Men of the Exchequer and Audit Department in WW1

[MikeNewbury]

The Exchequer and Audit Department audited government expenditure and was based at Somerset House in London. Its work is now done by the National Audit Office based in Victoria.

I am part of a staff group researching our predecessors' contribution to the War particularly the 22 listed on our Roll of Honour in London. We also know of a further 90 or so men who served and then returned to work in the E&AD after the War. As auditors our organisation kept very detailed records!

We are undertaking a programme of commemorative events over the 100th anniversaries which are coming up. We began by re-dedicating our Roll of Honour in a ceremony led by our Chairman Lord Bichard. We were privileged to be joined by two members of F Company, 7 Rifles the successor unit to the Civil Service Rifles .Many of our dead began their service careers in the 15th County of London (Prince of Wales Own) Civil Service Rifles.The Roll is in the publicly accessible area of our HQ in Buckingham Palace Road.

We are recording our findings in the Lives of the Great War in the following Community (https://livesofthefirstworldwar.org/community/1589).

Our dead are;

Barlow, Harold Cpl, 1/15th County of London d 17/05/1915

Bailey, Arthur William Lt, 9th Ox and Bucks LI attached 1st KOSB d 04/06/1915

Banks, Walter Ralph Pte, 2nd Royal Fusiliers d 02/01/1916

Jacobs, Alan Edward Affalo MC 2nd Lt.8th East Surrey d 07/08/1916

Hoadley, John Clare Chemical Corporal, Royal Engineers d 24/08/1916

Roberts, Arthur Capt, 1/15th County of London d 15/09/1916

Ware, Bertram Knight 2nd Lt, 1/15th County of London d 19/09/1916

Roylance, Alexander John CQMS, West India Regt d 09/10/1916

Walsh, john Major, 22nd Royal Fusiliers d 19/02/1917

Tanner, Hubert John, Capt, 1st Somerset Light Infantry d 09/04/1917

Littlejohn, William Henry CSM, 10th Middlesex d 10/04/1917

Foster, Harold John Brittain Capt, 9th Bedfordshire attached 1st Essex d 14/04/1917

Angas, Lionel George 2nd Lt. 3rd Bedfordshire attached 7th Bedfordshire d 03/05/1917

Minty, James Pte 4th Cameron Highlanders - 154th Coy MGC d 18/07/1917

England, Dyson Sidney Pte 16th Manchester (formerly East Surrey) d 11/08/1917

Smith, Edgar Thomas Pte 1st Hampshire - 11th Coy MGC (Infantry) d 04/10/1917

Rayner, Hubert William Lt. 10th Royal Welsh Fusiliers attached 76th Trench Mortar Battery d 05/11/1917

Peters, William Courtman Sgt. 2/15 County of London d 08/11/1917

Claydon, Ernest Digby Rifleman 17th County of London formerly of 16th County of London d 01/09/1918

Shaw, John Rifleman 2/10 County of London d 07/09/1918

Adams, Frederick Leslie 2nd Lt. 232nd Siege Battery RGA d 15/09/1918

Reed, John Charles MC 2nd Lt. "D" Battery, 280th BDE RFA d 14/12/1918

Please let us know if you have a connection to any of our Roll of Honour men and we would obviously be very happy to share information we have on their careers in the E&AD.

[auchonvillerssomme]

^{There are medal Index cards to staff where rgiment and corps is The Exchequer and Audit Department.}

[alanh]

We carried out a similar project for the Board of Trade, you may wish to look at or perhaps contact the current researchers at https://biswarmemorial.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/bis-war-memorial/

[Mark Hone]

Mike,

As you know, I have supplied details of Bury Grammar School old boy Harold Barlow who was the first member of the department to die in action, at the Battle of Festubert. The school is keen to participate in your commemoration. Personally I am rather hampered by the fact that I am currently tecuperating from fracturing my hip in a cycling accident a few weeks ago.

[MikeNewbury]

Dear all,

Thanks for coming back to me with these tips and Mark it was a great pleasure for us to host your colleagues and Old Boys.

We now have a twitterfeed at @PoWCSR100 which we're using to share information etc.

Our next casualty from the E&AD is Arthur William Bailey killed leading his men in an attack at Gallipoli on 4 June 1915.

We'll be marking the event with a planting ceremony at our London HQ in Victoria where we'll be joined by Arthur's Great Nephew.

Best wishes,

Mike

[MaureenE]

Perhaps the following may be connected with you as he was with Army Audit in Mesopotamia. He wrote a diary, most of the entries are for 1921. I found the diary very interesting to read, although the website it is on is difficult to navigate . I don't know whether this is just for my browser or for all browsers.

There is a link for this journal on the FIBIS Fibiwiki page Mesopotamia Campaign, some of which I have copied here (The FIniwiki page has some links to particular pages about fraud by members of the IWT (Inland Water Transport) http://wiki.fibis.org/index.php/Mesopotamia_Campaign#External_links)

Grandpa’s Journal ( http://www.mespot.co.uk ) Harry James Goulter Pearman was with the Army Audit Staff in Mesopotamia. Most of the entries are for 1921. It is difficult for some/all browsers to navigate navigate this site.

The dates of the entries are in the top LH corner of the Home webpage. The entries from the journal are in the format

http://www. mespot.co.uk/journal/ab.cd.ef.shtml (but joined together into one URL) , where, for a particular entry, ab is the year, cd is the month, ef is the first mentioned day in the month (all two digits). For archive.org diary entries, scroll down to URLs containing the word journal.

( https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mespot.co.uk/* )

First journal entry from the archived entries

https://web.archive.org/web/20140820075610/http://www.mespot.co.uk/journal/20.12.21.shtml

Cheers

Maureen

[MikeNewbury]

Maureen,

Thanks for this info. We'll have a nose and see if there's a connection.

best wishes,

Mike