Historic Records Men of 1914

Arrived overseas: 4 October 1914. Connection: Prisoner of War postcard. 'Madge', also known as 9023 Lance-Corporal Arthur Woolley of the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment, was captured by the Germans on the 26th October 1914 and would spent the rest of the war as a guest of the Kaiser. This photograph of him was taken at one of the Munster PoW camps. Arthur, born in 1894, had been a soldier since 1911, and he would be discharged in February 1919 with disordered action of the heart. His home address was given as 20 St Luke's Road, Derby.

Arrived overseas: 7 August 1914. Connection: 1914 Star trio. William Henry Fecamp was born in Bermondsey in 1882. On the 8th July 1901 he got his first taste of military life when he attested with the Kent Artillery, a militia unit. His suriving attestation papers show that he was aged 19 years and five months, living at 7 Claxton Grove, Hammersmith and working as a gas fitter for Mr Burgeman in Fulham. He stood five feet, eight and a quarter inches tall, had a pale complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. He also had a number of tattoos including a heart, clasped hands and the intials  WHF on his right arm, and clasped hands and a woman on his left forearm. Henry trained for 49 days and then immediately enlistaed as a career soldier with the 5th Dragoon Guards. Although no papers survive for William, he probably enlisted for seven years with the colours followed by five years on the reserve. Certainly, by the time the 1911 census was taken, he was back working as a gas fitter an...

Arrived overseas: 6 August 1914. Connection: QSA and 1914 Star trio, plus father's Afghanistan and army LSGC medals. Frederick Gris was the son of Thomas and Louisa Gris and was born in Ranikhet, India on the 3rd December 1879. Thomas Gris was a farrier sergeant serving with the 6th Dragoon Guards, and in due course, on the 28th January 1898, Frederick would also join the regiment.  Frederick served overseas during the Second Anglo-South African War (Boer War), earning the Queen's South Africa Medal with clasps for Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, Belfast and South Africa 1901. By 1911 he was still serving with the regiment, still a private, and stationed at Orange Free State, South Africa. He had almost certainly re-engaged to complete 21 years with the colours by this stage and he returned to England with the regiment in January 1913. The regiment was stationed at Canterbury when Britain went to war, and a day after being mobilised on the 5th August...

Arrived overseas: 23 October 1914. Connection: 1914 Star trio. George Hogg had an interesting army career service in the First World War, enlisting with the Royal Scots as a Special Reservist on the 23rd September 1914. He was then 42 years old and had previously served as a career soldier with the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, serving for 12 years. His earlier regimental number, 1717, suggests he joined the Argylls as a 14-year-old boy in 1886, almost certainly signing up in the band. Boys always enlisted for 12 years with no reserve service, and this prior military experience may help to explain why George, with precisely one month's service with the Royal Scots under his belt, found himself disembarking in France on the 23rd October 1914 as part of a draft for the 2nd Battalion. George served with the Royal Scots until November 1915 when he was discharged with "early locomotor ataxy". Not one to be put off by the small matter of muscle control, George re-enliste...

Arrived overseas: 11 November 1914. Connection: Victory Medal. Arthur Hurst's Victory Medal cost me all of £22 when I purchased it online a while ago. The medal ribbon is a modern replacement, and he was also entitled of course to the 1914 Star and the British War Medal. Medal records show that he also applied for the clasp for his 1914 Star. Arthur enlisted with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment on the 4th June 1912 and he arrived in France on the 11th November 1914. He'd been born in 1893 and so was a young man of 19 when he joined the army. At some point in time Arthur was wounded, receiving a gunshot wound to his leg, albeit it is sickness which is recorded on his silver war badge entry and  which led to his discharge in June 1916. Various addresses appear on a pension ledger entry:  48 Queen Mary’s Road, Coventry; King’s Heath, Birmingham;  13 Little Francis Street, Saltley, Birmingham; 30 Grange Road;  65 Ravenhurst Street;  320 Dudley Road, Birmingham and l...

Arrived overseas: 7 November 1914. Connection: 2nd Middlesex Regiment football team photo 1912.  John Ainger was a corporal when this photo was taken of him in 1912, but he'd been tried by a district court martial later that year and reduced to the ranks. Surving papers show that his 'crime' was "Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline - being in the corporals' room during prohibited hours". He'd been in the army for six years by then, and undeterred by his demotion, in 1913 elected to extend his period of colour service to complete 12 years with the colours. He landed in France as a corporal on the 7th November 1914, having been promoted to that rank just two days earlier. John Ainger was killed in action on the 23rd December 1914. He was 26-years-old, the son of Christopher and Kate Ainger of 14 Sothern Road, King's Road, Fulham. He is buried in Rue du Bacquerot No 1 Military Cemetery in Laventie. His grieving parents paid to h...

Arrived overseas: 15 August 1914. Connection: Postcards (x3). These two photos of Private George William Clarke of the 2nd Suffolk Regiment were taken when he was incarcerated at Chemnitz PoW camp. Born in 1888, George had joined the Suffolk Regiment in 1906, and in the photo on the left, you can clearly see the three good conduct chevrons on his lower left arm which indicate at least 12 years' service. As the photo dates to 1918 this ties in perfectly with George's 1906 enlistment. It also confirms that men's GC badge entitlements were updated, even when they were prisoners of war. George had arrived overseas on the 15th August 1914 and he was captured at Le Cateau on the 26th August 1915. His Chemnitz PoW number can clearly be seen above his left jacket pocket, whislt the number 12 on his collar his an anachronistic nod to the 12th Regiment of Foot which would become the Suffolk Regiment in July 1881.