In 1914, Thomas Clegg appeared regularly for Metropolitan Association club Lancashire Society and enlisted as soon as war broke out.
He took part in the Anzac landing at Gallipoli, and served on the Western Front. At Gallipoli he was hospitalised with hysteria. Corporal Clegg was transferred to fight in the fields of France and on 4 May 1917 received a gun shot wound to his eyelid.
A year later on 8 May 1918, he died of wounds after being shot in the left arm and leg on the same day. He was 38 years of age.