Postcards

[GWF1967]

Pte. Basil Charles Barwell. 67528.  3rd Battalion, Machine Gun Corps. " 6 Div. Signal School, B.E.F.  France"

B.1893, Ingrave, Essex.

 

[GWF1967]

" Driver Harold Flett,  Sig. Bernard Robinson"

[GWF1967]

Two cards from "Richard Brown. Photographer. 35 Bold St. Liverpool",  showing the same un-named soldier. 

Pivate. 2nd City Battalion, King's Liverpool Regiment.  - Promoted to Sgt,  4 years overseas service, once wounded. King's shoulder titles.

Edited 26 April , 2020 by GWF1967

[FROGSMILE]

2 hours ago, GWF1967 said:

Pte. Clarence William Ulett. 3048 - 226123.  1st Monmouthshire Regiment.

B.1898. Newport, Monmouthshire.

The Monmouth’s and SWB sometimes wore a locally made cap cover in their facing colour of green.  I think that is what’s seen here.

 

2 hours ago, GWF1967 said:

" Driver Harold Flett,  Sig. Bernard Robinson"

It’s very interesting that Dvr Flett is wearing a wrist watch.  They were quite expensive at that time which begs the question how could he afford it.

Edited 26 April , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[GWF1967]

9 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

The Monmouth’s and SWB sometimes wore a locally made cap cover in their facing colour of green.  I think that is what’s seen here.

 

It’s very interesting that Dvr Flett is wearing a wrist watch.  They were quite expensive at that time which begs the question how could he afford it.

Many thanks for your information regarding the cap cover. 

The subject of watches has been raised before. Whether it was purchased, inherited or presented is unknown, but they seem to appear quite frequently in photographs. 

 

 

[FROGSMILE]

Wrist watches are reputed to have been largely born out of the requirements of working in trenches, where they were seen as more utilitarian than a pocket watch.  Officers in particular are seen with them, other ranks a little less so because of the expense, although I think they became cheaper due to demand as the war went on.

The cap cover is interesting and the very last time I saw one worn it was by the provost sergeant of the SWB who was a very old soldier with a chest full of WW2 ribbons.  He told me that he was the very last wearer (he was still using an SD cap) and sure enough when he retired I never saw one again, not least because coloured forage caps were worn instead by his successors.

[WhiteStarLine]

54 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

other ranks a little less so because of the expense

Just did a quick check of my grandfather's photos on the Ascanius and as the Australians were very well paid soldiers, a number are wearing wrist-watches with and without covers.  Time hasn't been kind to the top photo, but here is lifeboat drill on the Ascanius in 1917 with a distinctive wrist-watch cover.  The man on his right may well have a watch on his right wrist.  In the photo below, as they were leaving Melbourne, there is 1 definite on the far left (worn on his right arm) and 1 on the RHS that looks like a wrist-watch.

[Muerrisch]

Yes the idea that wrist watches were out of reach for a private soldier was firmly squashed by  the thread attached ....... the trenches were almost heaving with them!

 

[FROGSMILE]

I think the point that I was trying to make is that in the early stages of the war wrist watches were not common for  other ranks, this is a fact well recorded in the numismatic world and you can read much about it in various sources.  Apparently it was the purchase by officers of wrist watches that began the vogue for them, not least because they left both hands free when reading the time in a way that pocket watches did not.  One can easily visualise in one’s mind the junior officer getting ready to go ‘over the top’ with one hand on the ladder ready to depart the trench, a pistol in the other hand, and perhaps infantry whistle held between pursed lips, whilst at the same time observing his wrist watch and counting down the seconds towards zero hour. Something clearly not possible with a pocket watch, so it’s easily apparent why the wrist watch became popular.  The size of the Army increased exponentially over the succeeding years, and demand for wrist watches increased, as did supply to match it and, as time went on, mass production made such watches cheaper and within the reach of soldiers, especially those of the middle classes who flocked to the colours initially and who were then conscripted too.  Classes of men who could afford such things in the way that the largely working class Tommy of 1914 could not.  Added to that came the well paid Australian and Canadian troops, who added to the demand for what was clearly the most practical timepiece in the operational conditions that confronted them.  There is thus considerable nuance when considering this subject, and to say that the basic fact that wrist watches were not initially affordable has been “squashed” is overstating the situation.  It was a movable feast, and as with other technologies like, e.g. the machine gun, the situation in 1918 was nothing like that of 1914.  It is this that I was referring to in my initial comment.

