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Remembered Today:

Chaotic pension card!


Tanassa

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This one is not as nice and ordered as others I've seen. It's that of my Great Uncle, who entered the war late, when he was young, and was subsequently gassed on the Somme. My effort to decipher the content as a transcription is as follows. I would like to get a handle on the special numbers and abbreviations quoted and what they mean e.g. SCA and BG.CG, as these seemed to be placed somewhat randomly on the available space.  I think I've worked out some, but would like an expert to verify my conclusions. Thank you!

 

Pension Card – Leslie POWELL

35438 R. War.: Train Res. [Royal Warwickshire Regiment - 1st Battalion]

 

12 Gladstone St, Trowbridge, Wilts.

 

TR17/7278 (reserve training corps number?)

 

 

Discharged 13 Nov 1918 [medically, just after armistice]

Ref # SCA 7434

 

Pension payment and dates:

Ad[Awarded?] 27 Nov 1918 at 5/6 (5 shillings and sixpence per week) starting from 14 Nov 1918 to 18 Apr 1919 - Code BG.CG.

[This application] received 27 Nov 1918 #5173

Case passed to Treatment Div: 17 May 1923 D.L.S. (signatory)

Died 11 Jun 1923

Case passed to EFFECTS from Treat. Div. 19 Jun 1923 D.L.S.

11/M/6055 [Disposal of effects register? - i.e closed case]

 

 

File destroyed Mar 1931

 

Leslie Powell - Pension Card.png

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Tanassa,

Welcome to GWF

You have done a really good job to untangle much of that card.

On 23/06/2021 at 15:44, Tanassa said:

35438 R. War.: Train Res. [Royal Warwickshire Regiment - 1st Battalion]

35438 R. War.: Train Res.  Royal Warwickshire Regiment

On 23/06/2021 at 15:44, Tanassa said:

TR17/7278 (reserve training corps number?)

TR/7/7278  [or often alt. written TR7/7278] - Yes, Training Reserve

[which I think might have been with the 13th RWR - Usually this TR was pre-posting to an operational unit]

 

On 23/06/2021 at 15:44, Tanassa said:

11/M/6055

This is actually his Ministry of Pensions disability pension record number [i.e. post-Chelsea Hospital]

11 = SE England office

M = Military claim

6055 = Case no. 6055

His MoP pension file would be so numbered - but as you can clearly see the file was destroyed

[as were the majority of files - now just a few samples remain as PIN 26 files at the National Archives]

 

Treatment was quite commonly a requirement for men with a disability - to try and get them better/back to work/off the pension books.

His disability is not indicated - Do you know?

Gassing later in the war, and it seems from his MIC his service was post-1915, was rather less likely to affect the lungs due to the introduction of the small box respirator - mustard gas commonly affecting the eyes and skin though [My GF got such a dose of MG] 

Treatment was often indicated if a respiratory disease such as pulmonary tuberculosis/phthisis [a scourge throughout the war and after]. 

As was treatment for physical injuries too [my GGF treated/gave physio for such men during and long after the war]

You also don't indicate what was his cause of death - Do you have you his Death Certificate?

Of course death in 1923 was too late for CWGC commemoration even if it was caused/aggravated by war service.

:-) M

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Thanks! Great to hear from you and add some new information.

 

Yes, your deduction is correct - Leslie died of TB in the Croydon Sanitorium and was buried in Morden Cemetery. We were trying to figure out how long he was at Croydon, as almost five years elapsed after his discharge. However it seems that borough hospital records no longer exist, as they were under no obligation to keep them indefinitely.

It's possible he returned to Trowbridge initially to be with his father, and an older brother and sister still at home. Two brothers had already left home and one of them, Albert, who entered a career in tailoring and menswear after leaving the army, was the informant of Leslie's death to the registrar at Epsom. I think he may have helped Leslie get work as 'hosier's assistant' - manufacturing or selling socks (?). I have this from the 1911 census, so am currently awaiting the posting of the full 1921 census later this year.

Since Leslie was in the 1st Battalion of R.W.R, it's possible he saw action around the area of Arras and Villers-Bretonneux at the time of the German Operation Michael - but like several other things in this story, this is pure speculation on my part.

 

Interestingly, his father also died of TB in 1921, so that evokes the question if there was some link, infection wise, between the two.

