Pals went over the top at Serre in July 1916, being wounded sometime during 1917 or 1918. He was listed in the Accrington Observer as a Private when leaving for training in February 1915 but as a Sergeant on the Pals scroll in Astley Hall after the war.
He worked in a Bleachworks and worshipped at St. Laurence’s Church in Chorley, marrying Amy Gertrude Sharples at the church in 1920.
Sadly he took his own life by drowning himself in the Leeds-Liverpool Canal near Adlington on the 3rd August 1940; his last address was 5 Hope Street in Chorley.
