Private 44278 Aubrey Hayward, Essex Regiment

[John French]

Private Hayward was born 4th Quarter 1899 and enlisted initially in the Bedfordshire Regiment as Private 44937 and later transferred to 11th Battalion, Essex Regiment and renumbered 44278.  He died in France on 12/10/1918 and received a minimum war gratuity if £3-0-0.

 

Please could someone provide an estimate of his enlistment date and embarkation date to France.  I would also appreciate a link to the 11th Essex war diaries for this period.

 

Is the Bedfordshire Regiment relevant (no family link) or is that just the location of a Young Soldier's Battalion, to which he was called up for basic training.

 

Finally, I cannot find a medal card for him via an Ancestry search.  Any help there appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

John

[DavidOwen]

Hi John

 

FMP lists his MIC under A W Hayward 44278 and Essex Regt. https://www.findmypast.co.uk/transcript?id=GBM%2FMCI%2F1804270

 

War diary for 11 Battalion Essex is at the National Archives, should also be available on Ancestry https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7352352

 

Regards

 

David

[PRC]

41 minutes ago, John French said:

Finally, I cannot find a medal card for him via an Ancestry search.  Any help there appreciated.

 

When in doubt I check the Discovery catalogue at the National Archive, particularly as the Essex Regiment Rolls are normally initials only. Thats confirms A W

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D2791057

 

Filtering the Military Search on Ancestry down to "Awards and Decorations of Honour" and then "British Army WW1 Medal Index Cards " brings up a list of likely matches which usually gives a visual clue as to why your search might have been unsuccessful - in this case the service number has been indexed as 4427(space)8.

This should be the link, (hopefully!)

https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=qEf8922&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&indiv=1&dbid=1262&gsfn=A&gsln=Hayward&gsfn_x=1&gsln_x=1&cp=11&gskw=44278 Essex&qh=iH1gECjzZCfkrzlPfdS8hA%3D%3D&new=1&rank=1&uidh=v3a&redir=false&gss=angs-d&pcat=39&fh=0&h=1705013&recoff=&ml_rpos=1

 

Hope that helps,

Peter

[John French]

Peter and David, thanks. I have now found the medal card and Essex Regiment Roll and also located the 11th Battalion war diaries from a previous thread.

 

Unfortunately I can find nothing between Private Hayward's (undated) enlistment at Saffron Walden and his death on 12/10/18.  I have tried to see if the soldiers with adjacent Essex Regiment serial numbers still had their service records, but nothing via Ancestry.  Does anyone have Bedfordshire Regiment rolls to see if that trick might work there?

 

Please could anyone throw further light on this soldier's war record?

 

Thanks

 

John

[sadbrewer]

From The Press and News 1919, a Cambridgeshire paper...courtesy of 

Findmypast newspaper archive

[DavidOwen]

John 

Try the Essex Regimental Museum they have been most helpful to me in researching a friend's relative https://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/museums/visit/essex-regiment-museum/

Regards

David

[jay dubaya]

Based on Aubrey's entry in the Register of Soldiers Effects the War Gratuity Calculator (courtesy of Craig) suggests an enlistment post 13th October 1917

 

J

[John French]

Thanks J, I think it is most likely that he was called up on his 18th birthday.  Register of births says Q4 1899, but as he was baptised on 25/2/1900 most likely to be December.

 

John

[Mark1959]

Not sure if this is your facebook post

https://www.facebook.com/365249387344551/posts/today-we-remember-private-aubrey-haywardaubrey-was-born-in-little-chesterford-in/405843703285119/

[John French]

Mark, I don't use Facebook, but I know the person who wrote this.  I am fact-checking her information before including it in our new publication Chesterford's Heroes.  As you can see from her Facebook post, she couldn't find anythnng on Private Hayward's war service either, hence my requests to GWF.

 

John

[Mark1959]

Had been trying to look at near Beds numbers to see if a pattern existed for enlistment date but they seem to be all over the place. 

