Tropical group; named but undated

Here's another recent eBay purchase. The men are all named as follows:

Back row, left to right: Sapper Doane, Sapper Biggs, Signalman Dorling, Sapper Rudd, Signalman Field, Sapper Allen.

Front row, left to right: Lance-Corporal Ayling, Sergeant Ricketts,  Major A F Day, Captain L G Butler MC, Corporal Effland, Sapper Eastmead

With all of these things, an element of detective work is necessary and in this case I started with the officers.  

Major A F Day is possibly the same captain and quartermaster A F Day whose promotion to major (and quartermaster) took place on the 10th February 1947. He could also be the same Lieutenant A F Day who was interned in Holland on the 29th December 1917 and repatriated on the 21st January 1919.

Captain L G Butler MC is Captain Leolin George Butler who was promoted captain on the 14th November 1926.  He was born in Bristol  in 1893 and his death was registered at Weston-Super-Mare in 1986. In 1911 he was working as a civil engineer for a ferro-concrete engineer. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant with the Wessex Divisional Engineers on the 10th October 1915.

There is a variety of medal ribbons on display. Captain Butler's MC is clearly visible, so too his British War and Victory Medal ribbons. Signalman Field wears a 1914-15 trio; Major Day could be wearing Boer War ribbons; Sergeant Ricketts and Corporal Effland both look as though they are wearing ribbons from the second world war.

So where was the photo taken? Somewhere tropical judging by the helmets. And whilst we're at it, what about those helmets? Is that Royal Artillery on the left and Royal Engineers on the right? As for a date, I'm going with post Second World War. I welcome further thoughts on this photograph.

Royal Artillery gunner - efficiency prize-winner

Here's a nice photo which I bought the other day and which shows an artillery gunner with the crossed cannons and five pointed star which indicate that he won second prize as the most efficient gunner in his battery or company. Had he been the most efficient gunner, he'd be wearing a crown in place of the star.

There is no date on this photo but it must be 1902 onwards as the worsted badges were not introduced until this year. This man also wears a good conduct chevron indicating two years of 'undetected crime' and carries a swagger stick as part of his 'Walking Out' dress.

Royal Artillery 1939-1945

Here's an extremely useful-looking site for those with an interest in the Royal Artillery in the Second World War. I've not been through it in depth but I have dipped in and out for information on specific units. An enormous amount of work has obviously gone into this site and I suspect that more information is still being added. Definitely a site to bookmark; this is to the RA 1939-1945 what regiments.org was to the British Army.

The First World War online - findmypast.co.uk

As one of the people responsible for licensing data collections at Findmypast, I must declare an interest in what follows. Earlier today I posted on Ancestry's First World War offering and now I'm going to turn my attention to Findmypast.

I was an Ancestry subscriber many years before I was a Findmypast subscriber. Ancestry had everything I needed, namely the pension records and service records for British Army other ranks. I was researching soldiers from Chailey in Sussex and the irony was that I completed my research when I was living in India, having embarked on the project several years earlier when there was virtually nothing online and trips to the National Archives in Kew were essential. How times have changed.

Over the years, Findmypast has caught up with Ancestry and at the time of writing has also now published the First World War service and pension records. I believe the Findmypast version to be superior. The records are more thoroughly indexed than those on Ancestry meaning that the researcher stands more chance of finding his or her Great War ancestor. Unfortunately, I didn't find any more of my family members but I did find quite a few Chailey men who Ancestry had completely failed to capture. WO 363 and WO 364 are difficult series to index but Findmypast did spend longer going through these records, looking at over 35 million images in the collection not once, but twice. The indexing is not perfect, no indexing is, but I believe it is far superior to the Ancestry version. The records are more thoroughly indexed and there are hundreds of thousands of additional names - snippets mostly - which have never previously been captured.

Findmypast does not have medal index cards but it does have a transcription of the silver war badge roll and it also has great collections for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Royal Navy officers' service records and Royal Navy ratings' records for the Royal Navy, as well as Royal Air Force officers can all be searched on Findmypast and all have been licensed from The National Archives. In addition, Findmypast has also recently digitised, transcribed and published Airmen's records from the First World War, allowing it to claim the most complete collection of British service records online.

Add to this impressive tally the enrolment books for The Royal Tank Corps and Royal Artillery and various documents from The Honourable Artillery Company and you have some very useful supplementary information, for although the RTC and RA records ostensibly deal with the inter war periods there are a lot of men listed here who have outline sketches of their former service during the First World War recorded.

Findmypast has also recently published a number of partial rolls for various pals battalions and the Welsh Guards and - take it from me - there is a lot more to come.

In common with Ancestry, Findmypast has also published much of the available Naval & Military Press catalogue and it has some extremely useful and unique record collections from before the First World War (which I'll cover elsewhere).

Clicking on any of the Findmypast links on this post will take you straight to their website where you can find out more for yourself.

Tip. When searching on Findmypast, use the A-Z search and also read my First World War service record search tips HERE and HERE.

Military Medals awarded to the Royal Artillery

Two Royal Artillery releases in one day has got to be good news.

