2/Lieutenant Harold Francis HUMBY Royal Engineers

[MrG]

I am trying to find out a bit about the above chap and I was hoping that the forum might be able to provide a bit of background. I know his record is at the National Archives but its' not digitized and I live in Dorset so Kew is a bit of a trek but it is no my todo list. What I do know is that although his service is dated 1914 to 1922 I know he was in Ceylon from 1913 to 1917 as he married and had a daughter there. I also know that he spent some time towards the end of the war in Salonica returning in 1921.

On both his outward and return journeys he was recorded as a surveyor/government surveyor and was wondering 1. if he could have signed up in Ceylon and 2. what his role might have been in these locations. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks

[Terry_Reeves]

He appears not to have served in a theatre of war. I wonder, given his background as an Engineer (BSc London University), if he was employed in the Royal Engineers Services, who were responsible for the maintenance of the military estate.  The only way to know for sure is looking at his TNA file I’m afraid.

TR

Edited 4 April by Terry_Reeves

[oneandall]

I wonder if he was related to fellow Royal Engineer T/Lt Spencer Robert Humby MC ?

[MrG]

some good thoughts. Many Thanks

Kew beckons I feel. Maybe when it gets a bit dryer 

As regards the other Humby a quick look doesn't suggest any close link but you never know

[Tawhiri]

According the the Gazette he was first commissioned with the Royal Engineers as a temporary 2nd Lieutenant on 11 April 1917, this date then being corrected to 11 May 1917 in a subsequent edition of the Gazette. Not seeing an obvious medal index card for him, so he perhaps never applied for his medals or, as Terry_Reeves has pointed out, never served in a theatre of war.

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/30100/supplement/5295

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/30146/supplement/6237

Edited to add that the 1914 Ceylon Blue Book has him recorded as a temporary Assistant Superintendent of Surveys with the Survey Department, with an initial appointment date of 5 September 1913. No sign of him in the late war/immediate post-war editions of the Ceylon Blue Book however.

Edited 4 April by Tawhiri

[MrG]

Pardon my ignorance but "Ceylon Blue Book"?

Travel records has him heading off to Ceylon in September 1913 and returning from Columbo in April 1917 so that seems to suggest he was commissioned on his return to the UK. 

The Salonica part comes from notes by his daughter rather than any official source but she says that at the end of WW1 Harold was in Salonica and his wife and children travelled out overland to join him. She also states that the family stayed here for about 6 months before returning to Southampton. There is a record however of the family arriving in Plymouth from Marseilles on the RMS Mandala on the 30th May 1921 having started their trip in Macedonia

[Tawhiri]

Blue Books were published annually for all of the then British Colonies, and amongst other things they listed all the colonial government employees, including the department they worked in, their position, the date of their first appointment, and their annual salary. 

https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A"Blue+Book–Ceylon"

https://www.jstor.org/site/south-asia-open-archives/saoa/ceylon-blue-book-26318831/?so=item_title_str_asc

The second link has links to not only the 1914, but also the 1913 and 1915 editions of the Ceylon Blue Book, although I am struggling to download copies of them at the moment. He is definitely listed in the 1914 edition, and given the date of his commissioning I suspect you'll also find him in the 1915 edition too.

Edited to add that a search for the surname Humby on the second link produces hits from the 1913, 1914, and 1915 Ceylon Blue Books. The individual matches in the text will be found under the Search matches menu item on the left hand side of the screen. Note that in the 1914 and 1915 editions, his name appears on the page before the indicated page for the second search result. Apparently he was earning the princely sum of 300 pounds per annum at the time.

1913 - https://www.jstor.org/stable/saoa.crl.26242296?searchText=humby

1914 - https://www.jstor.org/stable/saoa.crl.26242297?searchText=humby

1915 - https://www.jstor.org/stable/saoa.crl.26385602?searchText=humby

Edited 4 April by Tawhiri

[MrG]

This is really useful. Many thanks