Lorkin B 17019 and 16504 7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment. Missing Medal Records, Same man?

[Raster Scanning]

It appears that 2 men served in the 7th Battalion called B Lorkin

Lorkin B. Pte/Cpl 16504. His MRI, Medal Roll and BW and Victory Medal Roll confirm name, initial and number. At some stage he served as 44683 in the Essex Regiment. He was one of the original 7th Beds men and transferred to France with the battalion on 26-7-1915 (from his MIC). His christian name is not listed in any medal record I can see.

Then there is 

Lorkin B. A. Pte/Cpl. 17019. I can find no trace of a MRI, Medal Roll or BW&V Medal Roll entry. However he was serving in the 7th Battalion in 1914 as he is mentioned in Daily Orders Part II at Aldershot 4-11-1914 "Pte B. A. Lorkin, 17019, 'B' Coy, forfeits 2 days pay" 

 I  also know he was serving in the 7th Battalion in October 1917 

 

Nominal Roll of Other Ranks being left out of action, appendix to War Diary, October 1917. 17019 Lorkin B.A. 

Nominal roll of other ranks proceeding to Reinforcement Camp 11-10-1917. 17019 Lorkin B.A. 

 

 

Nominal Roll 8-10-1917, War Diary Appendix, October 1917. 17019 Lorkin B.A. 

With some research and a little guesswork I believe this second man to be Bertram Arthur Lorkin from Kensington. Born 2-7-1894.

So my questions are who is the B Lorkin 16504 ? 

Why are there no medal records for B A Lorkin 17019?

Part of me feels there may be a connection between the 2 men however every respective record for them confirms a different number.

Any thoughts?

All reference documents courtesy of Ancestry and included for research purposes.

 

 

 

 

Edited 11 March , 2023 by Raster Scanning

[Allan1892]

A search of the civil birth registrations between 1875 and 1900 has only brought up two men who could have served in WW1:

• Bertram Arthur Lorkin, born Qtr 3 1894, Fulham District
• Bernard George Lorkin, born Qtr 4 1883, Shoreditch District

Bernard George Lorkin can be discounted as he enlisted into the RAF on the 1 October 1918

 

[Raster Scanning]

12 minutes ago, Allan1892 said:

A search of the civil birth registrations between 1875 and 1900 has only brought up two men who could have served in WW1:

• Bertram Arthur Lorkin, born Qtr 3 1894, Fulham District
• Bernard George Lorkin, born Qtr 4 1883, Shoreditch District

Bernard George Lorkin can be discounted as he enlisted into the RAF on the 1 October 1918

 

Thank you Allan.

[RussT]

I would conclude it's the same man.

I would suggest it's simply down to the fact that the Essex Regiment Medal Roll compilers have incorrectly recorded his prior Bedfordshire Regiment number on their Medal Rolls (14/15 Roll and BWM/VM Roll). The MICs come from the Medal Rolls, so any error on the latter is duplicated on the former.

I would be a rich man if I had a pound for every time I have seen an error on a given Regiment's/Corps' Medal Roll for a man who had previously served in a different Regiment/Corp. The Labour Corps Medal Rolls are notorious for being very sloppy like that. Thankfully, it's much rarer for Infantry Regiments to make these mistakes but you do come across such errors on occasion. For some reason, a given Regiment/Corps were either not as careful in the recording of a man's details if he had previously served in a different Regiment/Corps in comparison to recording the details of their "own men" and/or there was the potential for additional errors to creep in during the transfer of paperwork in the transfer itself and in the later medal compiling activities.

If you examine the various bits of evidence then:

1) You have found quite a bit of excellent evidence for the existence of a Bedfordshire Regiment man with the name B Lorkin having the number 17019. These are contemporary documents - all of which stem directly from diverse primary Bedfordshire Regiment sources. I would suggest you put the greatest weight on the accuracy/reliability of those records and therefore this evidence should be treated as being very strong. Those Documents also make it clear that this man served overseas and therefore would be entitled to medals.

2) There is no other Bedfordshire Regiment man in any Medal Roll with the number 17019 - yet there would have been a man allotted this number (although it does not automatically follow that this man would have served overseas and therefore would not be on a Medal Roll if that were the case). So this piece of evidence is reasonable but not very strong.

3) There is a Bedfordshire Regiment man with the number 16504 - he was Arthur Harold Taylor - see his 14/15 and BWM/VM Medal Rolls attached below. The latter Roll shows that men were compiled in numerical sequence and so Taylor is unlikely to be recorded in error. This number stems from a number series whose numbers were not (knowingly at least) duplicated, which means that the apparent number of 16504 for Lorkin on the Essex Regiment Medals Rolls is highly suspect for this reason alone. I would put this piece of evidence high up in the relevancy chart. Over the years I have come across quite a few duplicated numbers (when they shouldn't be duplicated) and have I often been able to reconcile them by finding some good evidence/proof to debunk one of them.

4) As per my opening paragraph, it's uncommon but by no means rare to find errors on Medal Rolls whereby some detail (e.g. a service number) has been incorrectly recorded, and this seems more likely to be the case when it's recorded by a Regiment/Corps different to that served formerly. I would put this circumstantial evidence as middling.

Summing up all the above bits of evidence would provide sufficient confidence for me to conclude he is in fact the same man.

As noted in earlier posts, you also don't have an abundance of candidates named B Lorkin to choose from, which should also be placed on the scales of evidence.

Regards

Russ

 

[Raster Scanning]

5 hours ago, RussT said:

I would conclude it's the same man.

I would suggest it's simply down to the fact that the Essex Regiment Medal Roll compilers have incorrectly recorded his prior Bedfordshire Regiment number on their Medal Rolls (14/15 Roll and BWM/VM Roll). The MICs come from the Medal Rolls, so any error on the latter is duplicated on the former.

I would be a rich man if I had a pound for every time I have seen an error on a given Regiment's/Corps' Medal Roll for a man who had previously served in a different Regiment/Corp. The Labour Corps Medal Rolls are notorious for being very sloppy like that. Thankfully, it's much rarer for Infantry Regiments to make these mistakes but you do come across such errors on occasion. For some reason, a given Regiment/Corps were either not as careful in the recording of a man's details if he had previously served in a different Regiment/Corps in comparison to recording the details of their "own men" and/or there was the potential for additional errors to creep in during the transfer of paperwork in the transfer itself and in the later medal compiling activities.

If you examine the various bits of evidence then:

1) You have found quite a bit of excellent evidence for the existence of a Bedfordshire Regiment man with the name B Lorkin having the number 17019. These are contemporary documents - all of which stem directly from diverse primary Bedfordshire Regiment sources. I would suggest you put the greatest weight on the accuracy/reliability of those records and therefore this evidence should be treated as being very strong. Those Documents also make it clear that this man served overseas and therefore would be entitled to medals.

2) There is no other Bedfordshire Regiment man in any Medal Roll with the number 17019 - yet there would have been a man allotted this number (although it does not automatically follow that this man would have served overseas and therefore would not be on a Medal Roll if that were the case). So this piece of evidence is reasonable but not very strong.

3) There is a Bedfordshire Regiment man with the number 16504 - he was Arthur Harold Taylor - see his 14/15 and BWM/VM Medal Rolls attached below. The latter Roll shows that men were compiled in numerical sequence and so Taylor is unlikely to be recorded in error. This number stems from a number series whose numbers were not (knowingly at least) duplicated, which means that the apparent number of 16504 for Lorkin on the Essex Regiment Medals Rolls is highly suspect for this reason alone. I would put this piece of evidence high up in the relevancy chart. Over the years I have come across quite a few duplicated numbers (when they shouldn't be duplicated) and have I often been able to reconcile them by finding some good evidence/proof to debunk one of them.

4) As per my opening paragraph, it's uncommon but by no means rare to find errors on Medal Rolls whereby some detail (e.g. a service number) has been incorrectly recorded, and this seems more likely to be the case when it's recorded by a Regiment/Corps different to that served formerly. I would put this circumstantial evidence as middling.

Summing up all the above bits of evidence would provide sufficient confidence for me to conclude he is in fact the same man.

As noted in earlier posts, you also don't have an abundance of candidates named B Lorkin to choose from, which should also be placed on the scales of evidence.

Regards

Russ

 

Thank you Russ.

Your clear breakdown of the evidence confirms the conclusion I suspected, but I did not have a plausible explanations as to why.

This is only the second such example I have seen in the over 2000 names I have researched from the battalion. I had not thought to check the exclusivity of numbers and the 2nd battalion man, Taylor, clinches it for me. 

Many thanks again, I can see you spent some time on this, it is appreciated.

Best wishes

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

[RussT]

7 hours ago, Raster Scanning said:

This is only the second such example I have seen in the over 2000 names I have researched from the battalion.

An error rate of about 1 in 1000 is commensurate with my experience. It's probably a bit higher with certain Regiments/Corps (e.g. Labour Corps) and might well be a bit lower with others - but as an overall average this seems to be a reasonable figure.

In actual fact, for a manual transcribing process with little if any independently verified checking, an error of only around 1 in 1000 is actually remarkably good. I'm amazed that I don't find more errors given the huge number of bits of information collated in what was a repetitive task in compiling these Medal Rolls - a recipe for error traps. So although I used the word "sloppy" above, they were probably being as diligent as they thought necessary at the time.

I haven't measured it, but my gut feeling is that modern day Ancestry's transcribing process has a far far greater error rate, which is infuriating - and is food for thought in the context.

Regards

Russ

 

[Allan1892]

14 hours ago, RussT said:

Summing up all the above bits of evidence would provide sufficient confidence for me to conclude he is in fact the same man.

Sound logic Russ

[Raster Scanning]

Thanks again to you both.