Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of the late James Frederick Burbidge a master butcher, born 1850 in Thornhaugh, Northants., and his wife Frances, born 1852 in London. Thomas Ernest was born in 1895 in Ketton, Rutland, his siblings were, James F., born 1878, Annie E., born 1880, Charles Henry, born 1882, Norah Edith, born 1884, Richard William, born 1887, John Grogan Burbidge, born 1890 and Kathleen Marguerite, born 1893, all his siblings were born in Ketton, Rutland, in March 1901 the family home was at High Street, Ketton, Rutland. In April 1911 Thomas was residing in the family home at Stamford, Lincs., together with his father, now a butcher, farmer and dairyman, his mother and siblings, Charles, Norah, Richard, John and Kathleen. Prior to enlistment he assisted in the butchering business. He embarked for France in September 1916, taking part in the fighting at Beaumont-Hamel and Bullecourt. He was killed by machine gun bullets during the advance on Passchendaele, Belgium. Some idea of what our men went through and the situation they had to face is given by an officer who, writing about this advance, says:- “We went over with our rifles and Lewis guns bound up with flannel so as to keep the mud out, and with special cleaning apparatus in our pockets, but you can’t clean your rifle when your own hands are an inch thick. We killed a great number, one Sergeant laid out thirteen with his own bayonet; but the ground was too heavy to allow us to out-manouvre the pill boxes, and though we took three or four, the rest did us in. In one box we got thirty eight Boche, killed them all with a Lewis gun through the port hole.”