Drowned in Calais Docks (Pte Crosby Leinster Regiment)

[Matlock1418]

Not that I am experienced at using this Irish site but searches on IrishGenealogy for a 1873 birth under Thomas Crosby and also Crosbie at Longford both come up with:

Birth of THOMAS CROSBY in 1873

Group Registration ID	10734890
SR District/Reg Area	Longford
Sex	N/R
Mother's Birth Surname	N/R

Whether or not is is our man I can't confirm for sure.

[I'm a bit surprised a mother's birth surname/maiden name is not shown]

 

However if correct, along with war memorial [WM not necessarily always the most reliable of sources I admit], would thus make his son's, Michael Crosbie, CWGC commemoration appear perhaps a bit suspect too.

:-/ M

 

Edit: the Death entry above for Michael certainly seems to steer more towards Crosby, but how conclusively?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 10 January , 2021 by Matlock1418
edit

[corisande]

37 minutes ago, Jervis said:

Agreed. As a matter of interest, where do you search for records relating to an Inquest - Findmypast? 

 

FindmyPast only has the Military inquests during the period of Martial Law, and only where there was Martial Law. So only in 1920 / 1921 and only in ML counties like Cork and not in non ML counties like Down or Armagh

 

Therefore Michael Crosbie/Crosby's should have had an inquest in Cork City within a few days of his death in 1916. I only have access at the moment to FmP Irish Papers which does not have the Cork papers. It does have depending on your point of view, the Freeman s and the Irish Times , but I cannot get it there (might just be my use of the data base)

 

So if you have a sub to the Cork papers then it would be worth checking. My understanding is that the British would have to have had a Coroner's inquest, and that it would have been reported somewhere - but we have to find it :-)

[corisande]

30 minutes ago, Matlock1418 said:

Whether or not is is our man I can't confirm for sure.

[I'm a bit surprised a mother's birth surname/maiden name is not shown]

 

Afraid you stopped a click too soon. . Underneath "mother's birth surname" there is a little word in orange that says "image". Click on that and you get  his birth cert  . Seems to be the correct family

 

[Matlock1418]

10 minutes ago, corisande said:

Afraid you stopped a click too soon. . Underneath "mother's birth surname" there is a little word in orange that says "image". Click on that and you get  his birth cert  . Seems to be the correct family

Said I wasn't experienced at using that site. :-/ = Thanks for explaining [For my next rare venture there!]

So how did CWGC get James and B Crosby ???

:-) M

[Jervis]

17 minutes ago, corisande said:

 

FindmyPast only has the Military inquests during the period of Martial Law, and only where there was Martial Law. So only in 1920 / 1921 and only in ML counties like Cork and not in non ML counties like Down or Armagh

 

Therefore Michael Crosbie/Crosby's should have had an inquest in Cork City within a few days of his death in 1916. I only have access at the moment to FmP Irish Papers which does not have the Cork papers. It does have depending on your point of view, the Freeman s and the Irish Times , but I cannot get it there (might just be my use of the data base)

 

So if you have a sub to the Cork papers then it would be worth checking. My understanding is that the British would have to have had a Coroner's inquest, and that it would have been reported somewhere - but we have to find it :-)

Thank you. I was wondering was there source I was missing out on. But generally apart from Military inquest on FMP, you use the newspapers? 
 

Yes I only have a FMP Irish sub too, so unfortunately I can’t broaden the search.

 

(As an aside  I was recently reading on FMP an Military inquest into a killing in Donegal 1922 - which as far as I know was not in the martial law area) 

[corisande]

 

And to square the circle, this is Thomas and Bridget's marriage on Irish GRO. I do not think there is any doubt as to who they were, and when they were born

 

 

And this is Michael's birth

 

And this is the 1911 census

 

[Matlock1418]

28 minutes ago, corisande said:

this is Thomas and Bridget's marriage on Irish GRO.

As Crosby

28 minutes ago, corisande said:

And this is Michael's birth

As Crosbie

28 minutes ago, corisande said:

And this is the 1911 census

As Crosbie

 

Certainly is a cautionary tale for genealogists - Crosby/Crosbie - a time-varying surname!

 

All that seems to be required now is for CWGC to perhaps acknowledge Thomas Crosby - served as:  J Crosby 3869 Leinster Regt. Edit; or was that "J" an old enduring typo meant for a "T"?

and to do something about his age [at least based on the GR].

And his parentage. [?] 

Jervis, as OP, perhaps that is your next valiant cause [?] - good luck.

:-) M

Edited 10 January , 2021 by Matlock1418
edit

[corisande]

4 minutes ago, Matlock1418 said:

Crosby/Crosbie - a time-varying surname!

 

If you look back over time, Thomas was illiterate. he had to sign with a cross. So whoever was filling in his form for him wrote down what they "thought" his name was from the phoenetics

 

Then on top of that you had his "discharged with ignominy" from one of his early enlistments into the British Army. I think that was why he uses James rather than Thomas for his final enlistment, to avoid a connection.

 

As I said before, I feel that he probably did have other enlistments which we have not found, and could be in almost any name!

[Matlock1418]

Thomas - An interesting case - got to say one does still wonder where that age 36 at CWGC came from - might be for the same sort of reason you postulate about his name on his last enlistment.

His son, Michael - another interesting scenario that you are currently also discussing :-) [I'm learning more, not hard as I know so little, about the Irish situation & ML etc. along the way]

:-) M

[FROGSMILE]

13 hours ago, corisande said:

 

FindmyPast only has the Military inquests during the period of Martial Law, and only where there was Martial Law. So only in 1920 / 1921 and only in ML counties like Cork and not in non ML counties like Down or Armagh

 

Therefore Michael Crosbie/Crosby's should have had an inquest in Cork City within a few days of his death in 1916. I only have access at the moment to FmP Irish Papers which does not have the Cork papers. It does have depending on your point of view, the Freeman s and the Irish Times , but I cannot get it there (might just be my use of the data base)

 

So if you have a sub to the Cork papers then it would be worth checking. My understanding is that the British would have to have had a Coroner's inquest, and that it would have been reported somewhere - but we have to find it :-)

Thank you corisande, that’s very interesting and rather chimes with what I’d imagined would be the situation, but I was unsure about what restrictions martial law imposed on such otherwise routine matters.  It is most intriguing that the details surrounding the case seem to be, ostensibly at least, entirely obscure.

Edited 11 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[corisande]

There were two problems with "normal" civil  inquests in 1920 which led to their suspension. Prior to that all inquests were conducted as normal in rest of UK

 

1. There were a number of "embarrassing" inquests in which the jury found British soldiers guilty of , in effect, murder

2. Then the government of Ireland ran into problems getting enough jurors

 

Net result was that all inquests in Martial Law areas were conducted by a presiding Army officer and 2 other Army officers. The results were not always made public, though we can access virtually all of them now. Though I do know that most of the dead British spies whose bodies were found, and which had military inquests, still have not been published

[FROGSMILE]

50 minutes ago, corisande said:

There were two problems with "normal" civil  inquests in 1920 which led to their suspension. Prior to that all inquests were conducted as normal in rest of UK

 

1. There were a number of "embarrassing" inquests in which the jury found British soldiers guilty of , in effect, murder

2. Then the government of Ireland ran into problems getting enough jurors

 

Net result was that all inquests in Martial Law areas were conducted by a presiding Army officer and 2 other Army officers. The results were not always made public, though we can access virtually all of them now. Though I do know that most of the dead British spies whose bodies were found, and which had military inquests, still have not been published

Thank you, that makes complete sense now. Plus ça change..... 

Edited 11 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE