Pte Arthur Wheeler Royal Berks non commem?

[chaz]

going through records of my collection, i  have Pte Arthur Wheeler, 15591 Royal Berkshire Regt.

he has a pension card for him , it says discharged 24.4.16, died 14.8.17 Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Phthisis Contioaris (sp). was he gassed?

I cant find a grave for him on Findagrave , and no record on CWGC.

would he be acceptable for a CWGC headstone, a / being discharged, would his death cause be attributable as in service when discharged?

next, I need to find where he is buried.

Edited 7 June , 2022 by chaz

[PRC]

First step would be to check his surviving service record for the reason for his discharge. If it was on ill-health grounds, then was that ill-health caused or aggravated by his service.

Next up would be to source a copy of the death certificate - despite what the pension card says those two causes of death may not actually be listed. The General Registrars Office do a pdf version for genealogy purposes that costs £7 and is usually available to download from their website in 4-5 working days. These are perfectly acceptanle to the CWGC.

• If ill-health reason for discharge and cause of death in full or part agree,
• and the Army originally agreed it was caused or aggravated by service
• and a candidate for the soldier can't be found in the CWGC records
• and he died within the prescribed period

then looking like a missed commemoration.

One caveat is that it looks like the local pension committee got involved, making payments while decisions were made on pension awards both for disability for the man, and subsequently for the widow, in order to prevent hardship. When the Ministry of Pensions formalised the awards they then re-imbursed the local pension committee first from the arrears due on the claim. So possibly he wasn't formally awarded a pension while he was alive.

I've lodged a couple of cases over the last year where Tuberculosis was only subsequently discovered post-discharge, but the pension board agreed that the onset of the TB was either during the period of service or aggravated by service. Another case, and the only one to complete the process of being formally accepted as among the war dead, was actually diagnosed with TB, but it was deemed at the time of discharge that it was neither caused or aggravated by service. It took two appeals, including one backed by his MP, before he was successful in getting a pension awarded - although by the time the Ministry of Pensions formalised the award he was dead. His second appeal were helped by a sea-change in the attitude of the Army Medical Service. It moved from a mindset that said that TB was endemic in the social classes the Army recruited from in peactime and so a man must have brought it with him, to one in which the onus was on the Army to show why the man did not contract TB or have his condition aggravated by service.

Cheers,
Peter

[PaulC78]

Service record is available online and says that tb was aggravated by active service, so it looks good to me as long as the DC confirms cause of death.

He is apparently buried at St Mary's in Hampstead Norris: there is a transcribed record on FMP and it's mentioned on a family tree on Ancestry, but you would need to track down an actual burial record.

[HERITAGE PLUS]

He named on the Hampstead Norris War Memorial and on the Roll of Honour

http://westberkshirewarmemorials.org.uk/memorial.php?link=WB065

http://westberkshirewarmemorials.org.uk/memorial.php?link=WB066

Dave

Edited 7 June , 2022 by HERITAGE PLUS
Hyperlink added

[chaz]

Thanks all, will recheck tonight . Can't see for looking nowadays.

[Matlock1418]

On 07/06/2022 at 21:00, chaz said:

Phthisis Contioaris

Phthisis Cont. on A.S. [Phthisis Contracted on Active Service]

On 07/06/2022 at 23:12, PRC said:

despite what the pension card says those two causes of death may not actually be listed.

To my eye those are a single cause of death = Pulmonary Tuberculosis = Phthisis - I have no idea why the MoP seem to have put as two conditions other than to perhaps emphasise from Active Service.

Would agree that a DC is a must to see if it was his cause of death. 

A DC will be essential for commemoration and that it included a description of some sort for Pulmonary TB/Phthisis though may then also offer an additional causation - Exhaustion - being a common feature of the illness.  Or Asthenia - weakness brought on by the illness.

If you get that DC do please let us know the outcome.