[PRC]

On 23/07/2019 at 08:30, John French said:

Private Hayward was born 4th Quarter 1899 and enlisted initially in the Bedfordshire Regiment as Private 44937 and later transferred to 11th Battalion, Essex Regiment and renumbered 44278.  He died in France on 12/10/1918 and received a minimum war gratuity if £3-0-0.

 

Is the Bedfordshire Regiment relevant (no family link) or is that just the location of a Young Soldier's Battalion, to which he was called up for basic training.

 

 

If he was born in Q4 1899, the most likely scenario is that he would have become liable for National Service on reaching his 18th birthday and would most likely have reported within 2 to 3 weeks after that. He would normally have been held back from overseas service until his 19th birthday, but with the huge losses in the spring offensive of 1918 this was dropped to 18 ½ - an age he most likely he had reached.

 

In support of that we have the statement that he joined a Young Soldiers Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment, although I couldn’t find any supporting evidence for that statement in the resources available to me.

 

Soldiers Died in the Great War has the additional information that he was “formerly 44937 Bedfordshire Regiment”, (and records him as Aubrey Webb Hayward). The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website simply has him as A.W. Hayward with no age or additional information.

 

The enlistment date is going to implied by looking at the first unit he joined – which as far as we know was a home service battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment. That will make it very difficult to track through the likes of MiCs – at that stage of the war the chances that a man would end up fighting with a battalion of the same regiment as he had trained with in my experience was probably less than 50%. As the standing instruction was not to include details of UK only units on the Service Medal Roll, it’s already starting to look like an uphill struggle to identify men with nearby service numbers. While some regiments did include the UK service element you have other extremes like the Essex Regiment which doesn’t even include battalion(s) of that Regiment served with on the Victory Medal and British War Medal Service Medal.

 

In the absence of being able to identify individuals who joined the same training unit from surviving service records, the options come down to those “formerly XXXXXX, YYYY regiment” statements on SDGW, and whats on CWGC.

 

1 hour ago, Mark1959 said:

Had been trying to look at near Beds numbers to see if a pattern existed for enlistment date but they seem to be all over the place. 

 

Mark1959 has been trying to make sense of any patterns in Bedfordshire Regiment service numbers and hitting a brick wall. I suspect he has looked for MiC, Service Rolls and surviving Service Records.

 

I took a different approach – a wild card search “Bedfordshire Regiment” + “449*” on the CWGC database. I found the first two records offered in response potentially very illuminating.

 

They were:-

 

TR9/44975 Frederick Charles Newby, 53rd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. He died on the 14th January 1918 aged 18 and is buried at Wisbech (Mount Pleasant) Cemetery. The additional information is that he was the Son of George David and Emma Newby, of 17, Osborne Rd., Wisbech.

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2828884/newby,-frederick-charles/

NB – Sadbrewer found a death notice for Aubrey Webb Hayward in a Cambridgeshire Newspaper and here we have another Cambridgeshire man.

 

TR9/44988 Reginald Brie Peters, 52nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. He died on the 9th March 1918 aged 18 and is buried in Reigate Cemetery.  The additional information is that he was the Son of Robert and Kate Elizabeth Peters, of 87, Earlswood Rd., Earlswood.

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/400761/peters,-reginald-brie/

(I assume that’s Earlswood in Warwickshire?)

 

In the Civil Records the death of the 18 year old Frederick C Newby was registered in the Lichfield District of Staffordshire in Q1 1918. The death of the 18 year old Reginald B. Peters was registered in the same District in the same quarter.

 

My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that a young soldier reported to a unit, normally the 51st, but could be others, for his basic trainining of 12 - 16 weeks. So any one time there would be two tranches of men in the UK who had completed their training and were waiting to reach 19 and be sent overseas. They would go to the 52nd and 53rd Battalions, but take with them their service number from their first unit. Given that they were over 600 service numbers on from Aubrey I would suggest that they were one of the subsequent groups going through the training process.

