Background
This project came about as a result of the research I’ve been doing into my Great Uncle, Gunner Rees John Williams who joined the Brigade at the start of the Great War.
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 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’, or worse still, on eBay or in a skip.
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.
If you have any information about the Brigade and would to contribute to the project, please get in touch via the contacts page.
Acknowledgements & Thanks
This is a huge task and has only been possible thanks to the help of many kind and generous people. I’d like acknowledge their generosity and thank them here:
- Dulcie Williams (my Aunt), who unknowingly laid the seed for this in the 1970’s.
- The family of Rees John Williams who generously entrusted me with his photo album, medals and many other fascinating documents.
- David Porter, whose knowledge of the nuances of Territorial service numbers is quite simply staggering. David has directly help me finding at least 50 of the men of the Brigade and put me on the path to finding many more as well as explain how and when blocks of men were moved between units.
- Jon Skidmore; whose book ‘Neath and Briton Ferry in the First World War’ set the benchmark for what could be done and also generously shared much information.
- Mike Davies & Simon Lee, both experts in Glamorgan units who have also kindly shared information that I’ve used, and given much guidance.
- Mike Petty – local historian in Cambridgeshire – who had a wealth of information relating to the Brigades time in Cambridge.
- Peter Applewhite, whose web-site When the Welsh came to Bedford is a treasure trove of information on the 53rd Welsh Division in Bedford and sparked the idea of me doing something similar.
- Julie B, who saved me hours by transcribing various documents.
I also need to acknowledge the on-line resources that made this possible – Ancestry, FindMyPast, Welsh Newspapers Online and the Western Front Association/Fold3.