RootsChat.Com
General => Armed Forces => Topic started by: deejayEn on Thursday 16 February 17 18:06 GMT (UK)
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I have traced my great-great grandfather and he was a butler on the 1881 census in London but ten years earlier in 1871 he is living in a different household in Ascot and is described as "Butler, Private Coldstream Guards". The head of the household's son-in-law is Christopher Edward Blackett who is living at home and described as a "Cpt & Lieut Cl Coldstream Guards".
I know that servants often served in the army with their masters and were usually called a valet or a batman. But here he is described as a butler and is at his masters home (or at least his mother-in-law's). Was this the normal practice? And does that mean that he traveled everywhere with him whether on active service or not?
Also although he is described as unmarried he had actually married the previous year. His wife is working as a cook in a different house in Hampshire in 1871 and is described as married. Was this unusual? I now that servants weren't usually permitted to marry except in the case of butlers and cooks but usually in the same household. And as he was also a soldier this may have added complications. Can anyone offer any advice?
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when and where was he born ? edit ok got him :)
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wonder if this is him.....name mistranscribed?
First name(s) George
Last name Bloomfield
Service number 1006
Rank Private
Unit or Regiment Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards
HQ location London and Windsor
Year 1871
Country Great Britain
National Archives reference WO 12/1765
Period 01/04/1871-30/09/1871
Record set British Army, Worldwide Index 1871
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It is not quite that the servant served with his master but that officers were entitled to a servant, a soldier from their regiment, whose duties were to see to their uniform, run errands and generally "look after" their officer in barracks and on operations. Things were more relaxed than nowadays and living in th family home not unusual. The title butler is simply as they described him in the household, it was not what the military would have called him. Why described as unmarried - anybody's guess, could be the head of the house knew almost nothing about the lower orders. The practice, much minimised, still exists in the Household Division and at senior levels.
The officer, who comes from an prominent Scottish family wrote a number of letters to his father from the Crimea earlier which make interesting reading.
https://specialcollections.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=2308
maxD
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Thanks for your help. His name has been mistranscribed because it is Bloomfield with an L and I noticed the officer is actually called Blackett not Brackett so the enumerator has had trouble reading Ls for Rs. So that soldier could well be him. How can I find out more from that reference? I have been to the National Archives site but can locate the reference?
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The reference is here http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?action=post;topic=765351.0;last_msg=6172809 but won't tell you any more than you know already. It is the 1871/2 paylist for 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards which will simply list his name as Gortonboy has posted. It is on FindMyPast as the 1871 Worldwide Index.
He doesn't appear in the 1861 index so one must assume he joined the army sometime after 1861 and before 1871. If you wish to find out when he joined and left, then it would be a question of working through the WO 12 muster books http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C150202of the appropriate dates ie after 1861 and beyond 1871 trying to find when he first appears on the pay lists and when he disappears. This can only be done at Kew.
maxD
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Gortonboy - I should have acknowledged in my last post that you cited the WO12/1765 reference as evidence of your source - apologies.
maxD
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Many thanks, I will have to visit Kew and do some digging.