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Remembered Today:

Lt Charles Tyerman Taylor


Perth Digger

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I am seeking information on what happened to Taylor on 24 August 1914 at Elouges. He is not mentioned in the War Diary and there is no surviving Personal File. His remains were exhumed from a German grave after the war and identified by a tobacco pouch. He is now buried in Romeries Com Cem Ext. He came from Bootle, the son of a wealthy timber merchant.

 

Thanks

 

Mike

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Thanks, JP. It is quite unusual for a Red Cross card on a missing soldier not to have some reference to outcomes (usually stamped Negatif). There is nothing on Taylor's card. Presumably no information was received about him at all.

 

He was reported missing on GHQ's 4 September List, but on 3 December he was reported as an "officer previously reported missing now reported not missing". His unfortunate parents had to inform the local Liverpool newspaper the next day that there was no corroboration of this. His remains were not identified until late 1920. In 1921 his father, having had a stroke, founded the Charles Tyerman Taylor Memorial Scholarship to fund three university scholarships. In 2008 this trust fund was dissolved and combined with others to form a Sefton Education and Learning Fund. I wonder if his name has now disappeared or whether the local authority continues to recognise that the scholarship was a war memorial? 

 

An In Memoriam notice was placed in the local newspaper on the thirtieth anniversary of his death in 1944, presumably by one of his siblings.

 

I still cannot find any information on exactly what happened to him.

 

I've just downloaded Burnett's History of the 18th Hussars and it has a paragraph explaining Taylor's disappearance, so that answers my question. Burnett does write, however, that Taylor went missing on the 25th.

 

Mike

 

Edited by Perth Digger
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6 hours ago, Perth Digger said:

 

I've just downloaded Burnett's History of the 18th Hussars and it has a paragraph explaining Taylor's disappearance, so that answers my question. Burnett does write, however, that Taylor went missing on the 25th.

 

Mike

 

 

Another couple of discrepancies over dates of death.

 

Burnett states (August 24th - Chapter III, page 20):

All the troops reached cover but Sergeant Sutherland, Corporal O'Melia and two others were wounded ....... Corporal O'Melia died that day and we learnt later -from the Germans-  that Sergeant Sutherland had died on the 25th.

 

CWGC:

Lance Corporal A O'Melia     23 August 

Serjeant A N Sutherland        24 August

https://www.cwgc.org/find/find-war-dead/results?regiment=18th%2B(Queen%2BMary%27s%2BOwn)%2BHussars&dateFrom=23-08-1914&dateTo=27-08-1914

 

PS  I really should have carried on reading Burnett's Memoirs of the 18th Hussars yesterday and then I could have told you about Lt Taylor's disappearance, Chapter IV. :blush:

 

JP

Edited by helpjpl
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No reason to blush, JP I should have remembered the book before starting this thread. 

 

When there was uncertainty over the date of death of a missing man, the decision was left to the MiIitary Secretary at the War Office. He usually chose the earlier date. Without an officer's file, as in Taylor's case, there is no way to check, apart, perhaps, from finding the 1st Casualty List he was on. I should have that somewhere. If GHQ said he was missing on the 24th, then that would be the official date. But as mentioned above, GHQ stuffed up later as well.

 

Thanks for your help, JP.

 

Mike

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