 

The Long, Long Trail has some interesting notes on those three Graduated Battalions.

 

51st (Graduated) Battalion
Up to 26 October 1917, this was known as 249th Graduated Battalion and had no regimental affiliation. Before that it had been 25th Battalion of the Training Reserve and up to September 1916 had been the 10th (Reserve) Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment. A training unit based at Colchester, it was part of 212th Brigade in 71st Division. In February 1918 it went to 193rd Brigade of 64th (2nd Highland) Division: some sources suggest that it moved to Norfolk at this point but details from men’s service records show Brocton Camp in Staffordshire.

52nd (Graduated) Battalion
Up to 27 October 1917, this was known as 252nd Graduated Battalion and had no regimental affiliation. Before that it had been 26th Battalion of the Training Reserve and up to September 1916 had been the 10th (Reserve) Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. A training unit based at Colchester, it was part of 213th Brigade in 71st Division. In February 1918 it went to 193rd Brigade of 64th (2nd Highland) Division: some sources suggest that it moved to Norfolk at this point but details from men’s service records show Brocton Camp in Staffordshire.

53rd (Young Soldier) Battalion
Up to 27 October 1917, this was known as 27th Young Soldier Battalion and had no regimental affiliation. Before that it had been 10th (Reserve) Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment. A basic recruit training unit based at Clipstone Camp, it was part of 2nd Reserve Brigade. In early 1918 it moved to Cannock Chase.

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-british-infantry-regiments-of-1914-1918/bedfordshire-regiment/

 

So where did the prefix TR9, which I believe also applied to Aubrey Webb Hayward, come from. Which unit did he start with – was it the 9th Battalion of the Training Reserve?

 

Although it’s most likely Aubrey joined at the end of 1917 and so should have gone into the Graduated Battalion system, another page of the Long, Long Trail on the Training Reserve gives us the following units of the 6th Training Reserve Brigade who used the service number range beginning TR/9.

Battalion……Previously…………...Location…….Became in May 1917

25th                  10th Norfolks              Parkeston        219th Graduated

26th                  10th Suffolks               Harwich          252nd Graduated

27th                  10th Bedfords              Dovercourt      27th Young Soldier

28th                  8th Northants               Maidstone       245th Graduated

The 6th TR Brigade also absorbed the 9th Bedfordshire and 12th Essex Regiment

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/training-reserve/

 

Rather than writing war and peace, covering family and the time with the Essex Regiment, I’ll take a break there so that others can question my logic and pick the information above apart without us having too many queries on the go.

 

Hope that helps,

Peter

[clk]

Hi John,

 

 

Regards

Chris

[Guest]

7 hours ago, DavidOwen said:

John 

Try the Essex Regimental Museum they have been most helpful to me in researching a friend's relative https://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/museums/visit/essex-regiment-museum/

Regards

David

 

      David-  Could you  give us an update about Essex Regiment Museum and access ,if you have any? The last I knew it was all in boxes, the archivist had left and the replacement had only been there a week and had not peered into any boxes as yet.  Essex R. is a large group for me down at the "Smoke" end of Essex but Essex (and Royal Fusiliers) are 2 of the largest potential untapped sources about which I have got nowhere and know nothing.

[DavidOwen]

31 minutes ago, voltaire60 said:

 

      David-  Could you  give us an update about Essex Regiment Museum and access ,if you have any? The last I knew it was all in boxes, the archivist had left and the replacement had only been there a week and had not peered into any boxes as yet.  Essex R. is a large group for me down at the "Smoke" end of Essex but Essex (and Royal Fusiliers) are 2 of the largest potential untapped sources about which I have got nowhere and know nothing.

Certainly, I filled in a contact form and within a few days had an email from Peter Williamson (Chair of the Trustees I believe) which went into quite a bit of detail on the man I was researching some of which was brand new to me. He admits their "database" is not terrific but was very keen to assist if he could.

