Finding Portraits

[jdhamlyn]

Hello all,

I was interested in finding out how to locate soldiers portraits Pre WW1 and WW1, as I am interested seeing if any exist for my 2 great great grandfathers who served. I am an absolute novice so any information is good information.

1899 - 1916, John Bezer 561 Cpl, 3rd Battalion Queens Royal West Surrey Regiment, Second Boer War and BEF 12410 Dvr 5th Field Company, Royal Engineers, WW1.

1916 - 1919, Leonard Pickering NZEF 32230 Pvt 8th (Southland) Company, 1st Battalion Otago Infantry Regiment, WW1.

For Leonard Pickering I have learnt of a series of books called "Onward: Portraits of the NZEF" and was going to check that out if anyone knows if its a good source. 

Edit: Don't know if this helps but it says John Bezer was educated at the Duke of York's Royal Military School and Royal Hibernian Military School.

Edit 2: Also any photos of their companies would be interesting to see if they do not have portraits.

 Thanks

James

Edited 8 April by jdhamlyn

[mancpal]

James, 

your best bet for photos are newspapers archives local to the areas your men hailed from. Significant events such as woundings, awards for gallantry, weddings or death etc. improve your chances of success. UK recruits weren’t routinely photographed though certain Regiments did produce platoon photographs published in large ‘books of honour’ but I think these tended to be pals battalions.

Simon

[jdhamlyn]

Hello Simon,

Thanks for the response. I will look through paperspast for my NZ ancestor and I bought a subscription to britishnewspaperarchives for my british ancestor. Hopefully I find something good. 

 Thanks

James