Hilary Tolkien, 16th Royal Warwicks

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

I am researching a book about Hilary Tolkien, the younger brother of the author J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is based on a collection of letters to and from Hilary together with lots of family photographs, paintings and other ephemera. One of the chapters in the book concerns a series of letters that Hilary wrote during the Great War and some photographs of him in uniform. He served as a bugler with the 16th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (the 3rd Birmingham City Battalion).

I have been making use of Terry Carter's wonderful book on the Birmingham Pals to follow his movements, as well as the histories of the 5th Division and the 14th & 15th Royal Warwicks. I have also managed to track down his medal cards. I would be interested to hear from anybody that has any information or photographs of the battalion.

I have all sorts of questions including these:

1) How many of the original volunteers that left for France served throughout the War with the Birmingham City Battalions and survived to be demobilized in 1919? There is much information available regarding those who died, but seemingly little about those who survived.

2) Is the register of the 4,500 names of volunteers for the Birmingham City Battalions publically available? Or the Enlistment & Attestation records? I am interested to know what address he gave as I believe that he was living near Nottingham at the time, although he had relatives in Birmingham.

3) Does Hilary's service number 1020 indicate that he was one of the last to sign up before the battalion reached full strength on 3 October 1914? Were service numbers always issued consecutively?

4) Did the men of all three battalions receive the Birmingham Battalion button-hole badges?

5) Hilary was a bugler. What other tasks would he have undertaken? Would he have been involved in the fighting? I have been told that he would have been a stretcher bearer.

6) How much home leave did the men get whilst overseas?

7) I have some photographs of Hilary, possibly taken in mid-1917. He is in uniform and seems to have a ∧ stripe on the bottom of his left hand sleeve – like a Lance Corporal's V stripe but upside down. Is this an indication of rank or some other type of identification? There is also a 1.5 x 1 inch badge on his right sleeve. I am assuming this is some sort of identification of battalion or brigade.

8) In one of the letters there is a reference to an F.S.A. being announced. What does this stand for? Field Service Award maybe?

9) Are details of wounded men recorded anywhere? I have a date in 1916 when Hilary mentions that he was hit by shrapnel, but two conflicting dates in 1917 that come from other sources and I am wondering if it is possible to get confirmation from anywhere.

I wonder if anybody here can help me out with some of these, or point me in the right direction.

Neil

[Guest]

Hi Neil. I can't answer many of your questions but; Re; # 7. I think that would be a long service chevron. There are many more knowledgeable people here than I who may correct me. This site will help you.

The Long Long Trail

I think a lot of the questions will be answered the more you read up on the Great war as a whole. I am perhaps a bit like yourself, in the learning process.

Am sure others will help more.

Cheers, and good luck Mike

[Chris_Baker]

Terry Carter is a member here. You can not message him privately until you have reached 10 posts, but I'll alert him to this thread.

[Staffsyeoman]

Terry is the man, but a couple of possible answers: 4: In my experience, yes - all three battalions received the lapel badge until uniforms were issued. 7: the inverted chevron is a Good Conduct stripe, awarded for two years of same - do a search on this forum for exhaustive detail. The badge on the right sleeve; more detail, please. Metal? Cloth? Light? Dark?

Generally, yes - buglers and other bandsmen acted as stretcher bearers.

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

The badge on the right sleeve; more detail, please. Metal? Cloth? Light? Dark?

The badge looks to be a light coloured cloth. I will try to post an image later, but it is hard to pick out any details of what it shows because the photographs are fairly poor quality.

[Terry Carter]

Hi Neil

Will try and answer your questions asap. Bit busy at the moment.

TERRY

[Terry Carter]

Hi Neil

Many years ago when I was researching the Birmingham Pals I managed to speak to a relative of H Tolkien, an aging priest or vicar or whatever, and he was quite abrupt with me and all he said was that Hilary was wounded at Delville Wood during the Somme. This I took to mean during the fighting around Longueaval on 27 July, 1916.

Checking the B'ham Daily Post casualties there is only one entry for H Tolkien 1020 being wounded and that was published on 3 May 1916. Thus the actual wounding date would have been a week or so before that date. Whilst the 16 RWR were on the Roclincourt front near Arras.

His name and address was not published in the B'ham Daily Post when volunteers were asked to send their names to the newspaper in the 1st week of September 1914. Approx the first 200 or so 3rd B'ham volunteers had their addresses published.

(I know around 4500 put their names down to enlist, but at this period men were trying several avenues to get into the army. Also the manual workers would have been weedled out. Which means roughly around 2500 of the 4500 got into the battalions. Hilary may have joined after the 3rd B'ham had started their training at Moseley.)

A bugler also acted as a Stretcher Bearer.

Hard to say about how much leave entitlement they would have had.

I reckon about each battalion had around 300 of the original volunteers killed and around another 500 t0 600 of them wounded. Thus, about 200 or so of the original volunteers, for each battalion, may have got through the war unscathed.

I would imagine Hilary Tolkien would have been given a Buttonhole badge. As the Blue uniforms did not start to get issued until around Xmas 1914.

I have a nice photo of him with a bunch of Pals at Moseley.

Terry

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

Here are a couple of images. Very fuzzy unfortunately.