Edited 4 May , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[MikeyH]

A family connection here.  The post card is of the three Davies brothers from Sketty near Swansea.

From left, Fred, Walter and John.  My grandfather Joseph married their sister Elizabeth, who was an

actress, sadly she died in 1919 during the Spanish Flu epidemic.  Am I correct in thinking that Fred

was in the Royal Artillery?  Something at the back of my mind associates one of them with the Royal

Welsh Fusiliers.

( photo by the Gwalia Studios, 44 Castle Square,Swansea)

 

Mike.

Edited 27 April , 2020 by MikeyH

[FROGSMILE]

30 minutes ago, MikeyH said:

A family connection here.  The post card is of the three Davies brothers from Sketty near Swansea.

From left, Fred, Walter and John.  My grandfather Joseph married their sister Elizabeth, who was an

actress, sadly she died in 1919 during the Spanish Flu epidemic.  Am I correct in thinking that Fred

was in the Royal Artillery?  Something at the back of my mind associates one of them with the Royal

Welsh Fusiliers.

( photo by the Gwalia Studios, 44 Castle Square,Swansea)

 

Mike.

 

Yes, Fred is wearing a Royal Artillery badge and shoulder title.

The Royal Welsh Fusiliers developed a reputation for boxing and it’s possible that the recruiting sergeant encouraged Walter to join that regiment.  However, the local regiment for Swansea, was The Welsh Regiment, which to the unfamiliar might sound very similar.

Edited 27 April , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[MikeyH]

12 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

Yes, Fred is wearing a Royal Artillery badge and shoulder title.

The Royal Welsh Fusiliers developed a reputation for boxing and it’s possible that the recruiting sergeant encouraged Walter to join that regiment.  However, the local regiment for Swansea, was The Welsh Regiment, which to the unfamiliar might sound very similar.

 

FROGSMILE,

Many thanks, as far as I know both Fred and Walter survived the war.  Grandad kept in touch, I have a photo of him, my dad and Walter in Walter's Sketty back garden in 1938.

Walter worked for many years for I.C.I. (Mond Division).  I have his silver long service medal, which he wore as a fob to his pocket watch.  John was I think a teacher.

Mike.

Edited 28 April , 2020 by MikeyH

[FROGSMILE]

19 minutes ago, MikeyH said:

 

FROGSMILE,

Many thanks, as far as I know both Fred and Walter survived the war.  Grandad kept in touch, I have a photo of him, my dad and Walter in Walter's Sketty back garden in 1938.

Walter worked for many years for I.C.I. (Mond Division).  I have his silver long service medal, which he wore as a fob to his pocket watch.  John was I think a teacher.

Mike.

It ought to be possible to trace their service if you can somehow obtain their full names, home address at that time and dates of birth.  Death and birth certificates  would assist.

[lucycutler]

Some more postcard photos of the extended family.  This time some of the Great Uncles, the Dysart Brothers:-

 

 

3166 / 554237 Dvr Sydney Herbert Dysart, R.E.

 

 

 

65505 Pte Charles William Dysart, Machine Gun Corps

 

 

 

Two pictures of Z2468 Pte Arthur James Dysart, Rifle Brigade

 

 

 

 

And last but by no means least, 826901 Pte George Henry Dysart, 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles. KIA 24/8/1917 near Lens and commemorated on the Vimy Ridge memorial.

[FROGSMILE]

Super pictures of a family that contributed much.  Arthur James of the Rifle Brigade looks very young in the first photo.  I wonder if he was sent to a young soldier battalion initially.

[lucycutler]

11 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

Super pictures of a family that contributed much.  Arthur James of the Rifle Brigade looks very young in the first photo.  I wonder if he was sent to a young soldier battalion initially.

Don't know I'm afraid,  The BWM & VM medal rolls shows him in the 4th Battalion and then the 8th.  He went to France in early February 1915, so I guess the first photo is from 1914. There could be over three years between the two images.  He sure does look young in the first picture tho......... 

[Buffnut453]

4 minutes ago, lucycutler said:

Don't know I'm afraid,  The BWM & VM medal rolls shows him in the 4th Battalion and then the 8th.  He went to France in early February 1915, so I guess the first photo is from 1914. There could be over three years between the two images.  He sure does look young in the first picture tho......... 

