Service numbers - Royal Field Artillery

[craig edgar]

Wondering if anyone could shed any light on this for me please? I have been researching my relatives that served in the Great War for some years and have just stumbled across an unknown entity.

My Great, Great Uncle was William Edgar, he died of wounds on 4th November 1918 and I have exhausted my online research as far as he is concerned. I need to visit Kew at some stage it's just finding the time.

I've downloaded his battalion war diary (106 Brigade) and on the day he died the brigade was in Jenlain which is some 30 miles from where he is buried in Cambrai, from this I am guessing that he was wounded somewhere between 18th-25th October 1918 as the diary shows varying numbers of 'other ranks' wounded between these dates and the battalion was still within 15 miles of Cambrai until 25th. The story passed down through generations of our family is that he was shot by a sniper but I haven't found anything to verify this as yet.

Due to the constant addition of information onto the internet I recently found out that William worked at the Singer factory in Clydebank, they produced a fantastic remembrance booklet after the war which had a roll of honour listing all of their employees that gave their lives as well as those that served and returned home.

Interestingly there is a Robert W Edgar listed in the latter part of the booklet which covers survivors and we think William had a brother called Robert Welch Edgar so further research is needed there.

Link to the Singer memorial for anyone that's interested

https://archive.org/details/singermemorial191919sing

I'd love to know what happened to the actual physical memorial plaques after the factory was pulled down.

Anyway, the main reason for my post is that I have just stumbled across another casualty, Robert Edgar who was in 107th Brigade RFA, what has got me wondering if he is related to William (perhaps a cousin) is his service number which is 23349, William Edgar's was 23293.

The numbers are so close I'm wondering if they enlisted together or at least on the same day or week. Could it just be coincidence that the numbers are so close and one was in 106 bde and the other 107 bde?

if anyone has any information relating to this I would be very grateful.

[David Porter]

From Soldiers Died in the Great War:

Name: William Edgar

Birth Place: Edinburgh

Death Date: 4 Nov 1918

Death Place: France and Flanders

Enlistment Place: Glasgow

Rank: Gunner

Regiment: Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery

Regimental Number: 23293

Type of Casualty: Died of wounds

Theatre of War: Western European Theatre (France 29-08-15)

Name: Robert Edgar

Residence: Glasgow

Death Date: 21 Mar 1918

Death Place: France and Flanders

Enlistment Place: Glasgow

Rank: Gunner

Regiment: Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery

Regimental Number: 23349

Type of Casualty: Killed in action

Theatre of War: Western European Theatre (France 30-08-15)

It looks like they both joined at Glasgow at around the same time (early September 1914?) and they went to France a day apart.

They died having served with 2 brigades in the 24th Division. As to whether they were related should be down to you to discover.

[craig edgar]

Thanks for the information David, I had most of it but not the place of enlistment for both or date Robert landed in France. Will have to get busy on the genealogy websites at the weekend.

This is a big help, thanks very much.