Promoted while suffering neurasthenia

[Skipman]

A Lieutenant I'm researching was home on sick leave with pleurisy 3/9/1915, then diagnosed neurasthenia soon after. He was promoted to Captain in October 1915 and did not go overseas until October 1916. Just wondering if promoting a man suffering neurasthenia was common, and might this additional responsibility have exacerbated his condition?

 

Mike

[ss002d6252]

4 minutes ago, Skipman said:

A Lieutenant I'm researching was home on sick leave with pleurisy 3/9/1915, then diagnosed neurasthenia soon after. He was promoted to Captain in October 1915 and did not go overseas until October 1916. Just wondering if promoting a man suffering neurasthenia was common, and might this additional responsibility have exacerbated his condition?

 

Mike

It may have been a technical point where he was next in line for promotion ? I'd assume whilst he was sick it was just effectively a paper exercise and he had no real duties at that rank until passed fully fit again.

Craig

Edited 13 September , 2017 by ss002d6252

[Guest]

1 minute ago, ss002d6252 said:

It may have been a technical point where he was next in line for promotion ?

Craig

 

So if an officer was in line to be promoted, nothing would alter that?

 

Mike

[ss002d6252]

18 minutes ago, Skipman said:

 

So if an officer was in line to be promoted, nothing would alter that?

 

Mike

Not specifically with regards to illness as far as I know Mike but I'll take a look a the KR's and see what they add.

Craig

[ss002d6252]

Looking at the KR it looks like it (at least partially) depended on if he had been placed on half pay or not



Craig

[Guest]

Thanks again Craig. The officer is actually Captain John Currie Lauder, son of Harry. I should maybe have looked at the London Gazette first.

 

10/8/1915 (two days before leaving unit) The 8th (The Argyllshire) Battalion,   Princess Louise's (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders); the undermentioned Lieutenants to be temporary Captains: John C Lauder. Dated  26th May, 1915. Click

 

Mike

[ss002d6252]

23 minutes ago, Skipman said:

Thanks again Craig. The officer is actually Captain John Currie Lauder, son of Harry. I should maybe have looked at the London Gazette first.

 

10/8/1915 (two days before leaving unit) The 8th (The Argyllshire) Battalion,   Princess Louise's (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders); the undermentioned Lieutenants to be temporary Captains: John C Lauder. Dated  26th May, 1915. Click

 

Mike

So the October date was it being made substantive ?

Craig

[Guest]

On 13/09/2017 at 21:47, ss002d6252 said:

So the October date was it being made substantive ?

Craig

 

Yes. The attached  is from his service record, in a letter written in reply to a relative's request in 1987.

 

[ss002d6252]

1 minute ago, Skipman said:

 

Yes. The attached  is from his service record, in a letter written in reply to a relative's request in 1987.

 

Mike

Looks like you've got to the bottom of it.

Craig

[Guest]

I think so, and thanks again for your help. interesting that he suffered from neurasthenia, had not heard of that before.

 

Mike

[ss002d6252]

2 minutes ago, Skipman said:

I think so, and thanks again for your help. interesting that he suffered from neurasthenia, had not heard of that before.

 

Mike

No problem Mike, always happy to help where I can.

 

Craig

[Guest]

  Just as an afterthought- I have an officer who was commissioned up after shell shock but served successfully until his death from influenza in 1919.-Captain William Alexander Macdonald. Wounded and shellshocked as a Sergeant with the London Scottish in late 1914. Commissioned into RAOC and spent rest of time as an ordnance officer near Stirling, 

   Lauder's case is a little unusual in that he went back to frontline service- but there again, his family circumstances made all of his service slightly out of the ordinary. Just how many men with neurasthenia,etc were retained but transferred to back-area jobs where they could still function effectively is something little considered.

[ss002d6252]

 Just as an afterthought- I have an officer who was commissioned up after shell shock but served successfully until his death from influenza in 1919.-Captain William Alexander Macdonald. Wounded and shellshocked as a Sergeant with the London Scottish in late 1914. Commissioned into RAOC and spent rest of time as an ordnance officer near Stirling, 

   Lauder's case is a little unusual in that he went back to frontline service- but there again, his family circumstances made all of his service slightly out of the ordinary. Just how many men with neurasthenia,etc were retained but transferred to back-area jobs where they could still function effectively is something little considered.

I suspect a lot of the men in back-end jobs were actually those who'd been to the front and were no longer medically fit. I think at times there's a (wrong) view that men in the back-end jobs were shirking or hiding.

Craig