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General => Armed Forces => World War One => Topic started by: mlr0663 on Wednesday 09 May 18 17:45 BST (UK)
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Can anyone help with identifying the attached uniform please
Thank you
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Cap badge is a bit small but I'd go for Army Service Corps, possibly the Horse Transport element. Do you have any other clues, age, lady's name???
MaxD
There is a medal card for such a chap, transferred later to the Royal Fusiliers.
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Hi there MaxD
I know who the lady is - she is his first wife (Edith Kitchen)
His name is Harry Trickett and I think the picture is a wedding picture from 1917 - Harry born in Stalybridge/Marple, Cheshire 1890 and died in 1967. He was a teacher by trade. There are a number of Harry Tricketts in the medal rolls etc and so I was wondering if the uniform might give me a chance to ID him in the WWI records. I am researching him as part of my ongoing research in the students at the Cheshire County Training College during its early days
Thank you
Margaret
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Margaret
What is clear is that there is no surviving service record for your man (60% plus of them were lost in a WW2 bombing raid). While the medal cards can't be relied on 100% (they only record men who served overseas service), looking through them we find that all other cap badges can be eliminated, he is the only Serjeant (old spelling) Harry Trickett , his ASC number has a T/ prefix which means horse transport and his dress is that of a man who works with horses. The medal rolls for Trickett with initial H support that also.
As m'learned friends might say, on the balance of possibilities, your man was T/309046(ASC number) then GS/95504 10th Battalion Royal Fusiliers.
The roll for the 10th Battalion RF shows a number of sergeants from the ASC transferring in with consecutive numbers suggesting it was at the same time. There may be something in that clue worth looking at, I'll ferret around (or perhaps someone will actually know!).
MaxD
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Thank you MaxD
Much appreciated - Trickett was someone who I thought might be a conscientious objector and then I wondered if the uniform was RAMC. I knew someone on here would be able to point me in the right direction
Kindest
Margaret
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MaxD
Could I ask - can you tell from the service numbers Trickett when he signed up to the ASC and then transferred to the Royal Fusiliers - I could then track where he went ....
He is a very odd character - as I said he was a teacher but there is no mention of his war service on his Teachers Registration Certification - which there always is. Which is why I thought that he never signed up in the first place.
Thanks for your time, very much appreciated
Margaret
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Regrettably not. The whole thing is bedevilled by the Territorial Force being renumbered in 1917 and the T/309046 looks like a post renumbering number. The system was fiendishly complex, to illustrate, T/309041 joined in June 1916 and T/309035 joined in March 1917. The date of joining the Royal Fusiliers may be findable, work in progress!
Another thought of course is that the pic isn't of your Harry Trickett? There is a medal card (but again no detailed record) for a Private Harry Trickett in the RAMC who joined in 1914 and served throughout. The pic is definitely not RAMC and not a private.
MaxD
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Ah well - 'twas a thought!!
My Harry Trickett was still in college until July 1915 - that much I am certain of - so he won't be the RAMC chappie.
The Government at the start of the war insisted that all men who were in teacher training finished their 2 year courses - so those that enrolled in college in 1913 completed their course while those that registered a year later in Sept 1914 enlisted during 1915 and 1916 when this restriction was lifted and they were told they could come back and complete their studies after the war.
Harry left the Cheshire area to teach in a school in Poplar between 1915 and 1917. That school no longer exists and am trying to trace where the records went - but without a huge amount of joy, so far but I am hopeful that I can track them down. I was reading about the Horse Transport section of the ASC - would they not have actively "fought" as such - just toying with the idea that perhaps that was his way of perhaps being non-combative, although then transferring to the Royal Fus perhaps doesn't make sense...
I have managed to contact a lady who's cousin is a granddaughter of Harry but she is not too sure that her cousin knows anything much at all - but you never know what pictures etc are being hoarded away that will pop a piece of the jigsaw into place
Again thanks for your time
Kindest
Margaret
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No one gets married in a bandolier and greatcoat and not in furs either so I doubt it's a wedding photo.
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Thanks Alan - It’s how the picture was described to me .... a wedding picture. Not knowing re uniform etiquette I didn’t know, however one of my great aunts did wear fur to her wedding - but then she wore fur to every event no matter what time of year or what family occasion it was. Must have been completely manky by time she died..... ;D ;D ;D
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Hi MaxD and anyone else who has been reading this
As I have researched Harry further his marriage notice in the Manchester Times stated that he was
Sergeant Harry Trickett A.S.C., H.T., attached to the Intelligence Corps, France.
