Was this the Officers' School of Instruction, Zeitoun?

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear All,

In Septemer 1917, near Cairo, their 25th MMG Bty having been declared unfit for War, 96305 Sergt. A. Kelly, and 96335 Cpl. H. Corbett, joined the Indian Army Reserve of Officers (IARO).

Both were obliged to undertake a Course of Instruction, probably at Zeitoun, near Cairo. 

The attached photos show a group of Officers, including the newly-minted Second Lieutenants Kelly and Corbett. These two are shown as inserts, as well as Alfred Kelly's 1919 engagement to Norah (possibly Henry Corbett's sister), and their 1920 wedding. A post-Great War Frontier group including Henry Corbett is also shown, as are his medals...

The question to GWF aficionados: does the group show the Zeidoun school? The front row, with dogs, etc., were probably Instructors, but at least some of those standing seem to have been long-commissioned - and there is an Other Rank in the back row...

Kindest regards,

Kim.

[FROGSMILE]

It certainly has the appearance of an officers’ school to me Kim, with permanent staff seated at the front just as you suggested.  Other than an officers’ mess, or formation HQ staff you wouldn’t see that many officers being photographed in a group setting were it not a school for officers.

Edited 13 July , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Thanks for responding so kindly.

What do you make of the Other Rank in the back row, fifth from the right?

Incidentally, I followed Alfred Kelly through the Indian Army lists and from the IARO he was accepted into the Indian Army on 3 Dec 1919. His last appointment (Jan 1922 IA List) was attd 72nd Punjabis, but with Supply & Transport Corps. By the Apr 1923 IA List he had disappeared...

Kindest regards,

Kim.

Edited 13 July , 2020 by Kimberley John Lindsay

[headgardener]

I have to say that the group shot doesn’t look like Zeitoun to me. It looks much more like a group shot of Indian Army  officers - either a unit or depot photo, or something similar. Course photos at Zeitoun had a particular format in my experience - taken head-on, in front of the school entrance(?) (which comprised 3 archways, the School’s officer staff were seated in the centre of the front row with OR staff seated in front of them. The students looked more obviously a mixed bunch and were typically dressed in shirt-sleeve order.

Also, I got the impression that Zeitoun was not in any way like Sandhurst, and the training they undertook was more in the way of a School Of Instruction.

Here’s a shot of a course at Zeitoun in 1917:

 

[headgardener]

Also, I’ve just noticed that your group photo looks post-War (a couple of senior officers and men look like they’re wearing BWM&VM ribbons. So much more likely to be India or Mespot, I’d have thought.

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear headgardner,

1) Many thanks for your helpful reply/contribution: worthy and typical of the wealth of GWF expertise!

2) Yes, I tend to agree that the Officer (plus one O.R. in the back!) group is probably not Zeitoun, where Corbett and Kelly were elevated from Sgt/Cpl RA to 2Lts IARO...

3) I also agree that it could well be a depot photo, perhaps in India, as you suggested.

4) A couple of the senior Officers are wearing single ribbons - I cannot discern any BWM/Victory ribbon pairs, however.

5) Finally, my profound thanks for kindly sharing the highly interesting Zeitoun group. Super!

Kindest regards,

Kim.

[HarryBrook]

Kim,

 

Lt. Alfred Kelly retired on 1 October 1922 https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/32784/page/143 (the heading is on page 142).

 

[FROGSMILE]

7 hours ago, Kimberley John Lindsay said:

Thanks for responding so kindly.

What do you make of the Other Rank in the back row, fifth from the right?

Incidentally, I followed Alfred Kelly through the Indian Army lists and from the IARO he was accepted into the Indian Army on 3 Dec 1919. His last appointment (Jan 1922 IA List) was attd 72nd Punjabis, but with Supply & Transport Corps. By the Apr 1923 IA List he had disappeared...

Kindest regards,

Kim.

