Summary
- 949 – Men identified with service number (+3 this month)
- 742 – Confirmed ’08 service numbers (+3)
- 86 – Men identified without service number (-1)
- 40 – Portraits (+13)
- 23 – Descendants contacted
July was an important month for the project, I took the decision to shift my focus away from finding new soldiers and adding them to the nominal role to starting to find out more about the men.
Contacting descendants on Ancestry
I’ve thoughts long and hard about how to do this, and after a couple of trials, I finally decided to start by using Ancestry family trees to contact descendants to see whether they have any surviving records, photos or memories.
I was a bit nervous doing this (I hate cold-calling), but have been blown away by the positive response. In July, I made contact with 15 descendants of men of the Brigade and received over 30 new photographs as well as a wealth of information. I’m still working my through it all, and plan to write detailed profiles for all of these men.
To give you a couple of examples of what I’ve found:
725030, Tom Minty. Tom Minty was one of the first recruits into the Brigade in 1908 and being from Neath was a member of the 2nd Glamorgan Battery. Despite volunteering for Imperial Service, Tom remained at home, later joining the Brigade in Egypt.
He was interviewed many years later by the local paper: Eighty-two year old Tom Minty will never forget his first encounter with a ‘flying machine’. Wearing R.F.C. medals, it came out of the blue as he and his mates of the Neath Artillery Battery were marching along a sunny road in Palestine in the first World War….. To our amazement, it suddenly dived on the column and machine-gunned us, running for cover. Tom remembers the searing pain from the shrapnel, which stayed with him until four years ago, when it was removed in an emergency operation.
1094, Thomas Aneurin Jones. Tom Jones enlisted in January 1915 and travelled with the Brigade to France and Egypt.
In late 1918, as the Brigade fought through to Judaean Hills, he contracted Malaria and was taken to a Field Hospital near Jerusalem where sadly he died just 3 weeks before the end of the War. Tom is buried at Ramleh Cemetery near Jerusalem and he is also remembered on his fathers headstone in the churchyard within sight of his home.
His family have a series of beautiful pictures of Tom including portraits and original official photos and documentation relating to his burial.
And there is so much more that I will tell you about in the coming months.
Major progress in the Portrait Gallery
Making contact with family members has also meant the Portrait Gallery has taken a big step forward. In total, 13 additional portraits were found this month, bringing the total to 40.
This is still my favourite page on the whole site. I’m not sure why, but seeing the men side-by-side again after all these years makes me quite emotional. Please take a look – Portrait Gallery.
A Treasure Trove of New Photos
And finally, last month I mentioned that I was speaking to the family of 685, Stanley Howe. Stanley was a Blacksmith from Morriston and went on to be a Shoeing Smith in the Ammunition Column. Unfortunately, he was kicked in the head by a horse in November 1914 which damaged both his sight and hearing so he did not see active service.
His family have a wonderful photographic record of his time in the Brigade, including portraits of him (and several other unidentified members of the Brigade), several group photos as well as some pictures of the Shoeing Smiths. Its a lovely little collection and worth a look – 685, S Howe photos.
