Battlefield Burial Site: London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles)

[laughton]

For those that have an interest in the London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles), it would appear that there was a battalion burial site due north of Beaumont Hamel on the south east outskirts of Gommecourt  at 57d.K.5.c.0.6 (GPS: 50.1357, 2.6506). There are a number of men listed on the COG-BR documents in one area of the Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, but there may be more elsewhere with these coordinates.

 

This is the first COG-BR in that series that extends from 2113989 to 2113993. If you have not done this before, just put those numbers in this URL: (replace the 9's)

http://archive.cloud.cwgc.org/archive/doc/doc9999999.JPG

 

I did look up the Lance Corporal, but there are 12 on the Thiepval Memorial for 1st July 1916 alone.

 

There are a number on the sheet labelled Q.V.R. which I assume is a typo for Q.W.R. I am not sure if they are mixing up the "London Regiment" with the "London Rifle Brigade" as well.

 

I will watch for any other COG-BR documents with these coordinates.

 

Edited 15 December , 2017 by laughton
corrected regiment name

[Steven Broomfield]

'QVR' could refer to  Queen Victoria's Rifles (9th London), surely?

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear laughton,

The document is most poignant. 

To put faces on the Queen's Westminster Rifles of that time, I attach a picture of 1088 Cpl Boddy, S. M., 1/16th London Regt., and two of his QWR mates (who may or may not have survived), taken in France, 1915.

Cpl Boddy crossed to France with the QWR on 1 November 1914 (wounded on 17 June 1915). After convalescence, he was commissioned into a Training Bn. of the Surreys - and latterly joined the IARO and saw service on the North-West Frontier in 1918-19.

Kindest regards,

Kim.

[laughton]

13 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said:

'QVR' could refer to  Queen Victoria's Rifles (9th London), surely?

I would have to agree with that! Never trust a Canadian!

I could not find that until you mentioned the correct name.

I think I got lost when Regiments.org sent me back to the "King's Royal Rifles" affiliation.

[Steven Broomfield]

8 hours ago, laughton said:

 Never trust a Canadian!

 

 

I'd make an exception for a Toronto Jock.

[MBrockway]

Quote

There are a number on the sheet labelled Q.V.R. which I assume is a typo for Q.W.R. I am not sure if they are mixing up the "London Regiment" with the "London Rifle Brigade" as well.

 

Likewise, the London Rifle Brigade is also a constituent unit of the London Regiment (5th Londons)

Edited 14 December , 2017 by MBrockway

[MBrockway]

On 13/12/2017 at 10:59, laughton said:

For those that have an interest in the London Regiment (Queen's Own Westminster Rifles),

 

 

Delete "Own" - correct title is Queen's Westminster Rifles.  In 1914 they were 16th Londons.

 

This page should help you get your head around the battalions of the London Regiment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Regiment

 

 

[laughton]

Thanks .... I have removed the "Own".

 

If you use the CWGC site and look under "Queen's" you do find "London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles)" the but you do not find "London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles)". The Q.V.R. only shows up if you search starting with "Queen".

 

There seems to be a terminology issue with the CWGC web site. I can't recall if that was in the old version of the site as well.

 

If you go to the box that says "REGIMENT", then the entry should be "LONDON REGIMENT", which returns 9,584 records. I randomly picked one and got:

 

Private LEA, SYDNEY

Service Number 3035

Died 25/09/1915

1st/19th Bn. 
London Regiment

 

If I go to Chris's site for the London Regiment I see: 1/9th (County of London) Battalion (Queen Victoria’s Rifles)

 

Which brings me to the question as to what should it correctly say on the CWGC site for Private Lea?

 

If you look up the fellow in the first line of the COG-BR in the first post to this topic you do not find him if you search within that group of 9,584 records. To retrieve the record for Edward's #4246 you must delete the "LONDON REGIMENT" and then it appears as:

 

Rifleman EDWARDS, C G A

Service Number 4246

Died 01/07/1916

Aged 25

16th Bn. 
London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles)

 

Which is on Chris's site for the London Regiment as: 1/16th (County of London) Battalion (Queen’s Westminster Rifles) 

 

Should not both of these men show up under the "LONDON REGIMENT" on the CWGC site?

 

We are dealing with a similar issue with our Canadian lads, as the CWGC uses the terminology "CANADIAN INFANTRY" for the box "REGIMENT". There is no regiment called "Canadian Infantry". If you search that you get 44,609 records, one of which was in the Second World War? There is a host of alternatives if you just start with "CANADIAN", one of which is "CANADIAN ARMY" which returns only one (1) record for Major General Mercer who was killed in action while commanding the 3rd Canadian Division. There was no CANADIAN ARMY in the First World War, only the CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE. We can even find 21 men if we look at the "CANADIAN CORPS".

 

If you were a student and trying to find the name of the Major General that was killed in action in the Canadian Infantry, you would not arrive at Major General Mercer but rather at Major General Hemming, the only one listed. He died in Canada in January 1919 from cancer and his casualty card is stamped "Not Eligible for Treatment as a War Grave". His Service Record is somewhat mute on the point as to whether he ever served outside of Canada. His record lists him as a Brigadier General, Canadian Permanent Force.