It might well not be Zeitoun (I am unfamiliar with the place), but I don’t think that it shows an Indian unit’s officers.  There are a range of different insignia and hackles on the helmets of the permanent staff, so it suggests a training school of some kind, of which there were several including, e.g. a Northern and Southern Musketry Schools, and Signals training Schools  Indian units had far fewer British commissioned officers than British Regular Army equivalents.  The lone other rank that you identified appears immaculate even from a distance and I can only think that he ‘might’ be a motor vehicle driver or senior officer’s batman. Most servants of Indian officers were of course native, but if a British Army officer were part of the group he might take his man with him.

Edited 13 July , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[headgardener]

27 minutes ago, Kimberley John Lindsay said:

4) A couple of the senior Officers are wearing single ribbons - I cannot discern any BWM/Victory ribbon pairs, however.

 

Hi Kim - looking at the group of signallers, I’d say the officer and the Signaller sitting cross legged on the R of the photo are wearing BW&VM ribbons, and the signal sergeant sitting on the L of the officer is wearing 14 or 15 star trio ribbons. Same with some in the other groups, though hard to be sure exactly what the ribbons are.

[headgardener]

Btw, I seem to recall that Zeitoun was in what became Palestine and is now situated in part of the Gaza Strip. I think it was also transliterated by the British as ‘Zaytoun’.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, headgardener said:

Btw, I seem to recall that Zeitoun was in what became Palestine and is now situated in part of the Gaza Strip. I think it was also transliterated by the British as ‘Zaytoun’.

 Hmm-Thought Zeitoun was a suburb of Cairo. But there is more than one.

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear All, and headgardner,

Zeitoun was near Cairo. 

Sure, in the ca. 1919 Signal Platoon group (Corbett was an A/Capt), they are wearing BWM and Victory ribbons (one upside-down!). This is not the case with the much earlier Officer group (Corbett was a 2Lt), whereby only single ribbons can be discerned. 

Such is the Great War Forum, to scratch our collective heads about such Military minutae - and why not?

Kindest regards,

Kim.

Dear Harry,

Many thanks for the Kelly retirement, whereby a Gratuity and Norah probably proved irresistable! Kim.

 

Edited 13 July , 2020 by Kimberley John Lindsay

[headgardener]

 Hmm-Thought Zeitoun was a suburb of Cairo. But there is more than one.

 

Yes, I think you’re right and my original source was wrong. There appears to be a suburb of Gaza with the same name, but I now see that there was a British & Commonwealth Military camp at Zeitoun which was at the time described as a village on the outskirts of Cairo. Thanks for the correction.

[Guest]

If you google on Zeitoun,Egypt then an entry about it should come up from a site called "Digger History" -Some good pictures of Australians there.  I only suspected as much because I have a local casualty who attended the officer course there in late 1916-he was killed in Feb. 1917  with the Essex Regiment during the advance into Gaza. It is also worth remembering that- evidenced by the Gaza Battles of 1917-that the term "Gaza" was a lot wider then than the narrow coastal strip of latter years. Effectively, Gaza was the whole area south of Jerusalem down to Sinai-including much of present day Jordan

 

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear All,

Thanks for that.

The way to a Commission took many avenues...!

Kindest regards,

Kim.

[Guest]

KJM- There may be a little bit of good news  for you. The situation with "commissioning up" in the Middle East  was somewhat varied.  I have 2 local casualties that suggest that remoteness and distance from either the staff colleges/OCUs in the UK, or the equivalents for the Indian Army, local measures applied.  One casualty, I.R.C.Morris was doing static duties in 1915 in Egypt with the Hertforshire Yeomanry- He was a Lancastrian and selected on that basis for a commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers, folliwng their heavy losses at Gallipoli. He was interviewed by a local Brigadier then sent"on approval" to the regiment (hold his fork correctly, dont spit on the Mess floor,etc). Another candidtate with him was rejected by the regiment.