 

Great pics, Lucy.  One of my relatives was Z/2110 in the 4th Rifle Brigade.  He enlisted on 2 September 1914 and went to France on 27 January 1915.  Wonder if he knew your relative?

[lucycutler]

20 minutes ago, Buffnut453 said:

 

Great pics, Lucy.  One of my relatives was Z/2110 in the 4th Rifle Brigade.  He enlisted on 2 September 1914 and went to France on 27 January 1915.  Wonder if he knew your relative?

Quite possibly, or would have seen each other at least.  Small world isn't it ? 

[Buffnut453]

4 minutes ago, lucycutler said:

Quite possibly, or would have seen each other at least.  Small world isn't it ? 

 

Yeah...small world.  Here's a pic of my relative, George Gamble (I've posted it before but it's one of my favourite family photos...so I'm sharing it again!  ).  He's a first cousin twice removed, so not a particularly close relative.  However, his family lived (literally) across the street from my Great-Grandma.  She was George's aunt.  George went to Salonika in November 1915, was commissioned in the summer of 1917 and died on 24 Sep 1917 of wounds sustained in action the night before.  

 

[FROGSMILE]

1 hour ago, lucycutler said:

Don't know I'm afraid,  The BWM & VM medal rolls shows him in the 4th Battalion and then the 8th.  He went to France in early February 1915, so I guess the first photo is from 1914. There could be over three years between the two images.  He sure does look young in the first picture tho......... 

 

If he joined before the declaration of war it’s not impossible that he was a ‘Boy Entrant’, a few were permitted each year to be trained as boy drummers, or band, or as artisans in the battalion tailor’s or shoemaker’s (work) shops, although most of that category were serving soldier’s sons.  Failing that he might have declared a false DOB and joined underage, as significant numbers did.  To go out in 1915 he would have to be considered an adult aged soldier.

Edited 28 April , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[lucycutler]

29 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

 

If he joined before the declaration of war it’s not impossible that he was a ‘Boy Entrant’, a few were permitted each year to be trained as boy drummers, or band, or as artisans in the battalion tailor’s or shoemaker’s (work) shops, although most of that category were serving soldier’s sons.  Failing that he might have declared a false DOB and joined underage, as significant numbers did.  To go out in 1915 he would have to be considered an adult aged soldier.

We have Arthur James as being born in 1897, so in 1914 he would have been 17.  No disrespect intended, but he certainly looks a bit of a shrimp!

[FROGSMILE]

7 minutes ago, lucycutler said:

We have Arthur James as being born in 1897, so in 1914 he would have been 17.  No disrespect intended, but he certainly looks a bit of a shrimp!

 

That makes sense, 17 was too young to go on active service so he would have officially had to wait until he was 18 the following year.  Apart from the wealthier classes and men engaged in hard physical labour, the vast majority of young working class men were of puny build.  There were so few men of sufficient physical stature to pass military medicals in the Boer War, less than a decade before, that there had been a government inquiry to look into it.  Poor diets in low income households and the malnourishment that resulted were recognised as the cause, but as per usual none of the better off wanted to pay the taxes that would have been necessary to resolve matters.  It was issues like this that led to the welfare state that eventually emerged from the embers of WW2.

Edited 28 April , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[lucycutler]

Just now, FROGSMILE said:

 

That makes sense, 17 was too young to go on active service so he would have officially had to wait until he was 18 the following year.  Apart from men engaged in hard physical labour the vast majority of young working class men were of puny build.  There were so few men of sufficient physical stature in the Boer War less than a decade before that there had been a government inquiry too look into it.  Poor diets and the malnourishment that resulted in low income households but as usual none of the better off wanted to pay the taxes that would have been necessary to resolve matters.  It was issues like this that led to the welfare state that eventually emerged from the embers of WW2.

I have this photo/postcard of three Herefordshire lads (who must have been pals of one of my Great Uncles). None of them look old enough either, particularly the lad on the right!

 

[FROGSMILE]

What a cracking photo of three ingenues, complete with swagger sticks, but filthy boots and [edit] two unfastened pockets, typical of many TF units.  The two on the left look like they might be brothers/cousins.

Edited 28 April , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[lucycutler]

5 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

What a cracking photo of three ingenues, complete with swagger sticks, but filthy boots and one unfastened pocket, typical of many TF units.  The two on the left look like they might be brothers/cousins.

Yes they do have a resemblence.  Sadly no idea whatsoever who they were though