Hainford – All Saints Church (the old one) – John Thomas Coleman

This grave is located to the side of the old All Saints Church in Hainford, next to the fenced off tower. It commemorates the life of John Thomas Coleman, who served in the 36th Battalion of the Australian Infantry. Normally, I’d spend ages faffing around with censuses and newspaper reports to work out what has happened for this Australian man to be buried here.

However, a lady called Cathy Sedgwick has already gone into some considerable detail with what she has found, with her information about John located at https://ww1austburialsuk.weebly.com/hainford.html. In short, John had been born and raised in the area, with his parents Charles and Maria running the general shop in Hainford. John went to Australia when he was 18 years old and remained there until he was called up to fight in the First World War. He never fought on the front line, as he sadly contracted pneumonia en route to the UK and he died on 9 January 1917, at the age of 26.

The National Archives of Australia have John’s service records freely available here.