LÉON JULES MARIE THOMEUF
There are some casualties of the Great War with a connection to Portsmouth who will never be listed on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website, simply because they were not members of the Commonwealth. Prime examples of this group are the French Nationals who were boarders at school in Portsmouth and most, if not all, in this group were attending St. John's College. The only reason we even know about these young men is because their names appear on the World War 1 memorial at the College.
The equivalent website to that of the CWGC in France is the Mémoire des hommes but it does not contain either the breadth or the depth of it's English counterpart. The bulk of the entries on the French site relate to those servicemen who lie in known graves and those listings that are included contain less personal information than is typical with a CWGC entry. The consequence is that any biographical material will be limited.
Out of the seven names that appear on the memorial who are probably French, one is Léon Jules Marie Thomeuf. Apart from the entry on the memorial his name also appears in the 1911 census when he was a 16 year old boarder at the school, then located at 27 South Parade. The Mémoire des hommes records that at the time of his death on the 2nd May 1916 he was a Lieutenant in 40e Régiment D'artillerie and that he is buried at Suippes-ville.
The St. John's College Memorial can be seen on the Memorials in Portsmouth website
FURTHER INFORMATION
Others listed on the St. John's Memorial who have an entry at Mémoire des hommes are:-
Charles Graffin
Henri Piat
Paul Vernier
Others without listings are Henry Lombard, Benjamin Burnand and Robert Bonte
Tim Backhouse
March 2014