ARMY COUNCIL ORDERS- TRANSFERS OF DRAFTS

[Derek Black]

   Mark-thank you very much indeed for all of this-  You have now got me going with that postcard,which I do not know-BUT as I I have lived in London for over 40 years and went to Uni. in the centre,that picture is irritating the living daylights out of me because I just about recognise it- I think it may be the north side of Shaftesbury Avenue between Charing Cross Road and New Oxford Street- a site now)or recently occupied by Trust House Forte. There again,it might be hopelessly wrong. The theatre poster (left of Oxo) should be able to date it if enlarged.-Which I will give a go- If I can get an angle on the name on the pen shopthen PO LOndon Directory should give an answer

The middle poster says "Russia 1915".

Plus there's possibly "112 Picadilly" on some of the posters at the top?

 

[MBrockway]

   Mark-thank you very much indeed for all of this-  You have now got me going with that postcard,which I do not know-BUT as I I have lived in London for over 40 years and went to Uni. in the centre,that picture is irritating the living daylights out of me because I just about recognise it- I think it may be the north side of Shaftesbury Avenue between Charing Cross Road and New Oxford Street- a site now)or recently occupied by Trust House Forte. There again,it might be hopelessly wrong. The theatre poster (left of Oxo) should be able to date it if enlarged.-Which I will give a go- If I can get an angle on the name on the pen shopthen PO LOndon Directory should give an answer

I also spent ages in Kelly's etc. looking for pen shops & stationers!

 

That said, I was focussing on Kingsway and Aldwych, as for some reason I got it into my head that 20/KRRC were at Somerset House, not Devonshire House.  It took me six years to spot that error!  See the other post.

 

I think I got my wires crossed by a famous story about Capt Francis 'Gasper' Parish, KRRC who was the Adjutant of the CSR, commandeering an omnibus in the Strand on the first day of the War.  The CSR were at Somerset House!

 

Incidentally there are better resolution versions of this postcard elsewhere if you are going to zoom in.

 

[Guest]

    The 3 stripling trees suggest that the road scheme is relatively recent- say,within 10 years of 1914. But the pen shop is a much older building,that is propped up by buttresses on the side nearer to us - which suggests one of the big improvement schemes is underway and incomplete.. The road also appears to be "Denver Blocks" and in good condition- and the road-I may be wrong-appears to curve very slightly - Thus, I think, not Piccadilly. If it is Devonshire HOuse,then it could be coming eastwards down Curzon Street. The big road schemes of the Edwardian era might be a clue- but the older building suggests an older road line,ergo not Kingsway,Southampton Row. It could possibly be on the northern curve of the Aldwych, by Houghton Street and the LSE.Should be a note in some paper somewhere

    The empty space in the foreground is a puzzle- it might just be Rosebery Avenue heading north from Clerkenwell Road-and the space would be the bridge over the lower streets-possible if the KRRC was marching to, say, Kings Cross.

    No success in trying for contemporary accounts????  Should be a note of it somewhere- I note my old college holds a run of the British Empire League's journal,which may be the best hope.

    A copy of the image on Ebay says it was from November 1915- Believe me,postcard collectors are obsessive- I see them at bookfairs every month.

[johnboy]

Some mention of BEL. Just general street names.

 

 

[Guest]

johnboy- a completely odd question- and nothing to do with the original posting of this thread- You have an interest in horse racing???   This is not a political point-against Forum policy-but just curiosity-An elderly Irish friend (Roscommon) -and no stranger to the bookies, tells me that no true Irishman-by which he means Republican- would ever patronise William Hill- As the original William Hill was a "Black and Tan". True or folk myth??

    Mike

[johnboy]

Don't know.  I am English

 

Going back to topic. sort of, the BEL are reported in papers of the time as recruiting for battalions other than KRRC.

Edited 6 November , 2016 by johnboy

[MBrockway]

johnboy- a completely odd question- and nothing to do with the original posting of this thread- You have an interest in horse racing???   This is not a political point-against Forum policy-but just curiosity-An elderly Irish friend (Roscommon) -and no stranger to the bookies, tells me that no true Irishman-by which he means Republican- would ever patronise William Hill- As the original William Hill was a "Black and Tan". True or folk myth??