 

Also, because 1918 was the year of the Spanish Flu epidemic, which hit the trenches hard, I wonder if he may have suffered and been weakened constitutionally by this illness. Since winding up the war took until the following June, it's interesting that Leslie was discharged immediately after the Armistice, which suggests he really was unfit, and that later, his conditioned worsened to a point of requiring treatment.

 

Do you know what the codes SCA and BG.CG mean?

Cheers!

 

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15 hours ago, Tanassa said:

Do you know what the codes SCA and BG.CG mean?

Sorry, can't really help you with those.

But think the BG.CG [if that is what it is] and 5173 perhaps go together as a Chelsea Hospital reference or code = perhaps! [?]

 

15 hours ago, Tanassa said:

am currently awaiting the posting of the full 1921 census later this year.

Aren't we all? - But I think we will have to wait until 2022.  :-/

:-) M

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16 hours ago, Tanassa said:

Yes, your deduction is correct - Leslie died of TB

Pulmonary tuberculosis/phthisis - if he had served overseas so far as the MoP was concerned then attribution was generally presumed

Phthisis.png.b055a0b9ed8034558097cfef2c0ff92d.png

Image courtesy of GWF

Presumably his case for a pension was thus made

 

16 hours ago, Tanassa said:

Interestingly, his father also died of TB in 1921, so that evokes the question if there was some link, infection wise, between the two.

Can't confirm - can only just speculate, like you!

:-) M

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18 hours ago, Tanassa said:

Do you know what the codes SCA and BG.CG mean?

It's BJ6G -it was one of a set of internal codes used, following a reorganisation in the Ministry. This code was specific to the Royal Warwicks. He was claim #5173 in the is new range.

SCA was an internal code used in respect of pension payments.

Craig

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Excellent! Thanks guys for the input. Looks like I can now type up an emendment and put it on file. If there's one skill that the military has and is not often mentioned, it's the invention and use of codes and numbers!

The policy explanation about TB and lunacy was interesting and informative. I'll save that image also in my family history file.

As a final question, I'm wondering what the men who returned thought of the pension they'd been awarded.  From our time, that's hard to get a conceptual handle on. The amount of 5/6d is equivalent to about 16 pounds in 2021 buying power. Not a lot one could do with that amount now, although I'm sure they were grateful for everything that they did receive. In the Edwardian era a female domestic servant would earn about that amount in one full year of service, and could work up to 17 hours per day.

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7 hours ago, Tanassa said:

As a final question, I'm wondering what the men who returned thought of the pension they'd been awarded.

This was a report from July 1919. As you can imagine there was a lot said about the difference between the countries.

image.png

Craig

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5 hours ago, Tanassa said:

As a final question, I'm wondering what the men who returned thought of the pension they'd been awarded. 

I can't comment on what the men themselves thought but in 1917 there already was much wider discussion - not least in the run-up to a new Royal Warrant.

 

Given Leslie Powell's condition the following may perhaps be of further interest - This abstract is from Hansard relates to Consumptives [sufferers of Pulmonary tuberculosis / Phthisis]

MINISTRY OF PENSIONS. HC Deb 06 March 1917 vol 91 cc241-354

§ Sir G. TOULMIN ... ... ...

"The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the provision for the totally disabled, and I rather gathered that there was an admirable institution foreshadowed where consumptives for whom there was no hope were to be treated. I do not know anything more sad, and I do not know anything more necessary to carry out. I am sure the profoundest sympathy and desire to help will be given towards such an institution; but, after all, that is the wrong end. The consumptive is curable if you take him at the beginning, and I hope not a single consumptive case will be simply thrust out of the Army and treated under the gratuity clause. The consumptive has a double claim. He is a national danger if he is to be sent amidst the general population. He has been taken into the Army, and I think the Minister would do well if he took the occasion of having his hand upon this man to treat him as we should like the whole of the consumptives of the country to he treated. I have had an opportunity of inquiring from one or two gentlemen who have had a very large experience in this matter, and they feel that the present arrangement has really failed to deal adequately with the consumptive soldier. Really it ought to be attacked in the very earliest stage, and I should like to know if what I have been told is correct, that the Army authorities will not acknowledge that a soldier may break down with phthisis as the result of Army service. They rather insist that the disease must have been contracted before the man entered the Service, and there is the very greatest difficulty in getting any case accepted as having been produced through service.

