Death registration and pension payments

[Tawhiri]

I have two questions to do with the actual registration of the death of a soldier back in the United Kingdom, and whether pension payments continued to be made to his widow and dependents if they subsequently emigrated to another country. In this case the soldier is Neil Falconer, service number 36697, who was serving with the 18th Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry when he was killed in action at Gillemont Farm on the night of 25 August 1917. I have copies of the battalion War Diary, his pension index card, his medal index card, and the relevant page from the Register of Soldiers' Effects. He has no known grave, and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.

 

My first question is whether his death would have been recorded in the statutory register of deaths in Scotland, as his home address was in Glasgow. I've had a look on ScotlandsPeople, and while there are some 98,818 deaths recorded in the Service Returns for the period 1914-1918, I cannot find any record of his death. I did also check the GRO Index on the off-chance his death was mistakenly recorded in England or Wales, but nothing came up.

 

His widow and three children were awarded a pension, but in April 1920 they emigrated to New Zealand with the families of several of his companions from the Highland Light Infantry. Apparently on joining up they had made a pact that if any of them were killed, the survivors would look after the family of the dead man, and so when a number of the survivors and their families emigrated to New Zealand in 1920, they took his widow and children with them, eventually settling in Whanganui. My second question, then, is whether his widow and children would have continued to receive their UK pension payments after emigrating to New Zealand, and whether there was possibly some form of reciprocal pension payment scheme for Commonwealth countries.

Edited 28 July , 2020 by Tawhiri

[ajsmith]

14 minutes ago, Tawhiri said:

My second question, then, is whether his widow and children would have continued to receive their UK pension payments after emigrating to New Zealand,

Yes see here courtesy of WFA via Fold3

[rolt968]

In theory he should appear in the Scotlandspeople Service Returns. But I have known men who apparently aren't there. I am wondering of there is an indexing problem as the Service Returns seem to be thin on Falconers.

 

RM

[Tawhiri]

15 hours ago, ajsmith said:

Yes see here courtesy of WFA via Fold3

Thank you for catching that, I was looking for an obvious New Zealand address. Presumably this means that there was some form of reciprocal agreement between Commonwealth governments to pay pension recipients living in that country benefits that may have been received from a second Commonwealth country, with some form of overall financial accounting between governments on an annual basis.

 

14 hours ago, rolt968 said:

In theory he should appear in the Scotlandspeople Service Returns. But I have known men who apparently aren't there. I am wondering of there is an indexing problem as the Service Returns seem to be thin on Falconers.

 

RM

That's what I though as well, but no sign of him. A quick check of the number of Falconers in the Service Returns on ScotlandsPeople brings up 69 individuals, while a search of the Roll of Honour for the Scottish National War Memorial registers 82 WW1 Falconer deaths. Obviously not an exact comparison, but it does suggest that some individual deaths are missing from the Service Returns on ScotlandsPeople. I might have to lodge another inquiry about missing records with ScotlandsPeople.