 

So worth a shot in the above case not certain what they may be able to offer if a lot of research has already been done.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, DavidOwen said:

Certainly, I filled in a contact form and within a few days had an email from Peter Williamson (Chair of the Trustees I believe) which went into quite a bit of detail on the man I was researching some of which was brand new to me. He admits their "database" is not terrific but was very keen to assist if he could.

 

So worth a shot in the above case not certain what they may be able to offer if a lot of research has already been done.

 

     May I ask how recent this was???    I have 18 Essex men-and a number of conundrums.(Conundra?)   I have been saving up trips to Chelmsford to get as much done before going to either them or ERO (let alone the Marconi memorial for one casualty).  

[DavidOwen]

Still in touch with him, my contact form was sent on 26th June and he replied on 30th. There was an automated response immediately (the form goes via Chelmsford Council) and someone from the Council replied to say the enquiry had been forwarded on 28th. A speedy response all round. 

[Guest]

Thank you David- I will try to venture eastwards.

[John French]

Thanks to everybody for your help.

 

Yesterday I wrote to Peter Williamson (who I previously met via the Royal Anglian Regiment office at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford) asking for his help.  I said:

 

"...he initially enlisted in the Bedfordshire Regiment and was probably transferred to 11th Essex after basic training.  He was born 4th quarter 1899 (baptised Feb 1900), so is unlikely to have gone to France before May 1918"

 

I think this is broadly in line with your estimates given my Dec 1899 birthday estimate (an earlier birthday would have resulted in a baptism in 1899). 

 

Peter, I have read your analysis of the Graduated Training Battalions - I assume you are suggesting a possible association with the late Private Newby's training schedule.  Both were from the Cambridge area (Great Chesterford is in North Essex and only 11 mile south of Cambridge), the 53rd Battalion was originally a Beds Regt. Reserve battalion and therefor could have been issuing Beds serial numbers.

 

Chris, thanks for your research (based on the Essex Regt. Medal Roll?) showing two soldier transferring to 11th Essex in early June.  I looked in 11th Essex war diaries around that date, but I could see no mention of new drafts arriving in June, even though they were off the line near st Omer from 7th to 12th June.  Anyway it looks like a likely transfer date for Private Hayward also.

 

John

 

 

[travers61]

In response to a small question posed on the record of TR9/44988 Reginald Brie Peters, 52nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. He died on the 9th March 1918 aged 18 and is buried in Reigate Cemetery.  The additional information is that he was the Son of Robert and Kate Elizabeth Peters, of 87, Earlswood Rd., Earlswood.

(I assume that’s Earlswood in Warwickshire?)

 

This Earlswood is in Surrey, just a few miles from Reigate.  I have been through it many times on the London-Brighton railway line.

 

[PRC]

2 hours ago, John French said:

 

I think this is broadly in line with your estimates given my Dec 1899 birthday estimate (an earlier birthday would have resulted in a baptism in 1899). 

 

 

Peter, I have read your analysis of the Graduated Training Battalions - I assume you are suggesting a possible association with the late Private Newby's training schedule.  Both were from the Cambridge area (Great Chesterford is in North Essex and only 11 mile south of Cambridge), the 53rd Battalion was originally a Beds Regt. Reserve battalion and therefor could have been issuing Beds serial numbers.

 

Chris, thanks for your research (based on the Essex Regt. Medal Roll?) showing two soldier transferring to 11th Essex in early June.  I looked in 11th Essex war diaries around that date, but I could see no mention of new drafts arriving in June, even though they were off the line near st Omer from 7th to 12th June.  Anyway it looks like a likely transfer date for Private Hayward also.

 

John

 

 

John,

 

What I am suggesting is that in all the cases in the table prepared by Chris where the SDGW column shows “Formerly 44xxx Bedfordshire Regt” that that service number is missing the prefix TR9/

 

Thus they were Training Reserve issued service numbers, not Bedfordshire Regiment issued ones.