   The second is down your way- Jack Stanley Brasell, 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps- A Pom, he had emigrated to Melbourne in 1911, volunteered for AIF, served Gallipoli, etc. He was commissioned up ,again locally in Egypt. Subsequently killed in action near Beersheba after a dogfight in 1917. His officer file here at Kew throws up a small glitch- he was accidentally gazetted into the Royal Flying Corps-it seems that 50 Australians had shortly before been commissioned into the RFC- Both the Australian military (we want our best men) and the RFC(we are not paying for another bl***dy Australian) objected. Curiously, Brasell has not only his Anzac service file but also a British officer file at Kew.

   Thus- and I hope you know this already- there is a British officer file at The National Archives,Kew for this man-who appears to be one of your chaps:Happy to go and look, if the current pandemic eases off and before the next one rolls in 

 

 

  

[headgardener]

Just to add a further complication, there may also be an IA or IARO file in the British Library’s India Office Collection.

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear Mike,

It's KJL, actually.

Many thanks for such fascinating background information. Morris and Brasell were the unlucky ones...

Yes, I got the impression that the commissions of Kelly and Corbett (whose medal I hold) via Zeitoun into the Indian Army Reserve of Officers were very much of the "local measures" variety. Having said that, both were obviously of the type required, and made the most of their elevated status - Kelly even being accepted into the regular Indian Army, which no doubt paid off when he retired in 1922...

When TNA re-opens on 21 July, I would be thrilled to bits if you would cue up at the Kelly Officer file desk for me, please!

Kindest regards,

Kim.

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear All, and headgardner,

Indeed, A. Kelly breaking all records for Officer files here, there, and everywhere (the IARO papers possibly being spliced into the IA ones).

Usually one finds that files are missing! On the other hand, I have found that oftentimes certain people are well-documented. Corbett's Other Rank file, for example, survived the 1940 fire (damp or burnt records), as does his IARO file at BL.

Kindest regards,

Kim.

[Guest]

It's KJL,

 

My error,dear boy......I have sometimes wondered why you were named after a mountain range in Oz

[HarryBrook]

Alfred Kelly's Other Ranks file also survived the blitz. 

 

Incidentally, an apparently convincing family tree on ancestry notes that he died at Imphal on 14 June 1943 as 122854, Sergeant, 140 Railway Operating Coy., Indian Engineers. 

 

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2034612/kelly,-alfred/ 

[JulianB]

My great grandfather was a RA Staff Captain mostly in Cairo in 1917. He noted that “Zeitoun is only quite a short distance from Cairo – one gets in and out by train from Zeitoun or tram from Heliopolis.”  He describes it as a “School of Instruction” where he did a “gunnery course”.

From my years in the near east - I recall that means "olive" !

 

I'll see if there are any photographs of Z in his album.

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear JulianB,

Super! Olive near Cairo.

Yes, I also have it as a School of Instruction.

Any photographs from the great-grandfatherly album would be fascinating!.

Kindest regards,

Kim.

Dear Harry,

Somewhat unusual that the erstwhile IA officer Kelly should have made himself useful in Burma as an NCO. Perhaps overage? 

The reference to Norah, his wife, in Ghaziabad, is of high interest. Many thanks...

Kindest regards,

Kim.

Dear Mike,

Kimberley John Lindsay. I am the younger son of the late bank manager and Second Australian Imperial Force (NX 182) Major John George Lindsay, MC, psc. When Heraklion was evacuated, he was Adjutant of 2nd/4th Aust Inf Bn and was combing the town for Australian stragglers, and was obliged to jump aboard the RN destroyer HMS Kimberley, which was already underway, reversing out of the Mole at Heraklion. He was supposed to have boarded a larger ship, which was sunk by Luftwaffe dive-bombers...

Kindest regards,

Kim. 

[FROGSMILE]

The “fickle fates of fortune”.  Both, for Alfred Kelly (RIP), and Kimberly John Lindsay!

Edited 14 July , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[Richard Kelly]

This is the first time I have logged in for a few months and I must say it's a good feeling to see all this interest in my Grandfather Alfred and Great Uncle Henry.

Thank you to Harry Brook for the link to the Gazette, every new piece of info about my grandfather brings him closer

 

Thanks to all!