Disbanding of 3/10th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, WW1

[MacGrigor]

On a different note, he shows up on the weekly casualty list for the 26th of November 1918. Why would he be listed then when the Armistice was signed on the 11th of November, more than two weeks before the list? Presumably if it was weekly then it couldn't have been a delayed announcement.

[MaxD]

Communication in the pre Facebook era was not as quick as today!!

The 26 November is the date it was published.
The list was issued by the War Office on 22 November.
The fact that it is called a weekly list doesn't mean that the casualties listed were only suffered during the previous week.
You have seen how many men are named on just one list, it takes a considerable time to collate the names from across the army.
And no you can't tell exactly when a man was wounded from the list.
When the armistice was signed has no bearing at all on this.

MaxD

[MacGrigor]

That makes sense. Thanks for clearing it up.

[MacGrigor]

I’ve made a discovery! I found the list of Middlesex Regiment soldiers which features battalions served in etc. Three people after Alexander, and two service numbers, is Private Leonard Beagles. His discharge papers reveal that he enlisted on the 9th of December 1915. Presumably Alexander would have enlisted before him, and was therefore not conscripted but volunteered.

[jim1]

Possible but not conclusive I'm afraid. Often spare numbers were used in an ad hoc manner. He could have gone in under the Derby scheme, jumped before being pushed you might say.
If you can find other similar numbers (the more the better) all with a similar attestation date adds to the possibility.

[MacGrigor]

Oh that’s a shame. I looked at most of the surrounding numbers but only medal indexes survived for them.

On the medal roll listing all the men with their serial numbers, in the column titled ‘theatres of war in which served’ it says ‘to’ with everyone’s ranks listed and ‘from’, which has a mix of noughts and crosses. Some then have ticks next to the noughts. Seeing as Private Beagles was discharged early (and has a cross) could this have something to do with being medically discharged?

[MaxD]

Beagles was discharged on 13 May 1918 with a disability caused by wounds with a Silver War Badge, his entry has SWB pencilled against it.  X appears with others without a SWB. 

The pencil notes look as if they had a significance to the clerks checking some aspect of the issue /engraving of the medals, I suggest they have no relevance to the search for your man's enlistment date.

For info, Derby Scheme explained here: https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/soldiers/a-soldiers-life-1914-1918/enlisting-into-the-army/the-group-scheme-derby-scheme/

MaxD

[MacGrigor]

Thanks Max! I didn’t think they were connected to enlistment; on the contrary, I thought they might be connected to discharge.

[MaxD]

Understood - no to that also!

MaxD