Police Gazette

[katerimmer]

Is there any kind of index to the deserters listed in the Police Gazette? My great-uncle (Reginald Hugh Bristow) seems to have been a deserter and then returned to the army, but I don't know the exact dates. It's possible that one of my friends / relatives might be able to go and look the entry up for me if I knew what edition they should look at, but I wouldn't want to ask somebody to go through every edition of it!

Also, where are the British Library copies of the Police Gazette held / accessed now? Are they still at Colindale or have they been moved? Is it actually possible for people to look at them at the British Library at the moment and if so, where do they have to go? I have seen mention of the newspaper collection being moved (to Pancras, I think?) but didn't really take in the details, then yesterday I saw the Police Gazette deserters thing mentioned in YFT magazine.

[bob lembke]

Kate;

Interestingly, there was a US publication called the Police Gazette, mainly used to report fugitives to different parts of the country. (It still exhisted as sort of a girly magazine some years ago.) I was studying Irish deserters from the US Army, who formed a battalion in the Mexican Army during the Mexican War, 1845-48. I spent a lot of time compiling lists of these deserters and their descriptions, back about 40 years ago.

Bob Lembke