M

Edited 26 June , 2022 by Matlock1418
add

[chaz]

thanks for the input, have ordered a DC

[chaz]

received the death cert, and note that his occupation as Army Pensioner. Cause of death being 1/ Pulmonary Tuberculosis and 2/ Exhaustion .

the cause certified by E Russell Risien  L S A (London),  googling Russel Risien seems to bring up a neurologist J S Risien Russell who also seems to have turned up in a thesis regarding shell shock in WW1. would it be the same or a relation as the thesis writer suggests certain eminent doctors changed their names around.

 

anyway, as he is down as an Army Pensioner, would he be acceptable for a headstone? Im in contact with the church officials and one lady is or has been dealing with the CWGC so heres hoping.

[ss002d6252]

31 minutes ago, chaz said:

received the death cert, and note that his occupation as Army Pensioner. Cause of death being 1/ Pulmonary Tuberculosis and 2/ Exhaustion .

the cause certified by E Russell Risien  L S A (London),  googling Russel Risien seems to bring up a neurologist J S Risien Russell who also seems to have turned up in a thesis regarding shell shock in WW1. would it be the same or a relation as the thesis writer suggests certain eminent doctors changed their names around.

 

anyway, as he is down as an Army Pensioner, would he be acceptable for a headstone? Im in contact with the church officials and one lady is or has been dealing with the CWGC so heres hoping.

For the CWGC they often play hard on the MoP records, rejecting them as being capable of error, and  instead wanting a discharge record direct from the service records (Which in this case could then be tied into the later death from TB)

See this post -

Craig

[PaulC78]

47 minutes ago, chaz said:

anyway, as he is down as an Army Pensioner, would he be acceptable for a headstone? Im in contact with the church officials and one lady is or has been dealing with the CWGC so heres hoping.

Now you have the DC this looks like a pretty solid case: we know from the medical report in his service record that TB was aggravated by active service.

If he is accepted and the burial verified, the CWGC would seek to install a headstone if the grave is unmarked, though not if it already has a private memorial with a clear inscription of the man's name.

[chaz]

received a reply from the helpful lady in charge of burial records at the church

Your email, regarding Arthur Wheeler, has been passed to me but I’m afraid the result of my searches has been somewhat mixed.  I found that Arthur’s death was registered in September 1917.  Unfortunately, I have checked in the old churchyard (which was closed to new burials in 1919) but can’t find any trace of a headstone.   This is not unusual because with the passage of time, well over a hundred years, many of the headstones have worn away or fallen over.  Of those remaining many have poor or almost indecipherable inscriptions, where the stone has been damaged by frost and inclement weather.   After the First World War many people also had to erect wooden crosses instead of stone because of the lack of money.   If this was the case then it will have rotted away many years ago.  The third option is that the burial took place in the churchyard but not everyone erected memorials at that time so the area would have been unmarked and has become grassed over.

 When the churchyard closed in 1919 an extension was added and this is still in use today.

 I have asked if she knows of any lists of burial plots either at the church or county records, but either way , will still submit to get Arthur recognised on the web site  and records, even if they cant identify his grave for a headstone. Maybe someone at CWGC might have more luck, with an idea of where to look.

 

To Be Updated...

[Matlock1418]

On 04/07/2022 at 16:34, PaulC78 said:

we know from the medical report in his service record that TB was aggravated by active service.

That is good [from a commemoration point of view anyway].

M

[chaz]

just writing a document to send to CWGC, just wondered if someone can decipher between the yellow arrows?

I make it "crepitations at epices" also is it "NOT result of but aggrevated by"" and " totally prevents six months"

[tullybrone]

8 minutes ago, chaz said:

just writing a document to send to CWGC, just wondered if someone can decipher between the yellow arrows?

I make it "crepitations at epices" also is it "NOT result of but aggrevated by"" and " totally prevents six months"

All agreed but it’s “apices” (plural of apex) and “aggravated” (probable typo by you).

 

Steve