Help identifying regiment of this soldier

[tony nixon]

I wonder if anybody can identify the regiment of this solder ?

 

Thanks

[ss002d6252]

Looks like a Canadian badge but there quite a few battalions with similar shaped badges.

Any idea who the man might be ?

Craig

[CorporalPunishment]

I think it is the Canadian Machine Gun Battalion. It looks like the pattern of CMGB badge with the crossed machine guns backed by a maple leaf.   Pete.

[asanewt]

A good magnifier on the shoulder title may clinch it. Apology for tampering.

Edited 15 March , 2019 by asanewt

[FROGSMILE]

I agree that it does look like a Canadian Machine Gun Corps soldier.

 

Edited 15 March , 2019 by FROGSMILE

[tony nixon]

Wow I didn,t expect such a quick response.

The man is from Manchester. Could he have been asigned to a canadian regiment?

Also I wonder why he is not wearing a cap and has a collar badge.

[FROGSMILE]

41 minutes ago, tony nixon said:

Wow I didn,t expect such a quick response.

The man is from Manchester. Could he have been asigned to a canadian regiment?

Also I wonder why he is not wearing a cap and has a collar badge.

 

It is a Canadian pattern jacket (usually exchanged once in France for a British one) and the Canadian units invariably wore a collar badge, whereas it was not generally the British practice to do so (although a very few (relatively) units did). 

 

At the time of WW1 relatively large numbers of British born men served in the Dominion units, often because they had recently emigrated and then war had been declared.  Many enlisted where they were and then were shipped back to Britain as part of Dominion expeditionary forces staging and establishing bases before onward deployment to the seat of the war.

 

His hat (forage cap) is merely out of sight.

Edited 15 March , 2019 by FROGSMILE

[tullybrone]

Hi,

 

If you have a name for him you ought to be able to find his Canadian service papers via this link - 

 

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/search.aspx

 

Steve

[tony nixon]

Hi

Thanks Tullybrone I tried the link but he is not listed there.

 

Frogsmile you have really suprised me that was not what i expected. Are you saying that men were enlisted to the CMGC directly in England as well as from recent imigrants?

I will fill in a few details. The man is John Thomas Reynolds born 1885 in Hulme Manchester. He married in 1906 and had children in 1907,1909,1911 and 1913,his next was born in 1919 all in Hulme Manchester. He died in 1938 living in the same house he was living at the time of the 1911 census. It is possible he was in Canada between 1913 and 1914 so I need to search the emigration records next week. On his marriage certificate he gives his occupation as carter and on the 1911 census as engine driver (construction) so i think he had horse and internal combustion engine skills. Would these have been particularly usefull to a machine gun corps.

 

Thanks

Tony nixon

[ss002d6252]

17 minutes ago, tony nixon said:

Hi

Thanks Tullybrone I tried the link but he is not listed there.

 

Frogsmile you have really suprised me that was not what i expected. Are you saying that men were enlisted to the CMGC directly in England as well as from recent imigrants?

I will fill in a few details. The man is John Thomas Reynolds born 1885 in Hulme Manchester. He married in 1906 and had children in 1907,1909,1911 and 1913,his next was born in 1919 all in Hulme Manchester. He died in 1938 living in the same house he was living at the time of the 1911 census. It is possible he was in Canada between 1913 and 1914 so I need to search the emigration records next week. On his marriage certificate he gives his occupation as carter and on the 1911 census as engine driver (construction) so i think he had horse and internal combustion engine skills. Would these have been particularly usefull to a machine gun corps.

 

Thanks

Tony nixon

 

As far as I'm aware the Canadian service records are 100% surviving so if you can't find him then it would suggest that either the picture is not him or he used different details to enlist.

 

Craig

[tullybrone]

Hi,

 

There are some cases of British citizens enlisting in CEF in England (better rates of pay then in British Army) but most enlisted in Canada. In either case the service records should be available via LAC in Ottawa.

 

You might want to look in the immigration records on Ancestry/FMP for Canadian records. I can see several John Reynolds born 1885 arriving in Canada by sea 1911/12.

 

Steve

[FROGSMILE]

5 hours ago, tony nixon said:

Hi

Thanks Tullybrone I tried the link but he is not listed there.

 

Frogsmile you have really suprised me that was not what i expected. Are you saying that men were enlisted to the CMGC directly in England as well as from recent imigrants?

I will fill in a few details. The man is John Thomas Reynolds born 1885 in Hulme Manchester. He married in 1906 and had children in 1907,1909,1911 and 1913,his next was born in 1919 all in Hulme Manchester. He died in 1938 living in the same house he was living at the time of the 1911 census. It is possible he was in Canada between 1913 and 1914 so I need to search the emigration records next week. On his marriage certificate he gives his occupation as carter and on the 1911 census as engine driver (construction) so i think he had horse and internal combustion engine skills. Would these have been particularly usefull to a machine gun corps.

 

Thanks

Tony nixon

 

Tony, I’m fairly sure that he must have been in Canada at the time of his enlistment.  He could not have joined the Canadian forces directly in Britain unless he had a tie via relatives, or some other strong association, although I imagine that there might have been a few exceptions/evaders of the norm, just as there always is in the fog of war.  Someone can always pull strings, but it would have been unusual.

 

The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was a new corps formed in 1916 by combining the medium machine gun (MMG) ‘sections’ that existed in each infantry battalion and cavalry regiment and then commencing recruitment directly.  

 

In the static warfare that became entrenched at that time the MMG became the Queen of the battlefield and enabled sectors of the front line to be defended by fewer men with interlocking arcs of fire.  

 

The Dominion forces quickly followed suit and the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans all formed their own MGC in emulation.  

 

There were three elements of the MGC, motorised, infantry and cavalry.  By the wars end it was one of the largest corps in the British Army, even exclusive of the Dominion equivalents.  

 

A man with mechanical skills would have been extremely useful given the fast moving working parts of machine guns.  The MGC were progressive and meritocratic and it even formed a Heavy Branch later in the war that evolved to become the Tank Corps (later the Royal Tank Regiment).  

 

Despite this the MGC as a whole was disbanded in 1922.  It was born of total war and seen by hidebound senior officers with vested interests in the pre-war status quo as unsuitable for peace time soldiering.  The Dominions, too, in most cases disbanded their own MGCs at a similar time. Everyone was exhausted by war and wanted to retrench.  As always there was a strong lobby to preserve the ‘traditional’ forces at the expense of the new.

Edited 16 March , 2019 by FROGSMILE

[Waggoner]

Tony,

 

He does not appear in the CEF records under this name. Could ha have used an alias?

 

All the best,

 

Gary

[tony nixon]

Thank you all for your help. I am going to have to go back to my sources and check that the image is who I think it is.

Thanks again.

Tony Nixon

[FROGSMILE]

10 hours ago, tony nixon said:

Thank you all for your help. I am going to have to go back to my sources and check that the image is who I think it is.

Thanks again.

Tony Nixon

 

They look like brother and sister, Tony if that’s any help.  The similarity of their facial features (eyes especially) is striking.

Edited 17 March , 2019 by FROGSMILE