'C' Company Officer Training Battalion Keble College Oxford Ma

[Simon_Fielding]

I've picked up a nice picture of the above unit - dated May 1917 - is there any way of finding out who's on it, as the men are unnamed...?

Presumably the colleges / university didn't administer these units...? Or did they??

Simon

PS - will post the pic when I receive it...it would be good to find out what happened to them all...

[seaJane]

I have no certain knowledge, but would guess that it depends whether the battalion was of Keble men, or whether Keble (which was very churchy) had moved its own young men elsewhere for the duration.

Either way it might be worth going to http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk and tracking down the librarian /archivist.

sJ

[charlesmessenger]

Keble College housed C Coy of No 4 Officer Cadet Battalion and the College archives do have material on the Company.

Charles M

[Simon_Fielding]

Thanks Charles and sJ - I'll give them a try...

[seaJane]

Didn't have time to look earlier but I just checked, in case the librarian was still the person I used to know there - but not: names etc here:

http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/about/library/contacts

[Simon_Fielding]

Appreciate the link sJ...

[mrfrank]

I picked up a large group photo of officer cadets some years back in a junk shop. From viewing on-line what I presume is the OP's photo from May 1917 I can now identify from the identical background my photo as being 4th Officer Tng Bn, Keble College, Oxford. Unfortunately, it is undated. However, it is a large group of approx 165 cadets and 14 staff (7 officers and 7 SNCOs). A fair proportion of cadets appear to be New Zealanders. Would either the size of the group or NZ presence help to date the photo??

[Simon_Fielding]

As promised months ago!

[Andrew Craven]

Hi Simon, my grandfather, Joseph Craven (2453, 40724) West Yorks Reg, was commissioned in Sept 1917. We have a picture label with  'cadet school Oxford 1917' but no picture! So it might be Keble or Balliol and he might have been there in May 1917, and might be in your picture. Did you ever get any names? Did you find someone at Keble who had access to OCB records? I include his 1915 image for good measure in case he stares out at you from your picture...

Best wishes Andrew

 

Edited 30 August , 2016 by Andrew Craven
file added

[Charles Fair]

The archives at Keble have the complete Part 1 and Part 2 orders for No. 4 OCB from March 1916 to disbandment in 1919.  I was in there a couple of weeks ago for a first look and need to go back at some point before too long.