change of regiment

[gerard]

Hi,can anyone help me with a mystery that im tring to shed some light on.My grandfather,so the oral family history goes supposedly fought with an Irish regiment,the royal ulster regiment,and was transferred to the 23rd London regiment when most of his battalion was killed or wounded during the war.I have visited the national archives in kew only to discover that his war record was destroyed in the blitz ww2.I lso wrote to the royal ulster museum in Belfast and they could find no record of him being with the battalion,altough they stated that it was possible that he was transferred during the coure of the war.they did state that by his army number he was probably subject to renumbering at some stage.His full name and number appears on his medal index card as,THOMAS ALEXANDER TAGGARTY,705780,23RD LONDON REGIMENT.there is no mention of any previous regiment.My mother,whom is very much alive and is still very sharp insists that her father,my granfather enlisted with the royal ulster reiment.Could someone with knowledge on the ulster regiment,or the 23rd london regiment,especially with the army number 705780 help ?Gerard

[sotonmate]

Gerard,

The number 705780 was issued in the 1917 re-numbering of Territorial Forces or given to a new entrant in that year. The Medal Index Card shows that your G/F entered a war theatre after 1915 (as he has no entitlement to the 1914-15 Star ) and as he has only one service number it can only be that he joined in 1917,it being in that year's series.

You don't mention his age,this might help resolve this ! Could he have been old enough to fight in the Boer War,and might this be what your G/M is thinking of as him serving in the RUR,if indeed they were extant at that time ?

Sotonmate

[Chris_Baker]

The regiment did not exist in WW1. If he served with it before being transferred to the Londons, it would have been with the Royal Irish Rifles, Royal Irish Fusiliers, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers or Royal Irish Regiment. As Sotonmate suggests, it would have been prior to 1917 and not overseas.

[ulsterlad2]

Is it possible that he did serve with one of the Irish regiments at Home and therefore wouldn't be recorded on the mic? (I think).

[Chris_Baker]

Exactly so.