Definitely off topic, definitely political ("no true Irishman-by which he means Republican"!!!!), definitely post Great War, and probably better raised as a new topic in Skindles if you genuinely want this discussed ... but put your tin hat on before you post

 

 

[MBrockway]

1 hour ago, johnboy said:

Don't know.  I am English

 

Going back to topic. sort of, the BEL are reported in papers of the time as recruiting for battalions other than KRRC.

 

I'd be interested in any leads in that area johnboy  - PM sent.

[Guest]

   Not intended to be political- I remember Julian Putkowski tellling me years ago that a chunk of the personnel records of the Black and Tans had turned up,I think,in Liverpool. And its part of this wider view for both world wars, that they are a series of inter-related wars and that although both have formal and usually accepted end dates -11 Nov 1918, and VE Day, for instance, that merely meant the end of the major war,while consequent or subsidiary wars continued. Its as AJP Taylor remarked-how wars begin is a well-trodden path ,how they end is problematic. Arguably, the greatest strategic and logistic problems faced by Britain were post =11/11/18- diminishing resources, multiple problems, a variety of awkward opponents not obliging enough to sign a bit of paper and stop.As Blackadder says in one of the episodes, 3 million heavily armed Germans coming over the horizon at you doesnt give a lot of choice.So in one sense, 14-18 was dictated by the actions of our major enemy-after that ,the odds and sods go on for years. The British army involvement in Ireland may be controversial as recent politics but a century back its all part and parcel of the "war". In the context of that larger war, Ireland-without the veneer of later politics-is of interest- how does a heavily armed state control or deal with an alienated population? How does military rule in wartime over civilian populations play out in practice? (Answer seems to be everyone gets brutalised)-  Comparative history is a sexy process in History in recent years-thus,say,a comparison of British military responses over an uncooperative chunk of Ireland bears contrast, say with German military rule in occupied Belgium and Northern France-It interests me not on a political basis but as family history and the experiences of older members of my family now passed- Our only casualty of the First War was Irish and killed serving (RDF) in the British Army during the Easter Rising.. My ex-wife's family are/were French from Sedan, occupied in both wars-I still have memories of the very old members of her family recounting the German invasion of 1914 when they were children-and the very oldest could recount her parents talking of the Emperor Napoleon III in 1870,as they lived close to the "Cottage of the Last Bullet".

     So my apologies if inadvertently considered political- Not intended.We still live with the consequences of the war and how it is remembered,how it is memorialised and affects our current world is a subject that fascinates me.For instance, the casualties of the Sengenhydd Pit Disaster in South Wales just before the war are rightly (in my political view) remembered-but my local area,Wanstead, suffered a loss of men killed during the war which is all but forgotten- Why should this be? Why should the loss of young men suddenly and violently be remembered more by one route than another?  So,yes,you are right in that every act of remembrance,including our researches, is "political" in one sense-but I do it to better understand  how my world is as it is (well,at least have a go at reducing the ignorance)

[MBrockway]

Not denying any of that   but this topic has already morphed from a a request for AOs and ACIs covering transfers, into a general Wanstead RoH topic peppered with Rifles SN esoterica.  Diverse, but still held together by a thin thread of relevance.

 

IMHO though, Black & Tans, racing and William Hill are better suited to being started off in a new fresh topic in Skindles.

 

You should do this: the debate there will be very energetic and stimulating and you could well end up with another worthwhile topic.

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

[Guest]

   Thanks Mark- Im genuinely not into day-to-day politics.  But I do like History and how it shapes us. As it is,its so miserable out there that I abandoned going to do some extra academic work.  My longer term project-as opposed to being asked to do Wanstead for the centenary is on  London as the focus of Empire 1850-1914-the groups,companies,associations etc-So the KRRC link with the British Empire League is just outside my remit but near enough to make me want to look at what British Empire League stuff there is - and the other references to the Volunteer League of the British Empire is,again,likely to be out of time but I will give it a go during this week.

    And yes, that photo of KRRC on the London streets is still really,really bugging me.

[kevinrowlinson]

15 hours ago, MBrockway said:

 

That said, I was focussing on Kingsway and Aldwych, as for some reason I got it into my head that 20/KRRC were at Somerset House, not Devonshire House.  It took me six years to spot that error!  See the other post.

