deserter 1914-18

[Guest sasha]

Iam trying to trace a family member who was a deserter so im told .he was billeted in a house in sussex area H e also changed his name Ihave a few leads but nothing solid he was supposed to have eloped with the daugter of the family he billeted with who was my husbands grandmother .we did hear he may have come from a manchester regiment am I wasting my time or is it possible to find out any information . thanks sasha

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

Sasha,

Do you have the name he used when he enlisted?

If he went overseas first before deserting there should be a medal index card and medal roll entries for him which will both be marked 'Forfeited - Deserter' and will give a date. There may also be a service record for him in WO 363 at the PRO.

So all is not lost.

Ian

[Guest sasha]

: : ;Ian thankyou for your help sasha

[MelPack]

Sasha

I visited the British Museum Newspaper Library at Colindale yesterday for a purpose entirely unrelated to WW1. Needless to say my attention strayed and I started to root around. I had a look at some samples of the Police Gazette for 1914-1918 which includes a wealth of details on deserters and some gruesome mugshots!

If you can establish the actualname of the deserter (alias or otherwise) you will probably have a very good chance of finding your man.

Go to the link of www.bl.uk/collections/warfare3.html for more details.

Other Pals with a particular interest in a territorial unit may be interested to know that there is a run of The Terrotorial Service Gazette for the war years. I did not have time to look at a sample copy but I would be interested to know if anybody else has. The details are at the same link as above.

Regards

Mel