RNVR/RND attestation query

[daggers]

I am trying to link J.E. Gadsby, who is named on a memorial in Liverpool, with Joseph Edmund Gadsby who is named on Boots the Chemists memorial to retail staff, and on a memorial in Kirkby in Ashfield, Notts.  

The Boots man was in the RNVR from 1917 and died of wounds in France.  I found a service record on Findmypast but it does not state where he attested/enlisted, giving former occupation as chemist assistant. 

Is this information likely to be available anywhere please?

D

 

[horatio2]

Good news and bad news, I'm afraid. His original enlistment/enrolment papers (and other papers e.g. AFB103) are in the archive of the Fleet Air Arm Museum (FAAM) and these will show where and when he enlisted. The bad news is that both the naval records research and the general enquiry services, long operated by the FAAM, have been shut down with immediate effect for at least 18 months by the parent National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN).

[seaJane]

40 minutes ago, horatio2 said:

. The bad news is that both the naval records research and the general enquiry services, long operated by the FAAM, have been shut down with immediate effect for at least 18 months by the parent National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN).

What?? Speechless. What's happened to the staff?

[daggers]

In 18 months I will probably have forgotten who I am, let alone an unfortunate AB,

Thanks for the good part of the news, anyway.

D

[PRC]

So WW1 Naval Casualties has him born 25th September 1898 at Hasland, Chesterfield, Derbyshire and the next of kin informed of his death was his father, Joseph T Gadsby, of 88 Diamond Avenue, East Kirby, Notts.

 

On the 1901 Census of England and Wales the 2 year old Joseph E Gadsby, born Chesterfield, Derbyshire, was recorded living at one of the Saunders Houses, Storforth Lane, Hasland Road, Hasland, Chesterfield. This was the household of his parents, Joseph T. Gadsby, (aged 30, Railway Engine Driver, born Chesterfield) and Ada M. Gadsby, (aged 26, born Riddings, Derbyshire). As well as Joseph the couple have a five year old son Herbert J. Gadsby, born South Wyston, Leicestershire.

 

By the time of the 1911 Census the family were living at Portland Road, Selston, Nottinghamshire. Father Joseph Turner Gadsby, (40) is now recorded as a Loco Engine Driver at a Colliery. He and wife Ada Mary, (35), have been married 17 years and have had 3 children, all then still alive.

These were:-

Herbert James Gadsby……aged 15…born Wigston, Leicesteshire

(No occupation shown so presumably still at school)

Joseph Edmund Gadsby….aged 12….born Chesterfield, Derbyshire

Marjorie Gadsby…………aged 7……born Hasland, Derbyshire.

 

Likely marriage of parents – Joseph Turner Gadsby to Ada Mary Hemmington, Blaby District of Leicestershire, Q3, 1893.

 

No likely additional children recorded in England and Wales post the census in April 1911, so the family can’t be tracked that way.

 

Joseph T. Gadsby died in the Basford District of Nottinghamshire in Q4 of 1951. Ada M. Gadsby died in the same District in Q4 of 1953.

 

Obviously there are gaps between the 1911 census and his death in 1918, and grand parents haven’t been accounted for, but it would appear nothing there to connect this young man or his family to Liverpool.

 

Which part of Liverpool is the J E Gadsby remembered in – it may be easier to start from that end to try and establish a link or suggest an alternative.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[daggers]

Thank you, Peter.

it is a curious memorial, now in a former BL club, to members of a Cadet battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment.  Nobody has come up with any background history or provenance of the plaque - see my earlier queries in the memorials and soldiers sections.

Gadsby is one of the few to evade discovery and you have got most of what I have.

I contacted Boots in Nottingham, as he is on the retail section of the company’s memorial, but they could not say if he had worked in Liverpool before joining the RNVR in 1917.  I have found nothing in Liverpool to tie the two but there do not seem to be other candidates...so far.

Daggers

[Lawryleslie]

2 hours ago, seaJane said:

What?? Speechless. What's happened to the staff?

That’s awful such helpful and knowledgable staff helped me immensely in finding my own Grandfather’s RNVR Records. I believe most of the staff were volunteers seaJane.

[seaJane]

I have known the main librarian/archivist for some years, and she certainly is professionally qualified and with much knowledge and experience.

