What was a 'signalling parade'?

[tjpatti]

Sorry, this is probably a silly question with an obvious answer but what exactly was a 'signalling parade'? The chap I'm researching was confined to camp for 3 days for missing 'signalling parade' and, though I've read this over several times in the course of studying his service record, I've only just thought to wonder what a 'signalling parade' was.

Kind regards

Teresa

[truthergw]

Sorry I cannot be of any real help. I cannot, for the life of me, think what that might be. As an ex-signaller, I can say that there were parades which I was excused and a few where even the cooks and the company clerks were on show alongside pale wan corporal storemen, led blinking into the light of day for the first time in months. I wonder if he missed one of those? I doubt if they were known as signalling parades, though. I daresay one of our indefatigable experts is riding to the rescue as I type, full description in hand.

[tjpatti]

Thanks for replying, Tom, and I'm reassured that if an ex-signaller is puzzled by the term 'signalling parade' then my initial question wasn't so daft as I thought it might be!

Kind regards

Teresa

[centurion]

I think its an old fashioned term for an evening flag lowering parade which signalled the end of the military day and not really to do with signallers specifically.

[Old Tom]

Why not simply a parade or drill with signallers at the ends of a parade ground signalling to one another? It could have been as useful as, dimly recalled, communication drill when cadets at the ends of a parade ground practised giving orders.

Old Tom

[tjpatti]

Thanks for the suggestions, Old Tom and Centurion. The signalling parade was at 5.30 p.m. on an August evening - I don't know if that gives any further clues.

Kind regards

Teresa

[David B]

As another old signaller (tele), like Tom I have never heard of it. The time of day is long before sunset, also long after the hours of work that we used to keep (5.30pm). As OT says it could have

been an exercise for signallers carried out after normal work hours.

[centurion]

Extract from 1918 Canadian soldier's diary

January 4th

Signal Parade in morning 9:30 - 11:30.

Went to picture show in evening.

Bought fountain pen 10fr.

January 5th

Signal parade in morning 10:00 - 11:30.

Received ciggs. from Don.

January 6th

Did nothing in particular. .

Sunrise would have been at about 8.45 am

[tjpatti]

Hi

Thanks for the replies and the look-ups.

January 6th 1918 - "did nothing in particular" - was a Sunday. This is so not my area of expertise but it looks like 'signal/signalling parade' was not held on Sundays and the times it was held during the week don't seem to give much of a clue as to its purpose either.

The obvious conclusion is that it's something to do with signallers but the GWF ex-signallers have never heard of it, nor is there any indication in my chap's service record that he had anything at all to do with signalling. Google has come up with nothing. It's a mystery. Many thanks, however, for your continued efforts.

Kind regards

Teresa

[truthergw]

Hi

Thanks for the replies and the look-ups.

January 6th 1918 - "did nothing in particular" - was a Sunday. This is so not my area of expertise but it looks like 'signal/signalling parade' was not held on Sundays and the times it was held during the week don't seem to give much of a clue as to its purpose either.

The obvious conclusion is that it's something to do with signallers but the GWF ex-signallers have never heard of it, nor is there any indication in my chap's service record that he had anything at all to do with signalling. Google has come up with nothing. It's a mystery. Many thanks, however, for your continued efforts.

Kind regards

Teresa

I do like a real live mystery, except when it is served in a restaurant. I will have a poke around in the shelves to see what I can come up with. Just to eliminate one possibility, your man was not Canadian, was he?

[tjpatti]

I do like a real live mystery, except when it is served in a restaurant. I will have a poke around in the shelves to see what I can come up with. Just to eliminate one possibility, your man was not Canadian, was he?

No, Tom, my man was not a Canadian: he was an East End lad in the Dorsetshire Regiment. The signalling parade from which he absented himself was during his training at Wyke Regis, about 5 weeks before he was shipped off to the Front.

I do hope you can find out something. However, the fact that no one else knows what a signalling parade was makes me feel less of a duffer!