Then, of course, we know that many of these cases have had a disability allowance which is entirely unjust. A consumptive man either can work or he cannot, and to say he suffers to the extent of a quarter is in many cases the merest mockery. Very few cases have received a really good chance of recovery. Many of them have had no sanatorium treatment at all. It is said it has been offered, but they have not had it, and my own feeling is that we should go even so far as to retain a certain amount of control, on them for their own benefit, in order that they may receive such treatment. Many of them have only been in a sanatorium for two or three months, and their cure has not been completed. I have a number of Lancashire cases here, commencing, say, with a cold in Blackpool at the end of February, then moved to Tonbridge, and got worse. In September it was a well-developed case, and in November the man was still waiting for a vacancy, and the case was practically hopeless for a cure. There are various other cases. The sad fact is that many of them are only begun to be resolutely taken hold of when the men are doomed. The Insurance Commissioners claim to have provided accommodation immediately in every instance. I do not wish to attack the Insurance Commissioners at all. I dare say they would say they have provided accommodation for those cases which have been brought to their notice, but in any case the results very often have only been a lamentable failure. The time which has been given to them in sanatoria is too little. Over and over again the waiting period, owing to insufficiency of accommodation, has been so long that the chance of cure has either been greatly jeopardised or it has gone altogether. In regard to the case of the tuberculous soldier, I really think the right hon. Gentleman should consider the possibility of treatment at the other end and not the hopeless cases. I suggest that the man might be retained under military discipline until cured or discharged or passed on to the new hospital which the right hon. Gentleman is preparing for the incurable. He should have a full pension and his family should be looked after in the meantime. I cannot think this can be done unless the Pensions Ministry directly establishes its own sanatoria and farm colonies. There need be no expensive buildings. As a matter of fact, the outdoor treatment is such that a mere shelter with a few administrative buildings is specially suitable, and this is the more so with soldiers, as they have been living a very open-air life. It has been discovered that when they have had this outdoor treatment and through some special circumstances they have had to be taken indoor, although in very well ventilated hospitals, they have at once begun to lose weight. I have emphasised that special point because I believe these men have a double claim. I am looking forward to a very great improvement in the near future, and I think I can assure both the Pensions Minister and his assistants that the House will give them every assistance it can in carrying out a comprehensive scheme."

See: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1917/mar/06/ministry-of-pensions for the full transcript

 

The Mr Hogge mentioned elsewhere in this debate went on to co-author a guide to "War Pensions and Allowances" - Hogge & Garside.   ttps://archive.org/details/thewarpensionsallow00hoggrich  which has several specific references to Tuberculosis of the lungs, p.143, and in a later in a section on Treatment & Training p.279- and also later in the book.

In the above book a scale of disablement [disablement level preventing employment] was determined see. p.127 - I believe tuberculosis, as an "Advanced case of incurable disease", was commonly classed as 100% [perhaps also as a reflection of the need to attempt treatment and to keep such sufferers out of the general population to avoid transmission it might seem - until such time as the condition reached a rather binary conclusion]

 

More widely others also had the general subject of disabled men in their thoughts:

Eugenics Society: THE EUGENICS REVIEW Galton anniversary - The disabled sailor and soldier and the future of our race April 1917 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2942163

Please note: As used above - the terminology and thoughts are of that period

:-) M

 

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That's fine. I'm used to reading historical documents in their social context. :) And the ones you've linked, while longish, are informative and quite interesting. I'm somewhat surprised by Dr Leslie's statement (in the cited Eugenics Review), "[Asking] 'Is there anything in the family or past history which would throw light on the origin of the present disability?' would be sufficient [to determine a boundary condition for awarding the pension]. The applicability to cases of epilepsy, shell-shock, neurasthenia, tuberculosis.....is obvious."

Hmm. That possibility would have to have been a pretty vain hope in 1918 for those named ailments, as they can be multi-factorial and complex. Even today we only get a glimpse into the genetic disposition to TB, to do with such matters as DNA mutations in macrophage proteins or IL12 interferon mediated immunity etc. Just looking at relatives who are susceptible is way too simplistic.

Anyway, I'm gradually getting off topic re my original quest. Things were what they were. Thanks again all for your assiduity in tracking these documents for me. Over and out for now!

A.

 

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