 

The Unit that he did his basic training with may well have had Bedfordshire affiliations in the past, and if it was the 51st then it had again, but I normally have to go and lie down in a darkened room after trying to work out the convoluted history of Training Units – it gives me a headache

 

After they had finished basic training, my understanding is they moved on to other Training Units, for more advanced training to prepare them for modern combat and also to undergo specialist training until they reached an age where they could legally go overseas.

 

Meanwhile a new batch would come in for basic training. Amongst the subsequent batches that worked their way through the system after Aubreys’ time were the ones that included Privates Newby and Peters. Coming in later they had later service numbers in the same TR9/ batch.

 

One of your initial questions was “Is the Bedfordshire Regiment relevant (no family link)” and I merely cited the example of Private Newby, a Wisbech man, as there was already evidence for Aubrey Hayward that there was a family link to Cambridgeshire.  It could therefore be a possibility that was the connection. However I didn’t want to push it and it may be just as much a co-incidence as that there were two 18 year old Haywards who came in the batch of men who moved from the Bedfordshires to the Essex Regiment.

 

Looking at the above statements – baptisms usually took place in the first three months of life, but not always and there are very many wide differences. I would not think it wise to draw any inferences from the date of baptism other than that the child had to be born on that day or earlier.

 

Drafts posted to a battalion who arrived while the unit was in the front line might well be held in the lines with the battalion transport and cooks, etc. As these were usually behind or near the Battalion HQ, the Adjutant who maintained the diary may have had their minds on other things. Only when the battalion came out of the line would the new arrivals be filtered in.

 

In my experience changes to the strength of Battalions, usually in the form of an Appendix to the War Diary, is more likely to have survived in the Brigade War Diary than in the Battalion War Diary.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[John French]

Peter, your comments and caveats are noted.  I plan to go to the Essex Record Office next week and get either a sight of, or buy a copy of Private Hayward's birth certificate to tie-down his date of birth.  This should then confirm the earliest date of call-up (18 years) and embarkation (six months training as per the Military Service Act Extension of April 1918).

 

I searched for the 18th Brigade War diaries in National Archives Catalogue, but it only seems to refer you to the constituent battalion records, including 11th Essex - has anyone a link to the 18th Brigade war diaries or alternatively details of replacement drafts to 11th Essex between March and July 1918?

 

John

[PRC]

52 minutes ago, John French said:

Peter, your comments and caveats are noted.  I plan to go to the Essex Record Office next week and get either a sight of, or buy a copy of Private Hayward's birth certificate to tie-down his date of birth.  This should then confirm the earliest date of call-up (18 years) and embarkation (six months training as per the Military Service Act Extension of April 1918).

 

I would check with the Essex Records Office before you go as I don't believe County Archives hold Civil Birth Registers. They are more likely to refer you to the General Registrars Office website where you can buy a certificate. The GRO were trialling an option to get a reduced cost pdf version online for genealogy purposes only, so might be worth while checking to see if that is still going.

https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

 

What might well be at the County Records Office are the baptismal records and these may or may not also include a birth date, even if the online sources haven't included it in their transcription.

 

The familysearch website has his younger sister, along with a scan of the Register page, but she was baptised at Saffron Walden. Just in case there was an error I scolled back to the date for your man but drew a blank, so looks like you need the one for Little Chesterford.

 

What I had intended to add in my next post was the family background information:-

 

The birth of Aubrey Webb Hayward was registered with the Civil Authorities in the Saffron Walden District of Essex in the October to December quarter, (Q4), of 1899.

 

The baptism of Aubrey Webb Hayward, no date of birth transcribed and no online image of the baptismal register, took place at Little Chesterford, Essex on the 25th February 1900. Parents were Richard Webb Hayward and Priscilla Hayward.

Source: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJD4-QD95

 

Then, as now, you had 42 days after the birth to register the birth without incurring prosecution and a fine. If this is complied with then the child will appear in the quarter when it was registered, not when it was born. In Aubreys’ case that could mean his birth fell anytime between (circa) 15th August 1899 and the 31st December 1899. No dates from that period are ruled out by the date of his baptism or the ages shown on subsequent census.

