May have spotted a non-com

[Chris_Baker]

From record in WO363 papers:

Sapper 289242 Charles Reginald Houghton, a 20 year old Midland Railway shunter from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, was enlisted in Stourbridge on 29 June 1917. He passed a trade test as a shunter and was placed into the Railway Operating Division of the Royal Engineers. After training he joined a draft going to Egypt on 1 December 1917. On his way there, his ship "Aragon" was torpedoed. Later renumbered as WR/290231, Houghton severely injured his hip in May 1918, landed back in England on 5 August 1918 and went to Carrington Military Hospital near Nottingham. He was discharged as permanently medically unfit on 30 October 1918.

So far, so good. But his papers also include the form required for distribution of the death plaque, duly filled in with NOK details. No date, and it is the only mention of his death in his file. I could not find him on CWGC or SDGW

One for the IFTC project, perhaps.

[tootrock]

This is probably your man.

Charles R. Houghton, died aged 22. Death registered in March 1920, Bromsgrove Vol 6C, page 272

Martin

[Chris_Baker]

Good one. Means his death is inside the CWGC date cut off.

[John_Hartley]

One for the IFTC project, perhaps.

Unfortunately, we're only MoD funded for death certificates for "in service" cases.

If someone was going to obtain the death certificate, the key factor would be if cause of death was clearly linked to his service. If he was hit by a runaway tram, then he's not entitled to commemoration (as a serving soldier would be).

[Chris_Baker]

But he wouldn't have a death plaque then ... would ... he ... ... thinks ... hmm - just realised I don't know the answer to that! If he had been discharged and run over by a tram, would he qualify for a death plaque? I guess not. What if his death was directly attributable to his war injury?

[John_Hartley]

Chris

Please don't ask me the technicalities - but I'm sure I've read on the Forum that there were different criteria for the plaque than for CWGC commemoration.

John

[Neil Clark]

Chris,

Read this thread with some interest - yes you'd imagine that if a man's family was awarded a death penny (plaque), the authorities accepted his death was linked to his war service in one way or tuther and that the MoD/CWGC would recognise this fact...

THINK AGAIN!

This man was one of my (and John Morecome's) non-com cases. The MoD rejected him in 2003 regardless of the fact his family were awarded a death penny. His DC listed T.B as a cause of death whereas his direct family were convinced he died as a direct result of his war service.

Looking at your chap however, it's probably worthwhile trying to get him approved. Further investigation is warranted that's for sure. I wish you luck! or If you prefer Chris, I will gladly obtain his DC with my next batch of men? It's worth £7 to me... I may not be very active on here any more but I am still beavering away with my own cases...

Just don't expect the fact he had a death plaque issued to have too much credence...

Best Wishes Chris.

Neil

(note the fact that the BBC is currently running a drama about this man's Gt Grandfather Sir John Millais) -

MILLAIS J.E

Lieutenant Commander Sir John Everett MILLAIS. (3rd Baronet Millais). H.M.S “Stephen Furness”, Royal Navy (R.N). Formerly The Admiralty Press Bureau. Died of T.B on 30th September 1920 at Leacon Hall, Warehorne, Kent. Son of Sire Everett and Lady Millais of Leacon Hall, Warehorne, Ashford, Kent. Grandson of the famous artist and director of the Royal Academy - Sir John Everett Millais Bart (1829 – 1896). Buried Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, UK.

John’s family erected a private memorial inside the Warehorne parish church. It gives the information that when alive, John was the Churchwarden. Rather dissapointingly John’s name was not placed on the Warehorne parish war memorial.

Sir John was born on 28th November 1888 and became the 3rd Baronet Millais in 1897. He joined the Royal Navy as a Midshipman in 1905 and by 1912 was a Lieutenant. He retired from the navy in 1913 and went onto the reserve list. On the outbreak of war in 1914 John volunteered for active service once more. He served on board the armed merchant cruiser “Stephen Furness”. In June 1916 he reverted to the retired list suffering from T.B. In January 1919 he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander (retired list). John died of the same disease that he had been invalided one year earlier. His family residing in Leacon Hall Warehorne erected a weather vane on their Oast House in the form of a ship. This was done to remember Sir John Everett Millais the 3rd Baron Millais. The weather vane is still there.

John’s death is not recorded by the CWGC as a war casualty. John’s family were provided with a death plaque after his death which indicates that the authorities accepted his death was as a consequence of his war service. It is very surprising his name was not placed on the Great War death indexes.

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA (8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Millais (pronounced Mih-lay) was born in Southampton, England in 1829, of a prominent Jersey-based family. His prodigious artistic talent won him a place at the Royal Academy schools at the still unprecedented age of eleven. While there, he met William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti with whom he formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (known as the "PRB") in September 1848 in his family home on Gower Street, off Bedford Square.

Millais was elected as an associate member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1853, and was soon elected as a full member of the Academy, in which he was a prominent and active participant. He was granted a baronetcy in 1885, the first artist to be honoured with a hereditary title. After the death of Frederic Leighton in 1896, Millais was elected President of the Royal Academy, but he died later in the same year from throat cancer. He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

When Millais died in 1896, the Prince of Wales (later to become King Edward VII) chaired a memorial committee, which commissioned a statue of the artist.[1] This was installed at the front of the National Gallery of British Art (now Tate Britain) in the garden on the east side in 1905. On 23 November that year, the Pall Mall Gazette called it "a breezy statue, representing the man in the characteristic attitude in which we all knew him".[1]

In 1953, Tate Director, Sir Norman Reid, attempted to have it replaced by Auguste Rodin's John the Baptist, and in 1962 again proposed its removal, calling its presence "positively harmful". His efforts were frustrated by the statue's owner, the Ministry of Works. Ownership was transferred from the Ministry to English Heritage in 1996, and by them in turn to the Tate. [1] In 2000, under Sir Nicholas Serota's directorship, the statue was removed to the rear of the building. [1]

[bhbertram@tiscali.co.uk]

The case of John Everett Millais is not unique in that numerous men were succumbing to TB contracted during war service given the harsh conditions that many experienced. I have seen figures quoted that some 35,000 ex-soldiers swamped TB clinics and the like in 1919/20. Retirement or discharge resulted in the RN when a man was found to have TB, and it seems that once out, he no longer 'counted' as war dead if he subsequently died from the disease.

[John_Hartley]

Retirement or discharge resulted in the RN when a man was found to have TB, and it seems that once out, he no longer 'counted' as war dead if he subsequently died from the disease.

Barrie

The relevent factor, as always with an MoD decision, is was the cause of death caused or aggravated by war service.TB is an awkward one with it being such a prevelant disease in society as a whole at the time that unless there's something specific in the service record, it can be difficult to make the case. That said, where cause of discharge and cause of death are the same, I'd suggest it's always worth making the submission.

John