kevin ley Posted 19 August , 2004 Share Posted 19 August , 2004 I wonder if anyone can shed some light on the army pay system while serving at the front. One of the few family possessions I have is of my Grandfather's registration of birth certificate. It is interesting as it has three rubber stamps on it. One appears to be from the Army Pay Office, one from the Regimental Pay Office, and one from the Infantry Record Office Registrar. All dated in late September 1914. My Great Grandfather enlisted on 2nd September 1914. I am assuming that enlisted soldiers would have had to provide next of kin info and info on children. Did Army pay increase pro-rata with no. of dependent children or was it a flat rate? Any insights would be great? I will try to post up the copy when I have it to hand. Kevin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyford Posted 19 August , 2004 Share Posted 19 August , 2004 (edited) Hi Kevin, I would be very interested to see your grandfather's birth certificate with these stamps on it. I did not think that the soldiers had to produce their birth certificate because we hear of so many of them enlisting under/over age, with different names etc. but it would have been an obvious piece of documentation for pay purposes. This is a Kitchener poster (IWM) which seems to show pay rates and I am sure that other documents have been posted about this but I'm sorry I can't post the links. Kate Edited 24 August , 2004 by sandyford Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyford Posted 19 August , 2004 Share Posted 19 August , 2004 This is a discussion relating to the issue of pay. If I have done the link correctly. http://1914-1918.org/forum/index.php?showt...1&hl=dependants Must learn how to do a link which just says 'here' Kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin ley Posted 19 August , 2004 Author Share Posted 19 August , 2004 Sorry Kate, maybe I did not make myself clear. My Gt. Grandfather enlisted and it is his young son's (my Grandfather) birth certificate (he was 4 at the time) that appears to have been sent to the Regimental Pay Office in Dublin. My Gt. Grandfather was with the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers. Kevin. I shall post it up tomorrow with luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyford Posted 19 August , 2004 Share Posted 19 August , 2004 Excellent Kevin and just as interesting. I am looking forward to seeing the certificate. Kate p.s. Or part of it if it is too personal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin ley Posted 24 August , 2004 Author Share Posted 24 August , 2004 Hello Kate, I have scanned the photo of the certificate but it is 700kB which is too large to upload to the website. I shall see if I can reduce the size of the image file to 200kB. Rgds, Kevin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
museumtom Posted 24 August , 2004 Share Posted 24 August , 2004 Save the picture as a JPEG and it will load rapidly. Tom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyford Posted 24 August , 2004 Share Posted 24 August , 2004 I have taken off the large Kitchener poster from my first post and substituted only the pay information from the bottom. Should save a bit of forum space. Kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin ley Posted 25 August , 2004 Author Share Posted 25 August , 2004 One of these days I am going to get the hang of computers! I attach (hopefully) the image promised. It is the birth certificate of my grandfather Arthur Lewis Ley, born in 1910 (who sadly passed away in 1976). The interest for me is the three rubber stamps on the registered birth certificate. There appear to be three. From what I can make out (with the magnifying glass and careful study) they read: Army Pay Office (stamp is back to front) Regimental Pay Office Infantry Record Office Registrar The dates on the stamps are all Sept/Oct 1914 so I assume they were all part of the administration following the enlistment of my Gt. Grandfather i.e. to work out his pay and other allowances. He had three young children when he enlisted at the aged of 33. Arthur's father Lewis John Ley (my Gt. Grandfather) enlisted 2nd September 1914 and joined the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers as a Private (Reg. No. 14919). He disembarked in France on 1st May 1915 and according to the war diaries I have the 1st Battalion received a new influx of other ranks on 10th May and approximately a week later. At the time they were right in the thick of the 2nd Battle of Ypres - they were entrenched near St. Julien and were repelling German gas and infantry attacks early May and on 24th May. According to living relatives Lewis was gassed at Ypres - which ties up with what I know about his circumstances and the Battalion war diaries at the time. Quite a baptism of fire! He was discharged 28th July 1916 due to sickness. He got a SWB (in 1917 - to keep the white feather brigade at bay!) and 14-15 Star, Victory, BWM trio after the war. To complete the story. Lewis survived the war - he had three children before the war and another one just after the war. However, he was never the same again apparently. Kevin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin ley Posted 25 August , 2004 Author Share Posted 25 August , 2004 The Army Pay Office stamp I could only make out by printing off the page and holding up to the light. It seems inverted. Kevin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyford Posted 26 August , 2004 Share Posted 26 August , 2004 Kevin Your G.grandfather Lewis Ley, as he was arriving on May 1st 1915, must just about have passed my father being brought back to England, wounded 26/04/15,arrived Lincoln Hospital 03/05/15, after the Battle of St. Julien 2nd Ypres. When your family say that Lewis was never the same again, do you think they meant in health or in the effect on his personality? The registration of birth with those stamps is a very interesting document. Although I see a lot of registration certificates in Family History research I have never seen one with stamps like those. Unfortunately, I also struggle with the technology of image size and am trying to print it out so that I can see what you mean about the reversed stamp. Thank you for posting the certificate. Kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin ley Posted 27 August , 2004 Author Share Posted 27 August , 2004 Kate, What regiment did your father serve with? Was he in the 10th Brigade (R.Ir. Fus, R. Warwicks. R. Dublin Fus, Seaforths)? I have the 1st Battalion R.Ir. Fus. history in the Great war by Lt. Col Burrowes (the C/O of the 1/R.Ir.Fus at the time) and there are some vivid accounts of 2nd Ypres in there and of the gas attacks in April 1915. Do you know what wounds he received? I recently went over to the St. Julien area on a battlefield tour and walked the ground near Wieltje. There are some German pill boxes there which were part of the Cambrai, and Cameroon German front line trenches from May 1915 i.e. which faces the British front lne trench that ran from Verlorenhoek to Wieltje. I have the trench maps as well. Let me know if there is anything of interest. Regarding the certificate. Two of the stamps are stamped Dublin which I believe was the administration centre for Royal Irish Fusilers (maybe all the Irish regiments? - this was pre-1922). The Infantry record Office in Dublin stamp was the same I have seen on the SWB medal roll of the R. Ir. Fus. In terms of the comment "never the same again". My understanding is he rarely went out of the house. This explains the lack of photos of him. I only have one treasured photo which is of him in 1911 before the war at a wedding (his step-sisters). I have no photos of him after the war despite the fact he lived till 1953. Apparently he preferred to stay in his chair in the corner of the living room. There was a pub on the corner and my father has only one memory of him (when he was a boy) in that he was instructed to go down to the pub on the corner and fill Lewis's jug with beer and bring it back to the house. Apparently he never said much - my father cannot recall him speaking. I am still researching his life and will have the opportunity soon to speak to two of his grand-daughters who lived with him. Kevin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyford Posted 27 August , 2004 Share Posted 27 August , 2004 Kevin It will be very interesting to hear what his granddaughters say about Lewis. In an autobiographical book by Nancy Spain, she describes a similar reaction in talking about her father Lt. Col Spain 6th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers T. F. He also survived the war and took part in other Battles, but it was St. Julien which replayed in his nightmares. He blamed his deafness on the guns at St. Julien. I will try to attach an excerpt. My father was a private with the 6th Batt. Northumberland Fusiliers, 50th Div. 149th Brigade. In the advance - Wieltje to St. Julien in the afternoon of 26/04/15 only 6 days after the Batt. left England, he was shot through the side. He lay 2 days on the Battlefield. He was shipped back to England and spent 18 mths in Lincoln Hospital. I am always recounting these events. They have become a sort lof mantra. He never talked to me about this but I was only 15 when he died and I think he seemed to have put it behind him. Later problems like the slump and WW2 had happened in between. It sounds as though Lewis did not get over his experience. I am always on the lookout for accounts of 2nd Ypres and would be very interested to see the Trench maps of the area. Kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin ley Posted 31 August , 2004 Author Share Posted 31 August , 2004 A very moving passage. I am sure that was the way with many veterans who survived. They were profoundly changed men and "aged" beyond their years. I will post up some accounts of 2nd Ypres and the trench maps I have plus some photos I took recently of the battlefields. I am not sure if this thread is the appropriate one to attach this to. I think there is a separate section for battles etc. Rgds, Kevin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyford Posted 1 September , 2004 Share Posted 1 September , 2004 Kevin Sorry. Have just seen your post. It was far too generalised and demanding for me to say 'anything about 2nd Ypres and trench maps'. I just meant any - thing (singular) for instance, about 1st Batt. R.I.F. at St. Julien and a trench map of the area would be lovely. Kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Posted 2 September , 2004 Share Posted 2 September , 2004 Although I see a lot of registration certificates in Family History research I have never seen one with stamps like those. Hello Kate I have seen something similar to the certificate before. It was the birth cert of a man who enlisted in the RFA in 1898. There were 3 pay office stamps on the back of the document the dates of which coincided with the man leaving the regular service and the others dated at the beginning of two stretches in the reserve. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyford Posted 2 September , 2004 Share Posted 2 September , 2004 Andy And so, it seems that the soldiers themselves sometimes had to produce their birth certificates as well as those of dependants. We are gradually getting this all nailed down. The much despised paperwork, as well as listings, does hold little gems of information for us. Makes you wonder whether future generations will be saying 'I found this old computer disk which had not been wiped---' Kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin ley Posted 2 September , 2004 Author Share Posted 2 September , 2004 Kate, I would assume that with any organizational bureaucracy - and the army certainly falls into that category - the adage "follow the money" is extremely relevant when doing research of this kind. The need for proof of age or of age of dependents would be relevant for several types of benefits. Pensions would certainly be one. If the Army was paying a penson annuity it would certainly want to know someones age to determine how long it may have to pay the annuity. In modern day pension schemes an actuary would need information on average age of people eligible for pension to work out the financial liability. What records of the monetary transactions of the Army exist i.e. of the Army Pay Office. Where was the Army Pay Office? Did their records get destroyed in the blitz? Quetions! Kevin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin ley Posted 2 September , 2004 Author Share Posted 2 September , 2004 I understand each soldier had a pay book. Presumably, however, somewhere there was a financial centre which did the double entry book-keeping recodring what had been paid and to whom i.e. like a bank. These offices would have to send accounts somewhere? Kevin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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