 

               Options to track down a date of birth.

                                          Look for an announcement in the Births, Deaths and Marriages column of local newspapers.

                                          Check out the Parish Register at the County Archive, (after confirming they have a copy).

                                          Check for an online Ancestry Tree to see if any evidenced date of birth is shown.

                                          Purchase a copy of the birth certificate.

 

On the 1901 Census of England and Wales the 1 year old Aubrey Hayward, born Little Chesterford, Essex, was recorded living at the Crown Inn, Main Street, Little Chesterford. This was the household of his parents “Rich.”. (aged 39, a Beer Retailer and Carpenter, born Shady Camp(?), Cambridgeshire) and Priscilla, (aged 31, born Saffron Walden). Recorded as a visitor on the night of the census was a 62 year old widow, Emma Taylor, a retired Laundress from Wandsworth, London.

 

The family were still recorded at the Crown Inn at the time of the 1911 Census of England and Wales. Parents Richard, (47, Carpenter and Public House Keeper) and Priscilla, (41), have been married 12 years and have had 2 children, both then still alive and living with them them. They were Aubrey Webb, (11) and Dorothy Alice, (7) – both born Little Chesterford. Also recorded in the household was a 73 year old visitor, Emma Taylor, who is stated to have been born Saffron Walden.

 

A postcard picture of the Crown, Little Chesterford, which I suspect comes from the interwar years, can be seen here:-

https://pubwiki.co.uk/EssexPubs/LittleChesterford/crown.shtml

The same web-page has records for Richard Hayward as the landlord there between 1898 and 1917, with his immediate predecessor being Mrs. Martha Hayward.

 

Another website records the village as having had two pubs, but goes on to mention that the villages two “inns” and a number of other buildings were destroyed in a disasterous fire in April 1914. It includes a picture of the Crown after the fire. There are a number of young men looking on – who knows, one could even be Aubrey.

https://www.recordinguttlesfordhistory.org.uk/ltchesterford/littlechesterford.html

 

It might seem odd that in the list of men who served with the Essex are two men with the relatively uncommon surname Hayward, both of whom had transferred from the Bedfordshire Regiment.

 

44278 / 44937Aubrey we are already aware of, but I checked to see if he was related to 44279 / 44932 Harry Charles.

 

CWGC records that Harry Charles was 18 when he died on the 17th September 1918 serving with the 11th Battalion. He was the son of Mrs. C. Hayward, of 52, Holloway St., Hounslow, Middx.

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/1743509/hayward,-harry-charles/

 

On SDGW Aubrey Webb Hayward was born and resident Little Chesterford, and enlisted Saffron Walden. Harry Charles was born and resident Hounslow, and enlisted Westminster, Middlesex. On the 1911 Census of England and Wales the 11 year old Harry Hayward, born Hounslow, was recorded living at 52 Holloway Street, Hounslow. His father was Henry Hayward, (aged 59 and a General Labourer, born Windlesham, Surrey).

 

If the two are related in any way seems likely to be distant – as far as I can see the two deceased soldiers did not share a common paternal grandfather.

 

Hope that helps,

Peter

 

 

Edited 27 July , 2019 by PRC
Typo

[John French]

Peter, I am extremely grateful for your very thorough investigation into Aubrey Hayward.  You are right about the Essex Record Office - a local archivist suggested the original baptismal records there might have a date of birth - GRO is a fallback.

 

John

[clk]

Hi John,

 

7 hours ago, John French said:

I searched for the 18th Brigade War diaries in National Archives Catalogue, but it only seems to refer you to the constituent battalion records, including 11th Essex - has anyone a link to the 18th Brigade war diaries or alternatively details of replacement drafts to 11th Essex between March and July 1918?

 

At the National Archives it's here (July 1918 here), and on Ancestry March 1918 starts here.

 

Regards

Chris

Edited 27 July , 2019 by clk