Kind regards

Teresa

[centurion]

The few 19th century references I've found do indicate that it's something to do with the start and finish of the military day. The latest is from the late 1930s and refers to that most unsavory outfit the Waffen SS who had them. It seems that they had an 'honour' party that wore WW1 Stalhelms stripped to the metal and polished until you could see the fuherer's tache in them!

[truthergw]

The few 19th century references I've found do indicate that it's something to do with the start and finish of the military day. The latest is from the late 1930s and refers to that most unsavory outfit the Waffen SS who had them. It seems that they had an 'honour' party that wore WW1 Stalhelms stripped to the metal and polished until you could see the fuherer's tache in them!

I expect that kept them out of the Bierkellers. No good comes of idle soldiers hanging around in those places.

[Ron Clifton]

Hello all

I think that it was just a period when signallers underwent specialist training and exercises. There were battalion parades, company parades, pay parades and other parades for particular purposes, often on a daily basis (weekly for pay parades). If you think of the battalion parade as rather like assembly at school, and the other parades as lessons for particular classes, you will see what I am trying to get at. Being late for one of these, or missing it entirely, would almost certainly have resulted in some minor punishment.

With all due respect to centurion, I can;'t see it as having applied to the raising and lowering of the flag at sunsise and sunset. This would not have involved signalling, and the various times of day quoted are completely wrong. It is possible that in the 19th century it was the signallers who actually performed the ceremonies at sunrise and sunset, hence the references centurion has found.

Ron

[tjpatti]

Hmm, would history now have a different complexion if they had spent more time in the bierkellers?!

This is where I'm really going to display my ignorance - would a parade to mark the beginning/ending of the day last up to two hours? would it be held every day (presumably either morning or evening, not both as that would not leave much time for anything else) and, if so, why would Centurion's Canadian be noting it, and its duration, in his diary? However, I am happy to go with the idea that signal/signalling parade is to signal, i.e. to mark, something and not for signallers as, between you and me, I don't think my chap would've had the intellectual wherewithal to be in that line of work: I'm not even sure he could write his own name, the recruiting officer signed the attestation form on his behalf.

Kind regards

Teresa

[tjpatti]

Hello all

I think that it was just a period when signallers underwent specialist training and exercises. There were battalion parades, company parades, pay parades and other parades for particular purposes, often on a daily basis (weekly for pay parades). If you think of the battalion parade as rather like assembly at school, and the other parades as lessons for particular classes, you will see what I am trying to get at. Being late for one of these, or missing it entirely, would almost certainly have resulted in some minor punishment.

With all due respect to centurion, I can;'t see it as having applied to the raising and lowering of the flag at sunsise and sunset. This would not have involved signalling, and the various times of day quoted are completely wrong. It is possible that in the 19th century it was the signallers who actually performed the ceremonies at sunrise and sunset, hence the references centurion has found.

Ron

Hello Ron,

You may well be right but I don't think my chap had what it takes to be a signaller - having said that, I would love to be wrong but I suspect that if he was a signaller there would be some indication in his service record. Of course, he may have been training to be a signaller but failed to make the grade, in which case I can see they wouldn't bother to make a note. Perhaps I'm wrong: he was in the Dorsetshire Regiment and I have come across two contemporary accounts of how completely disorganised they were.

It would be very useful if someone could write a book about the minutiae of a soldier's life - not about trench life, but about the parades, any business to do with raising and lowering of flags, the training for various occupations, life in barracks and billets and bivouacs etc. etc. (sorry, got a bit carried away with the alliteration there!). Will anyone out there in GWF land take up the challenge? I would be the first person to buy your book.

Kind regards

Teresa

[centurion]

With all due respect to centurion, I can;'t see it as having applied to the raising and lowering of the flag at sunsise and sunset. This would not have involved signalling, and the various times of day quoted are completely wrong. It is possible that in the 19th century it was the signallers who actually performed the ceremonies at sunrise and sunset, hence the references centurion has found.

Ron

you're assuming that English has remained static for 200 years! At one term any ceremony intended to mark a particular time (curfew bell,noonday gun, raising or lowering the flag etc etc was often referred to as a signal service (as it was itself a signal). The term may have migrated as such things often do - possibly applied to the first and last parade of the day.Don't assume that it necessarily had anything to do with signalers.