 

Our attempt to sort this out for the CEFSG ORGANIZATION was not a clear cut task. What we arrived at was:

 

Contrary to popular belief, there was no "Canadian Army" in the Great War of 1914-1921. The Canadian forces served under the British Army and in fact was allocated to a number of the British Armies, depending on where their resources were needed. For example, during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the Canadian Army Corps served under the British 3rd Army to the north of the main Battle of Arras.

The Canadian 1st Army Corps consisted of the 1st to 4th Divisions. Later in the war there were plans to form the 5th and 6th Divisions as part of the 2nd Canadian Army Corps. These units, other than the 5th Divisional Artillery, were folded while still in England. Had the 2nd Army Corp formed, then there could have been a "Canadian Army' but that never came to be in the Great War.

 

The vast majority of the infantry served in the numbered battalions of the 4 Canadian Divisions. Although they may have formed from a Militia Regiment, they did not serve under that name. For example, the largest component of the 15th Battalion (1st Division, 3rd Infantry Brigade) came from the 48th Highlanders of Canada, the militia regiment. The permanent force of the ROYAL CANADIAN REGIMENT did keep their name, serving in the 3rd Canadian Division, 7th Infantry Brigade. They were initially on Garrison Duty in Bermuda at the start of the war. Also in that brigade was the PRINCESS PATRICIA'S CANADIAN LIGHT INFANTRY, which was not a permanent unit at the start of the war, but remains to this day in that capacity. They first served in Belgium under the British 27th Division, 80th Brigade, long before the formation of the 3rd Canadian Division (see Chris's note here).

 

The other "named" units made up the 8th Infantry Brigade of the 3rd Canadian Division, when the CANADIAN MOUNTED RIFLES were dismounted to form Infantry Battalions. On the CWGC site you will find them under "REGIMENTS" not under "UNITS", which is where you find all the other Canadian infantry battalions. If you search "CANADIAN MOUNTED RIFLES" you find only 14 casualties on the CWGC site. One is Private Montgomery #116024 who appears there because the CWGC does not have his designation as "2nd CANADIAN MOUNTED RIFLES", which is a separate search term. If you look for him there in his correct unit, his name does not appear. To be corrected, all the Canadian "BATTALIONS" listed in the CWGC drop down menu, named or numbered, have to be removed and put under "UNIT".

 

Is this problem also an issue with the many British Regiments, Divisions, Brigades, etc.? Then, how do we best get these fixed?

[MBrockway]

From my own experience I fear you are being very optimistic if you are expecting the CWGC website to be consistent in its naming of units and the values to be 100% error free!  It is an order of magnitude better than the indexing on Ancestry however

 

Re Private LEA, SYDNEY, 1st/19th London Regiment, you would not expect to find him listed under QVR as 19th Londons was the St Pancras battalion, not the QVR.

 

Quote

If you use the CWGC site and look under "Queen's" you do find "London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles)" the but you do not find "London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles)". The Q.V.R. only shows up if you search starting with "Queen".

 

 

You will not find QVR in the drop-down list for Regiment if you pre-fill it with "queen's" as the software interprets the apostrophe in "queen's" as significant (which of course it is) and will therefore ignore the QVR since this has no apostrophe.  If you use the term 'queen' you'll get both battalions, but also many other non-LR units that include the term  

 

If then choose 'London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles)'as Regiment, you will also MISS any men from the battalion that the CWGC has recorded undifferentiated merely as 'LONDON REGIMENT'.

 

Be aware also that a CWGC search on 'LONDON REGIMENT' will only find the men the CWGC has tagged as 'LONDON REGIMENT' pure and simple - all the other men in the database with variants e.g. ' London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles)' will be missing from your results despite the fact that any sane person would expect to see them included.  As far as I can see this happens regardless of whether you tick the box marked 'Match terms exactly' or not.  As far as I can see, the "new improved" CWGC website has no functionality to use wildcards in the Regiment search term box nor does there appear to be any facility do select multiple rows from the Regiments dropdown.  If any other Pal has cracked how to do that, please sing out!

 

You could perhaps contact the CWGC and ask them specifically how one should build a search that needs to return in one search operation all men with Regiment = "London Regiment" OR Regiment = "London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles), but don't hold your breath.

 

You could run two searches - #1 for 'London Regiment'.  #2 for 'London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles)'. Download both sets of results as CSVs and then merge them, but your resulting recordset will include a large number of LR men who were NOT in the QVR.  Some of these can be weeded out using the values in Secondary Unit (aka 'unitshipsquadron' in the CSV), but that's a lot of manual faffing and for an uncertain outcome.  A two file collate with 'London Regiment' results from SDGW might work, but you'd need to repeat it for the officers.

 

You were probably better off using Geoff''s Search Engine and console yourself that unlike us poor sods this side of the water, your taxes have not paid for this "new improved" CWGC website .

 

Rant over!

Mark

 

[laughton]

22 hours ago, MBrockway said:

You were probably better off using Geoff''s Search Engine and console yourself that unlike us poor sods this side of the water, your taxes have not paid for this "new improved" CWGC website

Granted, we pay less, but we do pay a commonwealth share of about 10%. It is all based on the number of graves.

See here: https://www.cwgc.org/about-us/how-we-are-funded

[MBrockway]

My apologies - one might have guessed that the costs would be spread that way given our shared suffering