Palphramand S.A Inf

[auchonvillerssomme]

I was taking pictures at Thiepval this morning and noticed the unusual name. I haven't come across any reference to these brothers so I thought I would share.

Name: PALPHRAMAND, GEORGE HALL

Rank: Private

Regiment/Service: South African Infantry

Unit Text: "C" Coy. 1st Regt.

Age: 34

Date of Death: 16/07/1916

Service No: 4034

Additional information: Son of the late George L. and Sarah Palphramand (nee Hall); husband of Lilian E. M. Liesching (formerly Palphramand (nee Horn) of "Solyst", Pinelands, Cape Province.

Grave/Memorial Reference: Pier and Face 4 C.

Memorial: THIEPVAL MEMORIAL

Name: PALPHRAMAND, RALPH HALL

Rank: Private

Regiment/Service: South African Infantry

Unit Text: 1st Regt.

Date of Death: 18/07/1916

Service No: 4033

Additional information: Son of the late George and Sarah Palphramand (nee Hall).

Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead

Grave/Memorial Reference: Pier and Face 4 C.

Memorial: THIEPVAL MEMORIAL

[kenf48]

In an idle few minutes (waiting for the grandkids - late again, I blame the parents!) and just out of curiosity, George Lax Palphramand and Sarah (Hall) were married in Gateshead 1880. George was a telegraph clerk and after marriage in 1881 they were living at 37 Prince Consort Road Gateshead. They were aged 24 and 23

As you can imagine there are a number of variations on the spelling but I can't find them in subsequent censuses.

Like the recent 'Who do you think you are' George was probably a servant of the Empire and went with the telegraph company to South Africa although I can't find him on any passenger list. Bit of a change from Tyne and Wear - I know where I would rather be.

George's father, Thomas was a miller from Redworth County Durham, so no clue to the origin of the name there. He died in the 1860s and in 1871 his mother was recorded as a dressmaker and widow living with George the 2nd eldest of seven siblings, the youngest was 5, in Bishop Auckland.

Can't find the boys you listed at the moment but a connection to County Durham, just for info

Ken

[SWorrall]

They were certainly in the 1st SA infantry battalion, killed in Delville Wood.

Ian Uys makes a reference to their names in his book about that battle, in the Roll of Honour at the back.

No reference to them in Bill Nasson's 'Springboks on the Somme', or in Buchan's History.

Simon.

[Mark Wilkie]

Names listed on the Delville Wood roll call: http://www.delvillewood.com/rolcallp.htm

[Guest]

Quote

 

Hello everyone and thank you for the especially useful family information. 

 

In Australia, I have a family portrait in storage of Sarah Hall and George Lax PALPHRAMAND and three young men, given to me by my South African mother-in-law,  c.1980.  I had assumed her birth surname was LIESCHING like her brother and sister.  No, it was always PALPHRAMAND.  The picture showed (I thought) three young adult men standing behind their parents, without uniforms.  Good to have names her biological grandparents  above.  I learned all the sons died in WWI and her daddy at Delville Wood.  I can't find a third son, so I may have mis-remembered a lot.  In 1914, George Hall (but not Ralph) was in the West Yorkshire Regiment, 9th Yorkshire Light Infantry - service no 24787.  He and Ralph Hall transferred to SA Expeditionary Force in 1915. 

 

George Hall married Lilian Elizabeth Magdalena HORN and had a daughter in May 1914. my future mother-in-law, Gift PALPHRAMAND.  Their daughter was to be called Dorothy after a relative, meaning God's Gift, and that person in turn suggested the name.  Once, at a visit to Bourton-in-the-Water in the Cotswolds, her son told me his mother had been born there or lived there before Lilian travelled to South Africa.  I found no records of marriage, birth or residence though.

 

I don't know what connection the Horn, Hall and Palphramand families had with South Africa to cause a fatal transfer to SAI for the two brothers; or Lilian's later journey and re-marriage there on 12 November, 1921 in Cape Town.  It's the women I need to look for on Shipping Lists!  Giftie told me a charming story of how she chose 'daddy' when she and Lilian travelled on a train in South Africa.  The six-year-old wandered around chatting to other passengers before bringing 'daddy Liesching' back to meet her mum.  Details of their marriage below, as is the 1948 marriage of their son, Paul Leonard.  The Lieschings are a long-established Cape Town medical family and both children became medical doctors.  The family called her Lilah, pronounced 'Lie-la,' and Pinelands was the first garden city in South Africa.  

https://www.1820settlers.com/genealogy/settlerbrowsemarrs.php?name=LIESCHING

http://www.pelteret.co.za/content/000207/The-Garden-City-of-Pinelands-South-Africa.pdf

 

Returning  to George Hall Palphramand's great-grandson: 

Gift PALPHRAMAND and her Liesching family lived in Cape Town, 

Gift married Cape Town lawyer, Edmond Alban ENSOR, 

and they lived in QUEENSTOWN where she was a much-loved History and English teacher at Queens College. 

Giftie and Eddie had two daughters, both nurses, and a son. 

We married in London, went to Australia in 1981, had one son, divorced.

George Hall's great-grandson studied

International Affairs and Politics in Australia, then a

Masters in International Journalism in Berlin and St Petersburg. 

He lives in Europe now, as do I.  

 

I will post something later on family name history.  PALFRAMAND is a late-comer in that it and a thousand variations arrived c.1100.  It originates from the occupation of palfrey-rider or man, from when those Pesky Normans were riding off with Anglo-Saxon loot all over the country. 

HALL and LAX are much older names and go back at least another 500 years before 1100.  