[truthergw]

you're assuming that English has remained static for 200 years! At one term any ceremony intended to mark a particular time (curfew bell,noonday gun, raising or lowering the flag etc etc was often referred to as a signal service (as it was itself a signal). The term may have migrated as such things often do - possibly applied to the first and last parade of the day.Don't assume that it necessarily had anything to do with signalers.

Agreed. Also, to render someone signal service was to do them a special favour. In which case, we might be back to the sort of parades at which I hinted. Adjutant's Admin parade or some such where absolutely everybody looked out boots and a belt and actually stood in the ranks. I just never heard them referred to as signal parades. Looks like the usage may have died out in the twenties.

[Ron Clifton]

you're assuming that English has remained static for 200 years! At one term any ceremony intended to mark a particular time (curfew bell,noonday gun, raising or lowering the flag etc etc was often referred to as a signal service (as it was itself a signal). The term may have migrated as such things often do - possibly applied to the first and last parade of the day.Don't assume that it necessarily had anything to do with signalers.

I take your point, centurion, but the original post referred to "signalling parades", not "signal parades". In the context of the British Army of the Great War, and notwithstanding any earlier usage of the word "signal", "signalling" had a pretty specific meaning.

Ron

[Scalyback]

As another bleep!

Check other mens records in this battalion. it may be a battalion thing only.

What ever is said on this forum, there never has or never will be a standard British Army. It will have central command but every regiment/battalion/squadron will have something to make it uniquie. Just look at the Cav(Red trousers what what!).

So check other records near this chap. Did others that attend the parades go on to become the battalion sigs or other roles??????

[centurion]

I take your point, centurion, but the original post referred to "signalling parades", not "signal parades". In the context of the British Army of the Great War, and notwithstanding any earlier usage of the word "signal", "signalling" had a pretty specific meaning.

Ron

The term is also used by the Canadians and in the 1930s by the Germans.

Even in WW1 there were plenty of anachronistic terms migrated/evolved from an earlier era.

[Nepper]

There's a mention of a signalling parade in the diary of William Patterson of the 2nd Light Horse AIF http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_transcript/2011/D05500/a2379.htm which would suggest that in this unit at least it was something related to signalling.

Nigel

[truthergw]

There's a mention of a signalling parade in the diary of William Patterson of the 2nd Light Horse AIF http://acms.sl.nsw.g...05500/a2379.htm which would suggest that in this unit at least it was something related to signalling.

Nigel

Thanks for that, Nigel. He distinguishes between signalling and all other parades. If I had to guess now, I would be guessing at a parade for all signallers. Perhaps with all equipment on display. It may be that this parade disappeared when the signallers were re-organised into Royal Signals and Regimental signallers.

[Nepper]

If you do a google search for "signalling parade" with quotes it brings up a couple of other diaries as well as a number of specific parades for the SVR (Singapore Volunteer Rifles?) advertised in the Singapore Times

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Here's another example, from GV Dennis's A Kitchener Man's Bit (MERH Books 1994). He was a signaller in the Yeoman Rifles (21/KRRC) and mentions all sorts of parades such as church parades, pay parades, and the fact that at Aldershot the specialists were able to spend most parades in a different way from the other men:

'All the specialist sections spent most of the parades at their own particular work and thus missed most of the boring "jerks" and drills. Only occasionally did we, the Signallers, hear: "In two ranks, fall in", "Number off", "Fall in", "Form fours"...' p 28

Then this is at Outtersteene in late May 1916, not long after the battalion landed in France.

'One of our signalling parades caused great amusement. The RE Signals had come to explain a lot about the laying of cables and had reached that part of it that dealt with overhead lines. A telegraph pole was erected and we had to climb up it with the help of leg irons to fasten wires to the cross piece at the top. What fun! ....' etc p 44

It's more of a training session than I had imagined a 'parade' could be.

EDIT as previously explained by Ron, #14.

Liz