 

I think I got my wires crossed by a famous story about Capt Francis 'Gasper' Parish, KRRC who was the Adjutant of the CSR, commandeering an omnibus in the Strand on the first day of the War.  The CSR were at Somerset House!

 

 

Somerset or Devonshire House, according to mens records they were approved at Norfolk House, Laurence Pountney Hill, certainly into 1916. Perhaps that was just the HQ, but I do not know.

 

 

Kevin

 

[johnboy]

From what I have seen HQ was Norfolk House.

[MBrockway]

Yes - I can confirm battalion HQ was at Norfolk House, Lawrence Pountney Hill.  Just behind Cannon St Station.  It was the HQ of the BEL.

 

The British Empire League is not well known nowadays a century or more past its heyday, even bysomeone who is academically studying "London as the focus of Empire", but back then it was A BIG NOISE.

 

Here's a list of the committee and patrons (also the Office address is confirmed at the bottom) some of whom may still be familiar today

 

 

[MBrockway]

Norfolk House lay on the south side of Lawrence Pountney Hill where the eastern half of the Prudential's Governor's House offices sit now.

 

It was immediately south of the lovely surviving 17th Century merchant's house now known as Rectory House.

 

Not much space to drill two battalions! 

[Guest]

      Mark- One small query that might as well come in here, re. the background to 20KRRC and the British Empire League- This seems to have formed up in the second half of 1915.  I have 2 local casualties, both officers killed later in the war, who were local but came back from South Africa/Rhodesia in mid-1915 to volunteer. One had been in the Rhodesia Regiment,the other in a Natal regiment ( a third  casualty stayed and was commissioned into the Northern Rhodesia Police, killed in German East)   All were involved in the Union Rebellion of 1914 and Botha's campaig in German South West-which was effectively over by July 1915,when the regiments were stood down. Given the British Empire League promotion of an extra KRRC battalion ,would you know off-hand if there is any particular South African presence in it????    Just a small query based on your knowledge about  KRRC  but I suspect a few of the new officers in KRRC in the latter part of 1915 had come back-and there may be a slightly stronger representation in this particular battalion,given its origins

[MBrockway]

A good number of Rhodesians enlisted into the KRRC, but mostly into 2/KRRC and 3/KRRC.  The officers were scattered more randomly across the 60th's battalions.  Many had already served in Africa.  They quickly built up a reputation as excellent scout snipers.  I have also come across South Africans.

 

I'm not sure what you're actually asking me to check for you?

 

What are the names of the two officers you mention and were they in the KRRC?

 

I think you might be getting confused about the British Empire League battalions - they were not set up as battalions for men from the Empire.  The majority of the original establishment of both battalions were from London, mainly the East End, with large groups from Somerset and County Durham.

 

20/KRRC as a Pioneer battalion, did have a number of officers with mining engineer backgrounds.  IIRC, some of these may have returned from mines/prospecting in the Empire.

 

I have a lot of information about the Rhodesian elements.  If you could be clearer about what you are after, I can probably help.

 

Mark

 

[Guest]

Mark-It was a speculation that there might be some connection between the BEL's keenness to promote a 20 KRRC and the availability of Rhodesians/South Africans from July 1915- My 2 are not KRRC .

    As it is, I have to come into BL on FRiday,so have ordered up 1914,1915 and 1916 of the British Empire Review to see a bit more about this.

 

     So,nothing to look up. But Thanks.  And that picture............

[MBrockway]

Mark-It was a speculation that there might be some connection between the BEL's keenness to promote a 20 KRRC and the availability of Rhodesians/South Africans from July 1915

   ..

On 07/11/2016 at 17:05, MBrockway said:

I think you might be getting confused about the British Empire League battalions - they were not set up as battalions for men from the Empire. 

 

No connection.

[Guest]

   No, not at all- I am well aware that  this is not a matter of fitting Empire men in  specifically. I am not into the history of Empire units -whether Dominion or Colonial, official or individual. Its just that , having raised a small niggle of interest during our discourse on this Forum, I thought I would look up the BEL stuff-which is currently closer to you than me and has to be shipped down to London from Boston Spa. On my other interests, I am still in the 1860s-1870s as regards Empire groups and activities in London but BEL and KRRC covers the margins of 2 areas of interest-thus, irresistible!!

