In January, I’ve had a lot of time to focus on the project – I’m in-between jobs so I’ve made a lot of progress.
The biggest step forward was putting the searchable Nominal Roll on-line, complete with basic pages showing the information that I’ve found for each man. In total, there are now 845 men now identified (out of the almost 1640 who enlisted).
I have also managed to confirm 17 portraits and I have a couple more to process. One of my favourite pages is now the Portrait Gallery which shows the men side-by-side.
Finally, I’ve managed to complete 6 more detailed profiles and it’s already turned up some fascinating stories;
- 128 – John Howell Jenkins – one of three brothers to lose their lives in the war.
- 688 – Stanley Anderson – the first soldier to lose his life overseas. Stanley died following a riding accident just after the Brigade arrived in Egypt.
- 700 – George Bell – who saved a women and child from a fire in Bedford in Nov 1914.
- 953 – Rees John Williams – son of a Swansea publican, who was seconded from the Brigade to become involved in mapping the Sinai Desert and Palestine. He was Mentioned in Dispatches in association with Lawrence of Arabia and later on in life became the Borough Engineer for Tottenham.
You can read about these men by searching the Nominal Roll.
I also posted on the Swansea History Society Facebook Page which generated almost 100 hits and a couple of people got in touch which was fantastic.