As well as releasing its data on WW2 honours and awards for the corps, Find My Past has also published a database of Military Medal awards to the Royal Artillery between 1916 and 1993.  There's also some useful general information contained on the site, for instance, the difference in the promotion ladders between WW1 and WW2:

Soldiers' ranks

During WWI, the artillery rank structure included corporal which was removed from the regiment in the 1920s and Serjeant became Sergeant. The WWI War promotion ladder consisted of:

• Gnr – gunner
• Bdr – bombardier (one stripe)
• Cpl – corporal (two stripes)
• Sjt – serjeant (three stripes with a gun above)

The WWII promotion ladder was:

• Gnr – gunner
• L/Bdr – lance bombardier (one stripe)
• Bdr – bombardier (two stripes)
• Sgt – sergeant (three stripes with a gun above)

Between gunner and bombardier there was a lance bombardier (L/Bdr) and between bombardier and corporal there was a lance corporal (L/Cpl). During WWII there was also the rank of lance sergeant 'L/Sgt'. The names of some of the ranks also denoted their role, for example:

Dvr – driver

A driver was a soldier trained in the management and use of horses. The six horses drawing the gun, or wagon, were driven by three drivers, all on the nearside horses, and much training was required before drivers would be rated as competent. The drivers, of course, also looked after the horses and the management, condition and state of health of these animals was regarded as one of the most important functions in the battery.

All branches of the artillery used horses, not just the RHA. By WWII, mechanisation had replaced the horse but the gun limbers, lorries and self-propelled guns all required drivers and the rank remained. The number of horses meant specialist roles of saddler, farrier, and shoeing smith were used and added to the name of the rank. Horse-drawn equipment needed wheelers and fitters and the officer needed clerks who could write in artillery code and signallers who could send it.

• S/Sjt – staff serjeant
• SM – serjeant major
• QMS – quartermaster serjeant
• BQMS – battery quartermaster serjeant
• BSM – battery serjeant major (warrant officer class II)
• RSM – regimental sergeant major (warrant officer class I)

 All MM awards to the RA are now searchable on findmypast.

WW2 Royal Artillery honours and awards online

If your Royal Artillery ancestor was in receipt of an award for service during the Second World War, you'll probably find him or her on a brand new dataset just released on Find My Past. Royal Artillery Honours and Awards 1939-1946 contains details of awards to over 21,000 men and may include the following information:

• soldier's title, first name (sometimes only initials, last name, rank and number)
• soldier's post nominals at the time of the award
• date it appears in the London Gazette
• unit the man was serving in at the time of the award, when known
• award itself
• branch of the regiment
• theatre of operations in which the soldier was serving at the time
• schedule number
• file number
• who the award was recommended by
• theatre of operations
• remarks on the award
• further service notes, when known
• status
• date of event
• cause of death (as applicable)
• place of residence
• date of discharge
• reason for discharge

These records have been assiduously compiled by the librarian at the Royal Artillery museum in Woolwich and are searchable on findmypast from today.

Samuel William Franklin - a mystery solved

My grandfather gave me the two photos I'm publishing on this post.  Both were, he said, of his mother's father, Samuel William Franklin.  Also passed over to me at the same time was a document citing 175 Colour Sergeant Franklin when he was serving with the 2/2nd Regiment of Foot.  Dated 14th November 1861 when he was stationed on the Greek island of Corfu, Col Sgt Franklin had sought "the indulgence" of getting married.  The request had been recommended by his Commanding Officer and counter-signed by Lt Colonel Bruce who commanded the 2/2nd Regiment of Foot. The marriage between Samuel Franklin and Sarah Nelson duly took place later that year.

The photo above was obviously taken many years later when Samuel had swapped his British Army uniform for a Salvation Army one.  The Franklin family were devoted Salvationists and Samuel's daughter Margaret, and in turn her daughter Queenie would follow in Samuel's footsteps, journeying to India and mixing with (and in Queenie's case marrying) other Salvation Army members.  But what of the photo showing a young Samuel Franklin in army uniform?

A few years ago I posted a query on a forum stating that Samuel had been born in 1833 and suggesting that the photo, taken in a studio in Colchester, Essex probably dated to the late 1850s.  I quickly received two responses stating that the uniform was wrong for the 1850s and that besides, the bursting grenades on the collar indicated the Royal Artillery or Royal Engineers and not the 2/2nd Foot, later the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment.  The 1890s was suggested as a possible date rather than the 1850s.

Last night. picking up threads again via findmypast, I found Samuel William Franklin (still in Corfu) on the 1861 Worldwide Army Index.  There appears to be no service record for him in The Chelsea Pensioners' series in WO 97 and I know that by 1871 he was back in England and is listed on the census as a sergeant instructor of Volunteers.  This was possibly the 1st or 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry as he was by then living in St Austell.  I did however, check on his children and was pleasantly surprised to see that his son, Samuel Franklin, born in 1863 in Gibraltar, followed his father into the army and joined the Royal Artillery at Colchester on the 7th January 1886. He attained the rank of Company Sergeant Major until he fell foul of the authorities in 1900 and was reduced to the rank of sergeant.  He was discharged from the army (by now serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery) on the 6th January 1907 having served exactly 21 years.  His trial in 1900 robbed him of a Long Service and Good Conduct Medal and neither did he qualify for any campaign medals, spending over 18 years in the United Kingdom and the remaining two and a bit years in Malta.  He died in 1910.

But for me, the mystery of the two photos is now solved.  They do indeed both show Samuel Franklin, albeit one is the father and the other the son.