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Remembered Today:

Pte Keilty Northumberland Fusiliers


mutley

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I am looking for information on 4981 Pte Hugh Keilty 3rd Bn Northumberland Fusiliers. The CWGC site shows him as "died 31 Dec 1915" and that he is buried in Stanley church yard UK. Does this mean that he died whilst at home of natural causes or did he die of wounds previously received? Also I am guessing that he was a pre war regular, because his number is quite low, would I be correct? Any information greatly appreciated.

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SDITGW has him as 'Died' at 'Home'. 3rd Bn Northumberland Fusiliers were a Special Reserve battalion. He was born in Antrim and enlisted in Consett.

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  • 6 years later...
Guest hughfinder

Hugh is my Great Grandfather and I have done a lot of research on him which sadly has been lacking over the last couple of years due to work commitments. This is the first message I have posted as I only came across this site while googling a few things the other day, the gem for me would be to find a picture of Hugh. Are you still researching?

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4981 Pte Hugh Keilty has a home address of 33 Schools Tce, Southmoor and there appears to be some confusion as to his date of death as one sourse says 31/12/1915 and SDGW says he died 27/12/1915, aged 41yrs. The cause of death was drowning and there also seems to be some confusion as to whom he was actually serving with. Again one source has him as having served with the 1st Bn, NF before going to the 3rd(Res)Bn, NF.

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His MIC on Ancestry has his date of entry to theatre of war as 16/3/15 which was not the date of the 1st or 2nd Bns landing in France. This could mean that he served with one of the Territorial Bns was wounded, shipped back and transfered to the 3rd, or he was one of a group of replacements transferred out to a battalion already overseas.

Peter

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Hi Peter - his Medal Roll Sheet only shows he ever served with the 1st Bn, NF and other sources show him drowned with the 3rd(Res)Bn,NF. So he's either been (i)a Special Reservist with the 3rd(Res)Bn, sent out as a 1st Bn reinforcement on 16/3/15 or (ii)a 1st Class Army Reservist recalled and then sent out to France to be returned to the UK and the 3rd(Res)Bn or(iii)an ex-regular who has re-enlisted and been renumbered.

Problem lies with his number as there's no '3/' to the 4981 in any of the sources to show he was a Special Reservist and the number itself is an August 1914 wartime enlistment number for regular/service battalions. To get out to France that quick he would have had to be a former regular, which is what I suspect he was. Had he been a 1st Class Army Reservist he would have been recalled still using his old number, but those who have received a complete discharge after 12yrs then re-enilsted for the war were given new numbers in the relevant sequence.

What is definate is that he's not a Territorial as the number is too high for any of the NF(TF) Bn's at this period of time.

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