Thomas Benjamin Havard, eldest son of John and Sarah Havard of Gwrhay-fawr Cottage, Argoed, a colliery electrician underground. He was an athlete and cricketer, played rugby for Blackwood and was a Sunday School worker at Cwrt-y-Bella church. He enlisted in the 2nd Battalion Monmouth Regiment (Territorial Force) and arrived in France with the battalion in November 1914.

About a month before Christmas he was invalided home, but returned just after Christmas. In 1915 the battalion was stationed in Flanders, Belgium. In May at the start of the Battle of Frezenberg Ridge, north east of Ypres, part of the Second Battle of Ypres, the battalion was part of the 12th Brigade, 4th Division.

On the night of 7 May the battalion was attacked, whilst manoeuvring in the vicinity of Shell Trap Farm, a fortified old moated farm just north of the village of Wieltje. The next day, Day 1 of the Battle, the brigade stationed on the forward slope of the Frezenberg Ridge, was subjected to heavy bombardment in the morning. Later in the day German infantry assaulted the brigade, and the battalion was in the thick of the fighting but the attacks were largely repulsed.

Private T B Havard (2586) was reported killed in action on 8 May 1915, aged 23. He is commemorated at the Menin Gate, Ypres, the memorial to those with no known grave who fell in the Ypres Salient, Flanders, Belgium.

He is commemorated also on the Battalion Memorial in St Cadoc's Church, Trevethin. Thomas' younger brother Ernest fell in France in December 1917.