    Yes, it is a small deviation-but,hey,one of the joys of doing History as you push on through life is that you are not bound by examinations or hurdles- if something is of interest, then run with it. One of the nicest things about having been a bookseller in central London was the enthusiasm that people have for their subjects, the more so when not force fed for some school or university curriculum but picked up through sheer serendipity further on in life (eg the chap we had who was a British Gas engineer but greatly interested in the history of gas and water mains-coming into my shop with a large chunk of blackened,rotten, dripping wet  wood retrieved 20 or so feet down a utilities excavation in the Euston Road-it was a hollowed out tree trunk,which was the method of original piping before metal pipes came-the chap was a s happy as if he had just won the Eurolottery)

     One of the smaller sidelights I can run with is how individuals responded to the war,using the examples of men from the local area coming back from other parts of the Empire-Dont get me wrong,Im no current-day flag- wagger but quite what pulled men to come back from overseas and fight in the war is a subject of fascination- on another thread on this Forum,I am currently in discourse with a pleasant fellow in Canada,the great grandson of a naval casualty of 1915,who had paid his own passage back at the beginning of the war to sign up for RNR. Another had come back from managing a tin mine in the back end of Nigeria, yet another had been established  for nearly 25 years as a rancher in British Columbia. And again, the local Press here picked up on 3 Jamaicans who had stowed away to come and enlist . To take the sub-title of a good book of military history (You can work out which one), it is a story of "obsolete patriotism" 

    So,20 KRRC may be a bit of a sideline -and British Empire Review may throw up nothing of interest- but I have the time and interest to do it. And if that fellow up in Cheshire with a strong interest in KRRC may get a smidgin of minor information, then the world goes round and everyone is ahead.

[MBrockway]

I wasn't talking about the BEL material in the BL.  That will be most interesting. 

 

I was concerned that you were assuming Rhodesians were posted to 17th & 20th KRRC because the British Empire League had raised those battalions and such men were from The Empire.

 

This was not the case.

 

Interesting section on Victorian Slum on the box earlier tonight about the 1906 General Election Liberal landslide and Free Trade vs protectionist tariffs.  Very much what the BEL was interested in.  Also eerily pertinent to today's circumstances!

 

If you have JSTOR access there is some interesting material available there.

[Guest]

   Mark-plenty of stuff out there- just need my life over again to look at it !!. I havent watched much of Victorian Slum-if it was realistic then one of them would be dead with diptheria, Scarlet Fever,etc!!  (As Mike Harding said-do you really want the "good old days"? Typhoid,smallpox,rickets,etc.

   What I was taken with was the Ch.4 repeat of the stuff on army message films from Burma, based on a stock of them found up your way in Manchester. I found that particularly moving- Ordinary Mancunian accents somehow individualises that war in a way that hits you in the face. Its where History meets common humanity- If you know the book by Paul Fussell "The Great War and Modern Memory", then just look to see the dedication and you will always read what Fussell-a distinguished Eng.Lit. academic critic- in a different way

[MBrockway]

   Mark-plenty of stuff out there- just need my life over again to look at it !!. I havent watched much of Victorian Slum-if it was realistic then one of them would be dead with diptheria, Scarlet Fever,etc!!  (As Mike Harding said-do you really want the "good old days"? Typhoid,smallpox,rickets,etc.

   What I was taken with was the Ch.4 repeat of the stuff on army message films from Burma, based on a stock of them found up your way in Manchester. I found that particularly moving- Ordinary Mancunian accents somehow individualises that war in a way that hits you in the face. Its where History meets common humanity- If you know the book by Paul Fussell "The Great War and Modern Memory", then just look to see the dedication and you will always read what Fussell-a distinguished Eng.Lit. academic critic- in a different way

I wasn't recommending or endorsing Victorian Slum.  Not my kind of thing at all, I just landed on it while channel hopping just when they were discussing the free trade vs protectionist issues relevant to the BEL.  Not exactly sure what is the thesis of your Empire work, but the 1906 General Election centred on the trade debate and its impact on jobs and the economy.  When you get to see the papers, preferential trade terms within the Empire was a major area of debate within the BEL.  The 1906 election is likely to be worth reading around for your study.

 

I saw the WW2 "messages home" - major lump in throat for me

 

I know the Fussell book very well - I cite it often here.  My MA is in English Lang & Lit.  Also know the dedication to his Tech Sgt.  Don't understand your point about reading it in a different way though?

