LisaH Posted 11 October , 2015 Share Posted 11 October , 2015 Hi all I hope you can help. My great grandfather Stephen Alfred Humphries was a Driver in the Royal Field Artllery and later became a Lance Bombardier. He was born in 1897 and I think entered WW1 after training into the battle of the Somme in 1916. (He didn't get the 1914-1915 star). Later in WW2 he enlisted in the RAF and was an AC2 at RAF Bourn in Cambridgeshire where he was a tug driver and worked on Lancasters as an Aircraft Handler. He died on active duty from kidney cancer aged 45 in 1943 and is buried in Brookwood Military Cemetery not 15 minutes from where I live in Woking. The reason for my post is that I have never seen a photo of him. Neither in the RAF or the RFA and I would love to see his face for the first time. I have corrected a lot of injustices about his life and this is the final piece of the jigsaw to be able to see him. I have even applied for, and got, the medals he never claimed when alive (for various reasons). There are no family members who would have a photo as his only daughter (my grandmother) passed away in 2001 and she never had a photo of him either. There are no other relatives live that would have one. I am desperate to get a photo and I have been advised that the Royal Field Artillery may be the best place to look. Sadly I do not know his battalion as his records did not survive the covent garden bombing. I know that he was from South London originally (Camberwell) if that helps. YOu can read more about him here https://spiderplantpics.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/stephen-alfred-humphries-1897-1943/ If anyone can help I would be eternally grateful. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Porter Posted 11 October , 2015 Share Posted 11 October , 2015 Hi Lisa, Welcome to the Forum. It is not going to be easy finding a photograph of him if there isn't one in the family. I can tell from his number L/37354 that he enlisted in the 174th (Deptford) Brigade RFA, in early June 1915. They were part of 39th Division and landed in France on March 4, 1916. From May 1916 batteries were re-organised within brigades and he might have moved to another one in the Division. Alternatively he could have been posted to the 39th Divisional Ammunition Column when they left Deptford for Aldershot in October 1915. His second number, 287606, tells me he re-enlisted in 1919 for between 1 and 4 years. As you know he deserted within the first year. I would say that in the first instance you should be looking for group photos of any battery in 174th Brigade RFA, particularly named groups which do crop up occasionally. You should also try more distant relatives as you may be surprised at what they have retained. I'm thinking his siblings or wife's family, if that is possible. You can find the movements of 39th Division here - http://www.1914-1918.net/39div.htm A downloadable history of the 39th Divisional Artillery is available here - https://archive.org/details/39thartillery00weibuoft Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaH Posted 11 October , 2015 Author Share Posted 11 October , 2015 Hi Lisa, Welcome to the Forum. It is not going to be easy finding a photograph of him if there isn't one in the family. I can tell from his number L/37354 that he enlisted in the 174th (Deptford) Brigade RFA, in early June 1915. They were part of 39th Division and landed in France on March 4, 1916. From May 1916 batteries were re-organised within brigades and he might have moved to another one in the Division. Alternatively he could have been posted to the 39th Divisional Ammunition Column when they left Deptford for Aldershot in October 1915. His second number, 287606, tells me he re-enlisted in 1919 for between 1 and 4 years. As you know he deserted within the first year. I would say that in the first instance you should be looking for group photos of any battery in 174th Brigade RFA, particularly named groups which do crop up occasionally. You should also try more distant relatives as you may be surprised at what they have retained. I'm thinking his siblings or wife's family, if that is possible. You can find the movements of 39th Division here - http://www.1914-1918.net/39div.htm Thanks for the reply. The funny thing is he didn't desert and that was something that I had to fight to have corrected. His wife was pregnant with my Grandmother and he changed his mind on the re-enlistment. He never had to rejoin and as a result went to work to support his family. There was missing paperwork somewhere along the line and the MoD gave me a letter saying he wasn't a deserter :-) He separated from his wife and he never remarried. She did remarry but never had children. The only surviving child was my grandmother and she never had a photo of him. He had a sister but she died a spinster so the line is totally dead sadly. As you say, perhaps something survives of his RFA divisional photos. Thank you so much as you have given me more info i never had :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Porter Posted 11 October , 2015 Share Posted 11 October , 2015 His Medal Index Card says he deserted on September 8, 1919. The pregnancy happened later as his intended wife was 7 months pregnant when getting married on June 20, 1920. Once he signed the re-enlistment attestation there could be no change of mind. There was a financial bonus attached for re-enlistment, the first installment of which was given straight away. It could be for 2, 3 or 4 years (no 1 year as previously mentioned). I don't know what the MOD would have told you so I maybe missing something here. I think the medals were finally issued to you because of ACI 75 of 1921, see - http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=114840 It is just possible he was not aware of the new instruction, or that he was wary of giving his present address, but his medals would have been re-instated in 1921. The Medal Roll and Cards were compiled in June 1920 and predate this instruction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyH Posted 11 October , 2015 Share Posted 11 October , 2015 Hello Lisa, and welcome to the Forum! And that's a really nice bit of research that you have done, well done. No-one has mentioned it yet, but in my opinion easily your best bet on finding a photo of him is in his local newspapers of the Great War period (Deptford or Petworth?) I have researched hundreds of local men and found newspaper photos for over half of them in the newspapers. There is no shortcut for you (unless someone on the Forum here has a database of the newspapers he may have been mentioned in) - you simply have to trawl through the newspapers at the local archives. If you are lucky they will have the actual newspapers to look at, and not just microfilm copies. His photograph may have been published when he enlisted, if he was wounded, anything - in short you need to go through about 3 or 4 years of newspapers. One thing I can promise you though is that if you find what you want you feel fantastic. You could try editing the title of this thread to include the newspapers that you want - eg "Deptford Advertiser? look up requested", or start another thread. Best of luck, BillyH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyH Posted 11 October , 2015 Share Posted 11 October , 2015 Incidentally, someone else has him on their Ancestry family tree, and they believe that he was killed as a result of injuries sustained in the Woolwich Arsenal Bombing. http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/tree/65379441/person/32135872751?ssrc=&ml_rpos=2 BillyH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaH Posted 11 October , 2015 Author Share Posted 11 October , 2015 He certainly never knew he had been branded a deserter as he mentions his RFA service openly on his raf files. That's how I found out he went from driver to Lance bombardier. The mod accepted my paperwork to show he was not at the address they thought he was at demobilisation hence agreeing that he wasn't address deserter :-) Billy thank you! Trawling through the papers isn't something I'm going to be able to do as I don't live any were near Deptford and I don't even know what the papers would be. Thst family tree is a family members tree and it's wrong lol. Based on guess work. Allyou. Research has the paperwork to back it up. Oh and I should say that my great granddad and his wife lied about their ages when they married. She was 16 and he was 19. She was also 4 months pregnant when they married. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacks Posted 4 August , 2017 Share Posted 4 August , 2017 hello It might be worth contacting Lewisham Archives and ask them if they could search the Kentish Mercury and see if there is an obituary and photo. https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/history/archives/Pages/default.aspx Jacks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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