According to his enlistment records, he was born in Hampshire, but family information shows that it was actually at Hemingford, Northamptonshire, in 1832. (Hemingford Abbots, West Hemingford, and Hemingford Grey, are villages near St Ives, in Huntingdonshire.).
His father, Edward, had married his mother, Mary (nee Allin), also of Hemingford, in 1831. Edward Shrive had been baptised at Stanwick, Northamptonshire, on the 14th of August 1803. He was a master-butcher and no doubt his son's trade was connected with this. [See Further information, below.]
1841 Census
Bythorn, Huntingtonshire.
Richard Shrive, 70, Publican.
Edward Shrive, 35.
Mary Shrive, 25.
Frances, 13.
George, 11.
Thomas, 9.
Henry, 7.
Elizabeth, 4.
Edward, 2.
Age: 21.
Height: 5' 7".
Trade: Drover.
Killed in action at Balaclava.
Next of kin: Father, Edward Shrive, living in Oundle, Northamptonshire.
[PB: Add link to information about the burial of men killed in the charge.]
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava and Sebastopol.
Killed in action at Balaclava.
Next of kin: Father, Edward Shrive, living in Oundle, Northamptonshire.
The following information came from his greater family:
His father, Edward, was born in 1806 or 1807 and his mother's name was Mary Allin. Family tradition has it that Edward Shrive, either as a married man, or as a child with his father, mother and brothers, had been driven out of Galway (Southern Ireland) by a gang of men who arrived one day at the house where they lived, dug a grave in the front lawn, and said that if the family were not out of the house by a certain time they would be buried in it.
Edward Shrive later kept a Public or Coaching House on the coach run at Bythorne, a village on the Northampton-Huntingdon border, before moving to Oundle about the middle of the nineteenth century when he took a job as a letter-carrier. Apparently the family always referred to him as having been a "Pony Express" rider through the villages around Oundle.
Living until 1896, he died in Leeds, Yorkshire, but was buried at Oundle. His death, aged 93, was registered in the December Quarter.
He had four brothers: James, Francis, Tom, and one, name not known, who was buried in a churchyard near Kettering, Northants. He had several children besides Thomas, who was the eldest: Edward, a merchant seaman; John, a basket-maker who later kept a paper shop in Cambridge; Louise, a housekeeper in Malvern; Lizzie, who had a dress-making shop in Leeds; Mary, who lived in London, and William Thomas, born in Oundle on the 12th of March 1855 and named after his brother Thomas, who had died at Balaclava. He was later apprenticed to his brother, John, as a basket-maker.
Eds: In 2006 contact was made with a descendant, Mike Reeve:
"I have some detail of his family origins and his life before he joined the 11th Hussars, which I am told was at Sheffield but another source says Leeds. Previously a Drover, I can tell you that Thomas was not born in Hampshire (as stated in Lummis and Wynn's book on the Light Brigade) but in Huntingdonshire. His parents were Edward Shrive and Mary Shrive, formerly Allin, and his father was a butcher. The family was connected with innkeeping, farming and, at Bythorne, grazing.His grandfather, Richard Shrive, owned and ran the White Hart Inn on the borders of Huntingdonshire and Northampton on the coaching run between Huntingdon and Thrapston. Richard was a farmer, innkeeper and grazier and his sons both became butchers, probably as an extension of the grazier trade. Thomas no doubt helped out by moving the cattle to and from grazing, and then to slaughter and to market — hence 'Drover'. This would have given him experience in managing horses which would have given him a skill especially suited to the Cavalry. The Inn and the business changed hands on the death of Richard in 1843 and the railways killed the main coaching traffic so both Edward and Thomas had to find other employment.
There is a long way to go to get more personal details to Thomas's life and it is a source of disappointment that none of the accounts of the 11th Hussars that I have so far read mentions him but I live in hope. Also he is commemorated on his parents' headstone in Stoke Road cemetery in Oundle where his father Edward later became a rural Postman."
Census information for 1841 kindly provided by Chris Poole.