Tom Francis was the elder brother of Henry Francis who also died in the First World War. They were the sons of Ephraim Francis of The Square, Ryhall, where Tom was born on 2 April 1892. He was a farm labourer before enlisting on 26 October 1915, and went to France on 1 March the following year with the 1st/5th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. He was wounded in October and sent to England to recuperate, returning to France in May 1917. Tom was mortally wounded by shrapnel in the head and right leg at Brie on 28 September 1918, dying two days later at the 48th Casualty Clearing Station, France. He was buried in Brie British Cemetery, grave III.C.9. His brother, who died two years earlier, is buried in Ryhall Cemetery, and both are remembered on the war memorial in Ryhall Church.