 

I was so pleased to find all of your posts when researching Giftie's birth independently of WWI, and to have my memories refreshed and enlarged.

Sheena

Mother of George Hall Palphramand's Great-grandson

Mother of Ralph Hall Palphramand's Great-Grandnephew

Edited 23 December , 2018 by Guest
Clarify grammar and meaning.

[Guest]

I am not a member of My Heritage group,  However, an enquiry below from member Mr. V Dennison in Australia, on behalf of Ralph Hall mentions that there is another sibling called CHARLES HALL PALPRAMAND,  So glad my distant memory of three young men seems true.  No obvious records of Charles Hall though.

 

https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-6-940316934/ralph-hall-palframand-search-by-myheritage-member-in-search-connect-searches-by-myheritage-members

 

I am browsing a book "The Somme chronicles: South Africans on the Western Front" AUTHOR CHRIS SCHOEMAN.  Excellent read, and oh dear, what everyone did for Empires.

 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tgxbDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT182&lpg=PT182&dq=charles+hall+palphramand&source=bl&ots=qBn2vfRct4&sig=ACfU3U1HdpcMS04FpwSf6Q6ohvPB9HWfbA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7peHFqcDoAhXVoXEKHZ_BArsQ6AEwAnoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=charles%20hall%20palphramand&f=false

 

Sheena

[Jonathan]

Message for Sheena:

I was educated at Queen's College, Queenstown, South Africa from 1970 - 1975, and was taught by Gift Ensor. I was also one of her librarians. She was a wonderful teacher and human being. We called her Giftie or Mrs E and we adored her. When we were rowdy, she would recite the first four lines from Frances Darwin Cornford's poem "To a Lady Seen from the Train".

"O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
    Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
    And shivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
    Missing so much and so much?"

This always brought us to order, because Mrs E wasn't fat and we all loved her.

In her own quiet way she was a subversive in Apartheid South Africa. She used to lend me banned books to read. I learnt so much from her. I know that she had a son called Paul, because she allowed me to read some very interesting letters he wrote when travelling in Turkey in abour 1973/4.

I am writing a short story about Mrs E and discovered on "Ancestry" this evening that maiden name was Palphramand.  Unfortunately, there are no details of her antecedents or her children on the website.

I would be very grateful if you could share any further information about Mrs E, whom I miss so much and so much.

Regards,

Jonathan Watt-Pringle

[spof]

Jonathan

Sheena is no longer a member of the Forum as shown by her account name now being Guest. e do not hold any contact information for her but thank you for a very good post.

Glen

GWF Admin Team

[Matlock1418]

Not sure these add a lot but the South African War Graves Project have these:

PALPHRAMAND, GEORGE HALL

https://www.southafricawargraves.org/search/details.php?id=19616

The second photo tab shows his 'Casualty card' = Clerk - Occupation 

PALPHRAMAND, RALPH HALL

https://www.southafricawargraves.org/search/details.php?id=19617

The second photo tab shows his 'Casualty card' = Surveyor's Office - Occupation

The third photo tab shows a 1929 newspaper probate announcement/insert

M

[Matlock1418]

PALPHRAMAND, GEORGE HALL

WFA/Fold3 have a dependant's pension claim pension index card

Widow: Lilian Elizabeth Magdalene PALPHRAMAND, b. 20.1.90

and Daughter: Gift PALPHRAMAND, b. 28.5.14

London addresses it seems: 28 Upper Bedford Place WC [Bloomsbury I think] and then later 55 Victoria St, SW [Westminster I think]

M

Edited 16 December , 2023 by Matlock1418
typo

[Jonathan]

Many thanks, Matlock1418, for these documents and the information. Much appreciated.

[corisande]

On 15/12/2023 at 02:03, Jonathan said:

I would be very grateful if you could share any further information about Mrs E,

This Ancestry tree has lots about her and indeed her children

Gift Palphramand
1914–1997

Birth 28 MAY 1914 • Bourton On The Water, England, United Kingdom

Death 09 JUN 1997 • Tokai, Cape Town

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/person/tree/17522908/person/322192219732/facts

I suggest you contact the tree owner

includes a photo

[Jonathan]

Many thanks for providing this splendid photo of Gift Ensor (nee Palphramand) and the link to the family tree).

In fact, I believe that this family tree is incorrect about her place of birth. Elsewhere on the Ancestry website, it is recorded that she was born in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, That is consistent with the place where her father, George Hall Palphramand, lived when he he joined the South African Infantry for service on the Western Front during the First World War, He was killed at Delville Wood on 18 June 2016, when Gift was only two. 

The family tree also erroneously states that her father was Fredrick William Leonard Liesching. He married her widowed mother, Lilian Elizabeth Magdaele Palphramand (nee Horn) and was therefore her step-father,

Regards,

Jonathan

 

[corisande]

I think. on balance, that she was born in South Africa.

I cannot get a Birth Cert, but a baptism clearly points to SA birth. Born 28 May, bapt Jul 18

 

Her marriage is also equivocal, but settles for SA birth

 

And her father death in Flanders

[Jonathan]

Many thanks for these documents. 

Like Gift's father, her mother also died in tragic circumstances. Her second marriage was to Fredrick William Leonard Liesching of Cape Town and they had a daugher and a son (born in 1922 and 1924 resepectively). Then she died on Christmas day 1941, aged just 50. The Inquest certificate records the cause of death as follows: "Accidental death due to shock following upon extensive burns on the body surface. A match dropped onto her clothes, which caught alight." This terrible event happened two days earlier. 

I am not yet adept in attaching documents,  but I found the document on Ancestry.