Posthumous pardons
Private Peaceful helped further the campaign to pardon those soldiers who were executed for cowardice, desertion and other similar crimes.[2] Morpurgo was one of the people who argued for change, including via a letter to Cherie Blair, wife of the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.[12] In 2006, Des Browne—the UK Defence Secretary—announced that 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers would be pardoned.[12][18] The postscript of Private Peaceful editions was updated after the posthumous pardons were granted.[13]
Thomas Samuel Henry Peacefull
When Morpurgo first saw the gravestone of Private T.S.H. Peaceful, the inspiration for the novel's name, in Bedford House Cemetery, the man's background was not known; Morpurgo said of him "He's as close to an unknown soldier as you can get".[8] In 2018, it was discovered that the soldier's name had been misspelled, the correct name being Thomas Samuel Henry Peacefull.[19] Peacefull's great-niece, Maxine Keeble, had spotted the similar name when listening to a radio adaptation of Private Peaceful. She wrote to Morpurgo after realising that the story's namesake was her great uncle. A new headstone bearing the correct name was installed in July 2018 by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, with Keeble, her husband, and Michael and Clare Morpurgo, as witnesses.[12]
Thomas Samuel Henry Peacefull was born on 7 September 1893 in Battersea. He served in the war alongside three of his brothers, two —including Keeble's grandfather—survived. Peacefull died of his wounds in the Ypres Asylum in June 1915.[12]
