Welcome to the 1st Welsh (Howitzer) Brigade website.
My goal for this new site is to identify and remember the almost 1,640 brave men of Swansea, Briton Ferry, Neath and Morriston who volunteered to serve in the ranks of the 1st Welsh (Howitzer) Brigade between 1908 and 1916.
I’m launching the site now with limited content and plan to build on it over the coming months.
At the outset, the site includes a history of the Brigade as well as the roll of the almost 950 identified as serving the Brigade.
Going forward, I plan to share all of the personal information I have collected to date by creating a page for every member of the Brigade identified, summarise the War Diaries and look at the equipment members of the Brigade would have used.
Why I’m doing this?
This project came about as a result of the research I’ve been doing into my Great Uncle (953, Gunner Rees J. Williams).
I never knew Rees, but in my teens his Sister gave me his dog tags, buttons, a couple of pictures and a copy of his obituary. In the obituary, it says Rees was ‘mentioned in despatches’ intriguingly ‘in association with Col Lawrence’. Despite many attempts, at the time I was unable to find out anything about what he had done in the War or how he was linked to Lawrence.
The advent of the internet, coupled with the receipt of his amazing photo album from one of his children rekindled my interest in 2019. It quickly became clear that despite his service record being destroyed, a wide range of information had survived which when collated told the story of his war.
Since then, I have continued to gather information on the Brigade and over time have developed the idea of creating a website to share the information I’ve gathered and to add to it, by gathering the information that still remains ”out there’.
I have a theory! Every year, more personal information about our ancestors is lost as documents are thrown away, estates are cleared or pictures ‘of my Dad’ become ‘pictures of an unnamed WW1 soldier in a dusty box’.
I would like to see if its possible to capture and share as much information as possible about the brave men of the 1st Welsh (Howitzer) Brigade before its lost forever.
There’s only a couple of problems, I don’t know how to build a website, I’m not a military historian and I struggle to write clearly – but heck, we all need a challenge.
With that in mind, I plan to post regularly; looking at both the technical side of the site and progress on gathering and collating information.
Can you help?
Yes please. If you want to help undertake research or have any information (documents, photos, family stories etc) relating to the Brigade, please get in touch by clicking on the contact button.
Cheers. John
