Souvenir ashtray Vimy War Memorial - dedicated to Frederick Thomas, C.E.F.

Mémorial National du Canada à Vimy is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during World War One. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the World War One killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The memorial is the centrepiece of a 100-hectare preserved battlefield park that encompassing part of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault during the initial Battle of Vimy Ridge offensive of the Battle of Arras. The memorial was completed in 1936.

Frederick Thomas was born on 28 June 1899 in Hackney, Middlesex, England. He was aged 9 when his father died in 1909, and his mother applied for him to attend Fegan's training farm in Kent when he was 14. He departed Liverpool on board the SS Empress of Britain on 4 April 1914, arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia a week later. He was sent to a farm in Elgin, Ontario owned by John A. McKillop. His younger brother, George Percival Thomas, also went to the same farm in 1920, aged 15, although not as part of the Fegan scheme.

Frederick ran away from the farm and enlisted as a Private with the 33rd Battalion, Canadian Infantry (Nova Scotia Regiment) on 4 October 1915 (aged 16). His service number was 401701. He embarked in Canada on 17 March 1916, arriving in England on 26 March 1916. He was attached to the Canadian Machine Gun Depot. He was badly wounded on 6 October 1916, receiving gunshot wounds to his back and thighs, and admitted to 9th General Hospital in Rouen, France. He was returned to England and spent his last months at the C.C.A.C. (Canadian Casualty Assembly Centre) in Shoreham, where he succumbed to his wounds on 6 April 1917, aged 17.

The Fegan Home for Orphaned Boys operated as the Mr. Fegan's Home from 1900 until 1961. While Frederick and George were not orphaned, their mother, Alice, was widowed with 4 children in 1909 when her husband died. Despite remarrying in 1910, the younger boys were sent to Canada in 1914 and 1920. An older son, Stephen, was 17 when his father died. He also served in World War One, but was discharged due to sickness in late 1916, and ultimately died of consumption in 1918. Alice's second husband died in 1927, after which time she may have visited Canada and bought the souvenir. The inscription 'Lost to sight but memory ever dear' shows the depth of her loss. Her younger son, George, seems to have remained in Canada, where he married in 1924 and served with the Canadian Army in World War Two.