[Guest]

   Mark- re Fussell. Fussell was a minor league Eng. Lit. academic- some small amount of early product on some obscure areas (18th Lit?)- but what shaped him more than the American academic production line was his service as an infantry officer in WW2.  Thus, what he writes is tempered through the prism of his own experiences- rather than just pure academic research- his later book on travellers doent quite work that well for that reason.

      What borught me into History as a kid (I am 62) was growing up on the outskirts of Plymouth (A Hoorah for Plympton) as the City rebuilt after WW2. Some of my earliest memories are of the reconstruction-eg Woolworths in Devonport was a couple of old Nissan huts. My dads family were local and his only sibling, an uncle live 4 doors away in the same street.Their had been a family of 5 at the beginning of WW2- Father,Mother,2 sons and a daughter. By the cruelties of war, all 3 men served and survived (Grandfather was a time-expired CPO, RN- recalled at Munich and served North Atlantic escorts, Uncle was a toolmaker in the naval dockyard,transferred to the Clyde,Dad served as an airborne signaller with 1 Airborne)-the 2 women were killed in the first of the big German raids on Plymouth in 1941-a bomb hit the air-raid shelter they were in- their house was untouched.

     Now, again when young I began to like History-Mum bought me some of the stapled booklets that Wooldowrths used to sell on  various bits of British history-You may remember them-full of little line drawings. And I noticed that there had been a lot of wars (Civil,Jenkins Ear,Seven Yeas,Napoleonic,etc,etc,etc). Yet the adults often spoke about "THE WAR" -and I thought-how do they know which one??  And it dawned on me c.8-10 that there had bee a huge recent war which had affected everyone's lives of their generation.As I grew up and did History at Uni.,then taught it for 10 years, I resolved that through my lifetime I would watch how "The War" changed- as new information came to light,as attitudes changed, as the veterans passed on. Some of my earliest memories are of this phoenomenon,which continues to fascinate me- that little things-often only marginally recorded can make all the difference to how we view things,or how those involved were affected - eg

a) When young a distant relative would have a traditional Christmas party- all the men wore Tweed jackets, shirt+tie, polished lace shoes,pressed trousers-they had all done their service. And there would be a barrel of Bass in the back room where the men would congregate an leave the womenfolk to natter- And glasses of beer would be poured for all (I got ginger beer) but I have a strong memory that the men would be strangely quiet and subdued while this was done- It was because ,in a navy town, the first words when everyone had their glass in hands, would be my distant Uncle Norman raising the glass and proposing  "Absent Friends"  And just in that moment, the quiet and the look on the faces of them all, all the anguish and toil of those years would be with them just for a moment. Its a very strong memory and one that stays with me always- Treaties may come and go, surrenders and battles won may fade but wars continue in the memories and minds of those involved.

   2)  Quite often, in miscellaneous reading, a little story turns up that alters one's perspective- One of the books of oral history that came out for D-Day had a snippedt of oral history from here in the east of London- a woman who was a late teenage girl in 1994 and on 6th June 1944, she and a friend were watching the endless trucks going into the sealed areas of the docks,who were the reinforcements for the days after D-Day-And how she and her friend were cadging cigarettes off passing smokers so that they could give some cigarettes to those soldiers when their trucks were stopped at traffic lights.    Or again, a little memoir by a man from Kentish Town, wounded as a teenager and on crutches when he got back-His father took him to a local pub to celebrate his return -the lad was old enough to be wounded in action but had never been of age to go into a pub- It was a small pub and cramped-yet 3 old ladies round a small pub table (The local Ena Sharples and co.) got up to make way for him to sit down as a wounded man. Stuff like that is worth a thousand volumes of staff  or divisional histories.

     So I read and look out for these small indicators of the enduring effects of war- the elderly chap,still alive but failing-over 90) - who for decades walked in a very upright way- Why? Called up into the Scots Guards-and his upright gait drilled into him at Pirbright. Or my Uncle- When his mother and sister were killed,he was one of the firewatchers called to help dig out the shelter they were in- the following morning he got back to the family home (Packington Street,Devonport-to find that his mother had already-as usual - left his working boots cleaned for him to go off to work in the Dockyard. He was a strong man and in later years, in the management at Devonport, would come up to London-but even the sight of pairs of shoes left for cleaning outside a hotel room would reduce him to tears.