 

I may of course be over-reacting, and this may be a temporary pause to accommodate re-modelling and

reorganisation of the library/research space (which isn't 100% ideal, I can say, having been there). 

 

Hoping for the best.

 

 

 

Edited 2 January , 2019 by seaJane
Clarification

[horatio2]

Your guess seems to be close to the mark, sJ. I have just found this amazingly long-winded (and not particularly convincing) explanation on the FAAM website:-

https://www.fleetairarm.com/naval-aviation-research.aspx

The statement "we have put in place a number of ways you can still get the information you need." seems to be a very long way from the reality of the new situation. No new avenues are opened.

That said, this NMRN business has taken us well away from daggers' topic so I shall cease transmission on the subject.

Edited 2 January , 2019 by horatio2

[PRC]

2 hours ago, daggers said:

it is a curious memorial, now in a former BL club, to members of a Cadet battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment.  Nobody has come up with any background history or provenance of the plaque - see my earlier queries in the memorials and soldiers sections.

Gadsby is one of the few to evade discovery and you have got most of what I have.

 

May be a Red Herring, but the National Archive\FindMyPast websites lists a John Gadsby in the Merchant Seaman records 1918-1941 as born Liverpool, Lancashire on the 20th June 1901. He worked as a Fireman. There are entries for March 1919 (“113489”) and March 1920 (“S.seewq”(?)), but I don’t know what they mean. There is no physical details or description, and no next of kin details. The FMP document includes his ID picture.

 

I checked the birth records for England and Wales and the only potential match in Q2/Q3 of 1901 is a John Edward Gadsby whose birth was registered in the West Derby District in the July to September quarter, (Q3), of 1901. Given that you had 42 days after the event to register the birth, the dob and the quarter of registration are not uncompatible.

 

I couldn’t track down a mothers’ maiden name for him.

 

There is no matching death in England and Wales. No match on the 1939 National Register.

There is however the death in Liverpool in Q4 1971 of a John Edward Gadsby who was stated to have been born 19th August 1901. Once again no likely match for that man on the 1939 Register. He could of course have been the man whose birth was registered in Q3 of 1901 in West Derby, but then that leaves you with no birth match for the Merchant Seaman!

 

Given the absence of next of kin details on the Merchants Seamans’ records I went back to the 1911 census of England & Wales. I’d previously discounted the three J. Gadsbys recorded with a Liverpool connection – 2 x John, aged 9 and 1 x Jane, aged 8, as too young to have served.  One of those 9 year old Johns was recorded as an in-patient at the Children’s Convalescent Home, Meols Drive. West Kirby. That seems to have been set up to rescue children from the afflictions associated with poverty and included both a hospital and a school. It’s a bit of a leap to assume the merchant seaman and the childrens’ home patient were one and the same but would make sense.

 

He doesn’t appear on the 1915 Crew List website run by the National Maritime Museum but was probably a bit too young at that point.

 

So it may not be the man and potentially he was alive until at least March 1920. Over the years I’ve come across all kinds of anomalies in the CWGC recording of merchant seaman’s deaths, (or not). I suspect this is one of the areas where the records the Imperial War Commission inherited when it was set up was particularly weak. As one of the newspaper reports in your thread on the 5th Cadet Battalion talked of not only the cadets going into the army but also going to sea I thought it was at least worth flagging this man up.

 

Hope that helps,

Peter

 

[daggers]

Peter

I happened to open this up in the night and find it very interesting - many thanks for your efforts.  I'll have more time later when I have taken the car for service +MoT.

D

[daggers]

Following the FAA Museum lead, I went to the TNA and downloaded the two-page record of J E Gadsby, but it is only what I saw on FMP, and includes no place of joining-up.

As for the other possibles, I shall have to return to them as I have started coughing and need something more than a dram to sort it out.

Back tomorrow, I hope.

D

[daggers]

Peter

Returning to the hunt after some coughing etc., I should have thanked you much sooner for your ferreting in search of JE Gadsby.  Your possibles are worthy of more detailed research and I shall be looking into them later.  Thanks also to the other contributors for useful material.

Meanwhile, the man on the Boots memorial cannot be positively linked to Liverpool and I am relucantly leaving him out [for now].

 

Daggers