Scots Guards enlistment registers

Findmypast has just published over 40,000 entries in Scots Guards enlistment registers covering the period 1799 to 1939.

There are three distinct series covered in the new release: officer enlistments, other rank enlistments, and a roll of officers and men who served during the Second Anglo-South African War (2nd Boer War).

The enlistment register format will be familiar to those who have already looked at Royal Tank Corps enlistment registers and Royal Artillery enlistment registers which are also published on Findmypast. As usual, it is the earlier registers which provide the most detail.

In the example below, extracts from the register entries of 4974 Frederick Munday and 4975 John Adamson who enlisted on the 7th and 10th August 1903 respectively, show the level of information packed into these registers.

Frederick Munday won the Military Medal twice whilst John Adamson received gunshot wounds to his left arm and right thigh on the 14th September 1914. His pension award is recorded on this document. Not shown in this extract are the men's next of kin and, in the case of Frederick Munday, his three children, all of whom will have been indexed and are searchable. The men's place of birth and year of birth have also been indexed.

The regimental number field is currently not populating on the free results' screen but this bug, introduced yesterday, is expected to be fixed by Monday, fingers crossed. In the meantime though, these records are hugely important, filling as they do, gaps left by missing service records. For that matter, look out for more Scots Guards records in 2017.

This latest release means that there are now over 65,000 Scots Guards records on Findmypast - and if you click on that last link you'll be able to see them all.

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Up the Micks! - Irish Guards illustrated

Published by Pen & Sword at £35, Up The Micks! is a superb pictorial history of the Irish Guards which begins with the regiment's formation in 1900 and brings the reader right up to the present day. I would have liked to have seen sources cited on more of the illustrations and photos, and it is unfortunate that the date of the regiment's first presentation of the colours is given as May 2002 rather than May 1902. However, these are minor quibbles and there is much to recommend this book, including useful appendices that detail everything over the years from gallantry awards and the evolving Colours to names of colonels and senior NCOs. This will be a very distracting coffee-table book as well as a quick and easy source of reference. I've only just started dipping into my copy but it's going to sit very comfortably with my other Guards regimental histories and I know it's going to be useful. Grenadiers, Coldstreams and Scots, take note.

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Identifying the Guards

I picked up a copy of Anthony Edgeworth's The Guards yesterday and, looking at the photos, was reminded of an easy way to identify a particular regiment of Foot Guards. Simply look at the arrangement of the buttons on their tunics.

In terms of regimental precedence, the Grenadier Guards come first, followed by the Coldstream Guards, the Scots Guards,  the Irish Guards and finally, the Welsh Guards.

1. The Grenadier Guards - 1st - buttons arranged singly:

2. The Coldstream Guards - 2nd - buttons arranged in pairs:

3. The Scots Guards - 3rd - buttons arranged in groups of three:

4. The Irish Guards - 4th - buttons arranged in groups of four:

5. The Welsh Guards - 5th - buttons arranged in groups of five:

Easy when you know how.

The black and white photograph is courtesy of art.co.uk and then, in order of regimental precedence, The Daily Mail, Artangel, London SE1 and BBC News.