     Thats where the History of all of this stuff lies- My local poet Charles Causley (RN,WW2)- read his poem on the British War Cemetery at Bayeux-one of the finest pieces of war poetry) has a line in one of his poems about matelots in the streets of Devonport-" Never forget said the one to the other, the deeds we have done and the sights we have seen"

   Apologies for the spiel on this one- With "my" local casualties it is small things that bring individuality,hence some of my daft questions which you and others and so good-hearted and helpful in answering- such as Captain John Calder,LRB, killed in action in 1918,a local teacher in peacetime from a large family of hard-working Scottish teachers-6 of a family of 7 worked for the Leyton School Board-  He was noted for his attention to his men, mostly local, and always encouraging to those who were his former pupils. When he died,there were stories that his last act was to give his own flask of hot coffee to another wounded man who was a former pupli and crying out in  pain for water as he had been shot in the jaw. The cynic says that this was an exaggerated story-but when you see the letters in his officers file at Kew that show this was true then thats where History brings a lump to my throat and it all become real.

[Guest]

    Mark- a reading of "British Empire Review" for 1914-1915 throws up little information- the outlook of the British Empire League is clear but, generally, it sought to raise units where men could service who had already seen service and had medals to show for it. The magazine inlcudes 2 full page ads (small folio) for 17th and 20th KRRC which I have photographed and will e-mail over to you when downloaded The general story is:

BRITISH  EMPIRE LEAGUE- 2^ND KING EDWARDS HORSE,  39 DIV. AMMUNITION COLUMN, RFA  17^TH AND 20^TH KRRC

 

     The British Empire League in August 1914 offered to raise a cavalry regiment, a divisional ammunition column and infantry.  The War Office authorised the raising of  2^nd  King Edwards Horse after approval by Lord Kitchener-“the clothing, equipment and men for the regiment shall be provided by private effort” The War Office authorised  a Committee of Administration, which was headed by the Duke of Sutherland. The Earl of Lonsdale became Hon.Col. And Lt.Col. Montague Cradock, the CO. The unit was formed up at the WhiteCity, with lodging and messing paid for by the Earl of Lonsdale. Sir Robert Harvey then placed Langley Park, Slough at its disposal, with the unit remaining there under canvas until it moved to the Cavalry Barracks at Hounslow. It was passed fit for service on 4^th November 1914 by General Milner, having previously been unofficially inspected by Lord Roberts and Sir Robert Baden-Powell. It was sent to France on 4^th May 1915, where it served as an infantry unit. The BEL raised £17,000 to equip the regiment, with the exception of horses-the equipment paid for included ambulances, wagons and “maxim guns”(ie machine guns)

     On 15^th February 1915, the BEL Committee offered to the War Office to raise  39^th (British Empire League) Div. Ammunition Column, RFA, after which the Secretary, C.Francis Murray,  had an interview with Lord Belfield at the War Office. The unit was authorised by letter from B.B.Cubitt, War Office (reference WO No20/General Number 3670 (AG1 of 14^th January 1915)  Murray’s son, a Captain became Adjutant of the regiment. Lord Cowdray granted use of his estate at Paddockhurst, Surrey for quartering while forming up. A recruiting rally was held at WandsworthTown Hall on 27^th March 1915. Following this, the Army Council authorised the formation of  17 KRRC. With the consent of the Duke of Devonshire, recruits were drilled at Devonshire House and special arrangements were put in place to allow friends to serve together. Enlistment could be made at either BEL headquarters in Laurence Pountney Hill or at Devonshire House. On 30^th June 1915, BEL received a letter of thanks from Lord Kitchener. Arrangements were made to move the unit to Paddockhurst but on a different part of the estate.

    At a meeting of the BEL Executive Committee on 11^th June 1915, the committee agreed to inform the War Office that, if desired, the BEL would raise another battalion when 17^th KRRC was completed. The army took over 17^th KRRC on 4^th August 1915, with  the War Office writing to the BEL Secretary  “I am to add that its success on active service will largely depend rest on the maximum of your efforts to keep the depot companies constantly up to establishment with men in every way fit for service in the field” The Bel began recruiting for a service battalion, advertising for “men used to pick and shovel,as well as artisans of all ddescriptions”