Thomas Napoleon Smith (1855 - 1941) - pen-name Tonoso - WW1 Poet and Baptish Church Minister

While I was researching a WW1 poet, I came across a reference to some poems about a young girl from Burnley, Lancashire. Her name was Jennie Jackson and she was known as "Young Kitchener" for the work she did during the First World War, collecting money to fund parcels for the fighting men. During the First World War, Jennie's mother, Kate, dressed Jennie as young Kitchener and they collected enough money to buy a field ambulance too.

Her mother went on to become head of the women's section of the Royal British Legion in Burnley.

The poems were written by Thomas Napoleon Smith, pen-name Tonoso. Their titles were "Burnley's war flame (Jennie JACKSON), alias Y.K." and "Burnley's winning Jennie (Jennie Jackson)".

Thomas Napoleon Smith was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, UK in 1855 – the birth being registered in December of that year. His parents were Thomas Smith, a Police Superintendent, and his wife, Ann Eliza Smith, nee Brett. Thomas was baptised in 1856 in Chesterton, Cambridge.  He had a brother Henry A. Smith, born in 1852.

Thomas became a Baptist Church Minister.  In 1879 he was married to Anne Maria Goldsworth on the Isle of Wight. 

According to Catherine Reilly, Thomas's son, Corporal Ewart G. Smith of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, Canadian Expeditionary Force, was killed in a trench on 27th September 1916. 

Thomas's WW1 poems seem to have been published as postcards or broadsides.  One - "Their eyes off me: or, those khaki chaps from 'crss the sea: verses by Tonoso” - was first published in "The Weekly Scotsman".

Thomas also had a poem published in Charles Frederick Forshaw's WW1 Anthology "Poems in memory of the late Field-Marshall Lord Kitchener, KG" (Institute of British Poetry, Bradford, 1916).

The family was registered on the 1921 Census as living in Leytonstone, Essex and Thomas and Anne had two other sons living with them at that time - Frank James Conwell Smith, born in 1896 and Albert Norman Mitchell Smith, born in 1898.

He also had a poem published in Charles Frederick Forshaw's WW1 Anthology "Poems in memory of the late Field-Marshall Lord Kitchener, KG" (Institute of British Poetry, Bradford, 1916).

Chris Snow contacted me recently to tell me he had found a photograph of The Rev. Thomas Napoleon Smith that was published in "The Daily Mirror" newspaper on 25th October 1938 on page 29.  Many thanks Chris. 

With thanks to Historian Andrew Mackay for his help in find out about Jennie Jackson.

Sources: Find my Past, Free BMD

Catherine W. Reilly  "English Poetry of the First World War:  A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978).   pp. 297 – 298

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/6167359.young-kitchener-jennie-dies-89/

4 November 1977