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

Hi Terry, Thanks for all this. It is much appreciated.

Many years ago when I was researching the Birmingham Pals I managed to speak to a relative of H Tolkien, an aging priest or vicar or whatever, and he was quite abrupt with me and all he said was that Hilary was wounded at Delville Wood during the Somme. This I took to mean during the fighting around Longueaval on 27 July, 1916.

Checking the B'ham Daily Post casualties there is only one entry for H Tolkien 1020 being wounded and that was published on 3 May 1916.

That was probably Father John Tolkien, JRRT's oldest son. Hil possibly wounded at Delville Wood as well? - well that is another report to add to the list.

In a letter dated 19 April 1916 Hilary he says that he was wounded on the 11th, so I think these two reports probably tie together. Your book says he was in the K1 front line trenches too, so it fits nicely.

Hilary may have joined after the 3rd B'ham had started their training at Moseley.

Do you know if he appeared on the list of names for the 3rd Battalion published on 3 October 1914?

Any chance of a peek at your photo of Hil??!!! Here is one of him at his aunt's farm near Nottingham. I think it was taken in the summer of 1917 when he was home on leave.

[Staffsyeoman]

It looks like a Drummer's badge from here - right position for one.

[Terry Carter]

OOps the photo, that I thought I had of him, he has a moustache.

Terry

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

It looks like a Drummer's badge from here - right position for one.

Well it certainly makes sense. Thanks.

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

OOps the photo, that I thought I had of him, he has a moustache.

Terry

He did have a moustache at the beginning of the War. I have seen a photograph of him standing on the steps of Moseley College with his bugle and he has one there. During the time he spent in the army his facial features changed quite considerably.

[Ian Murphy]

Neil,

Are you writing a book about Hilary Tolkien or researching one you are reading? Pardon the ignorance / stupidity of this question but from your first post it isn't absolutely clear to me!

If the former could you please advise its title, if the latter will you let us know when it is published? I would be very interested in reading about his life.

all the best,

Ian.

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

If the former could you please advise its title, if the latter will you let us know when it is published? I would be very interested in reading about his life.

I am indeed writing a book about Hilary with my co-author Angie Gardner. As things stand at the moment, it will be called Wheelbarrows at Dawn: The Lost Box of Tolkien Memories and publication is planned for Easter 2010. If you are interested in Hilary you may want to track down a copy of a book Angie edited called Black & White Ogre Country: The Lost Tales of Hilary Tolkien (ISBN 978-0-9551900-1-8). This is the transcription of some tales and memories that he scribbled down in his last years, around the time he was interviewed by his brother's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter. As well as some of the tales he and his brother made up about local characters in Sarehole, he remembers the Great War and his life afterwards as a market gardener near Evesham. You should be able to get a copy from Amazon or the publisher ADC Books.

[Ian Murphy]

I am indeed writing a book about Hilary with my co-author Angie Gardner. As things stand at the moment, it will be called Wheelbarrows at Dawn: The Lost Box of Tolkien Memories and publication is planned for Easter 2010. If you are interested in Hilary you may want to track down a copy of a book Angie edited called Black & White Ogre Country: The Lost Tales of Hilary Tolkien (ISBN 978-0-9551900-1-8). This is the transcription of some tales and memories that he scribbled down in his last years, around the time he was interviewed by his brother's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter. As well as some of the tales he and his brother made up about local characters in Sarehole, he remembers the Great War and his life afterwards as a market gardener near Evesham. You should be able to get a copy from Amazon or the publisher ADC Books.

Neil,

Thanks for the clarification about Black & White Ogre Country, when I looked on Amazon I got the impression as just his tales plus maybe a very short introductory commentary about his Great War experience, clearly there is more biography than I first thought.

Please do keep us informed when you publish as I will definitely purchase a copy.

all the best,

Ian.

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

Hilary's words run to about 20 pages in his notebook which grows to 50 pages in large type but it is heavily illustrated by Jef Murray. There are about 3 pages on the War. This will be blended in with his letters and the results of my burrowing in the next book. There is also a brief biography of about 10 pages in Ogres that includes quite a few previously unpublished photographs and letters, including a photo of H in uniform.

One copy sold already - hurrah! Thanks for your interest.

[Terry Carter]

The guy in the centre is who I think is Hilary Tolkien. I have a picture of the bugle band and he is in the background also.

Terry

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

No, that's not Hilary. Below is a photo of H at Moseley College in 1914 or 15. It is not a very good likeness though I think. The moustache may have been grown when he enlisted - an attempt to look older than his 20 years - his brother also grew one when he was commissioned in 1915.

The photo was published in The Tolkien Family Album in 1992.

[Terry Carter]

3rd B'ham Bugle Band

Bugles 3rd B'ham

3rd B'ham

[neilholford@tiscali.co.uk]

Hi Terry,

After talking to members of his family, I have managed to get a positive ID of Hilary in the photograph of the 16th Royal Warwicks Drummers in the Birmingham City Battalions Book of Honour. Hilary is on the back row, second from the left - the man with a moustache.

It is hard to tell on the photos you posted, but could you have a closer look at the first and last of them. I think the man in the left hand column of men, the second bugler, might be Hilary.

What do you think?