Died 1917 Pow 1919?

[Steve Bramley]

Hi,

I've got details for a Pte 242145 Jack Fawcett d.11/4/17, SDitGW and CWGC and yet he appears on the AVL as a prisoner of war?

Any explanations out there?

Thanks,

Steve.

[Chris_Baker]

Reported missing in 1917, still missing 1919, and body found later, with some evidence of the date of his death?

[Steve Bramley]

Thanks Chris,

I should have mentioned that i am not experienced with using the Absent Voters List. I assumed it was an official government document but i'm now assuming that relatives compiled the list. I have found three others similar to J.Fawcett. Relatives must have been holding out some hope and perhaps that a loved one was reported missing and 'heard' that they could have been a POW.

Could anyone shed some light on this for me?

Regards,

Steve.

[Sue Light]

Steve

The Absent Voter's List for Lancing, West Sussex, contains quite a few men already dead by the time the list was compiled. Three died very near to, or after the date the list was compiled, but the other four were all men who died in situations where there was a likelihood that they could have been prisoners of war. Three of these were casualties of 'Kaiserschlacht,' and all had dates of death [eventually] between 21/3/18 and 31/3/18, and the fourth man was a prisoner of war of the Turks following the siege of Kut, and although his date of death is now given as 30/9/16, presumably there was still a tiny hope then that he could have survived.

Regards - Sue

[John_Hartley]

Steve

The AVL is an official document - compiled by the local council. AVL still sort of exist today and are the list of people entitled to vote by post as they are "absent" for an approved reason, so cannot vote in person.

I presume that once they had been listed as a prisoner, they would stay on the list until there was a decison that they were dead.

The official reason for keeping on the list will, no doubt, also be so that no-one could turn up to vote pretending to be them.

John

[Sue Light]

I presume that once they had been listed as a prisoner, they would stay on the list until there was a decison that they were dead. The official reason for keeping on the list will, no doubt, also be so that no-one could turn up to vote pretending to be them.

But then that does beg the question of how they got on the list in the first place? As they were dead they certainly didn't sign anything to put themselves on, so I have presumed like Steve [OK, never presume], that relatives or neighbours must have been involved at some point in the decision to include them. I have found no evidence to show that my 21/3/18 men were ever officially stated to be anything other than 'missing' - not prisoners. I feel that it was relatives who made the assumptions, not the authorities. Different procedures for different places, I'm sure.

Regards - Sue

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

As I understand it the individual soldier filled out the form to be included on the AVL in March 1918 & March 1919. In the instances where soldiers were POWs their entry was completed by the family. So perhaps you are looking at a family holding out hope. This is what the Surrey County Historian told me.

Have you checked the civil electoral register?

If they are on the AVL, they should also be on the civil register.

Ian

[Steve Bramley]

Many thanks Sue, John and Ian,

I've had a look at the Leeds AVL on-line this morning, the introduction states of the lists that 'the details given are those supplied by the men themselves, not their dependants'.

The first list was published in October 1918 and a second in April 1919.

Assumptions again!, but could it possibly be that Leeds chose simply to leave out details given by dependants?

It seems to me that some areas AVL could have been 'used' by relatives still holding out some forlorn hope which seems to me very sad, other Local authorities, such as Leeds were perhaps a touch more 'objective' (and thus official) when compiling the list?

I am using the Grimsby and Cleethorpes AVL, apart from the example i gave earlier there are many 'POW' entries without service details (Just name and address).

The website for the Grimsby and Cleethorpes site has a guest book, on which i found this entry:

'William A Campbell was my grandfather. He is absent from the voting list in 1919 because he died in 1915 of pneumonia.He was a trawlerman known locally as big Bill.'

Regards to all,

Steve.