I know that he spoke several languages as well as having very leftwing views and that he spent a great deal of time in Russia sometime after the Great War.
All very intriguing and am chasing up what info I can find on the Intelligence Corps - I know that it was in its infancy in WWI.
Does anyone have any pointers as to the best place to start looking at all?
Thanks
Margaret
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I can do no better than to refer you to post 10 on this :
https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/4397-intelligence-corps/
His medal card backs up the thought that other ranks were given 10th Royal Fusiliers numbers to "hide" them (his second number is just that).
What his specific duties were one can only guess. It could be well his language skills.
Others may find more, I'll scout around a bit but sneaky beaky's are always by their nature very hard to pin down!
MaxD
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Thought that might be the case - sneaky beaky's are us and all that
Thanks MaxD
Margaret
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Something weird happening with PMs. Got your PM but when I reply it won't recognise youf username! What you asked for is the medal award roll for the Royal Fusiliers on Ancestry at:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/5119/41629_626640_11560-00133?pid=3331546&backurl=https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc%3DMvA53%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26indiv%3D1%26db%3Diwoservicemedalawardrolls%26gsfn%3DHarry%26gsln%3DTrickett%26cp%3D0%26qh%3Dlw9OMvM4d%252ByOQItilOW%252BTA%253D%253D%26new%3D1%26rank%3D1%26redir%3Dfalse%26uidh%3D6x5%26gss%3Dangs-d%26pcat%3D39%26fh%3D8%26h%3D3331546%26recoff%3D5%25206%26ml_rpos%3D9&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=MvA53&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true
If the link won't work, easily found under WW1 Service Medal and Award Rolls against his name and GS/95504 number.
All else fails, get in touch again
Best
MaxD
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Thank you MaxD - that is fabulous.
No idea re the PM - I got a reply from you but it was just my message repeated - obviously not just me that is having a touch of Monday morning-itis - the system is too - makes me feel better.
Just out of interest - I was reading the war diaries and wondering if I could find any mention of Harry - does his service number T/309046 give any sort of clue as to the battalion he would have been in at all. Just to narrow down my reading a tad.
Enjoy your day
Margaret
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From what has been written, and commented on, it's more than likely he was military intelligence and an officer. Teaching was and is a profession, not a trade. He spoke languages, that alone would point to an officer, also in Russia during the Allied Intervention 1919/20. He would need to be have been an officer to move around in intelligence work independently.
As pointed out, the regimental affiliation may have been a cover and the ASC connection the same. Unfortunately, there may be no records.
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Good Morning Regorian
Thank you for that - any little snippet is of great help. I am studying the students and ex-students from a teacher training college who enlisted during WWI and the great majority of them ended up being officers - as you say teaching is a profession and these men would have skills in leadership and organisation I am guessing.
Harry is an intrigue but I have reached the conclusion that apart from the "official" medal roll listings and the scant information he gave his family - his army career will mostly remain a mystery and conjecture.
I am preparing for a public talk in November on the students and Harry forms part of the talk as being "a bit different", more than the average as it were.
Thanks again - I am constantly amazed at the knowledge of you guys on here
Kindest
Margaret
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Thank you Margaret, there's plenty of RC's on here with far more knowledge than I. There's a good chance you will have the answers you need in time. 10/ Royal Fusiliers, a London Regiment, doesn't seem to have any relevance, was on Western Front.
However, I have found something intriguing. The Manchester Regiment, 52nd (Graduated) Battalion. Yarmouth winter 1917/18, by May 1918 Herringfleet. They were inserted in Russia at Murmansk. Manchester your neck of the woods I think, Graduated Battalion, brainboxes, that's worth following up.
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Festina lente!
The number you asked about, T/309046, was an ASC number allocated to men involved in the horse transport element of that corps. There is no evidence that he was commissioned.
There is no connection found with the Manchesters.
That said, I was intrigued from the start of this. The influx of men, mostly, but by no means all, ASC and some sergeants, to 10th Fusiliers seemed a bit odd. Many had (dare I say it) foreign sounding names, many returned their medals after the war to be "adjusted", more than one (but I haven't trawled them all) has a reference on his medal card to an Intelligence/Interpreters Officers medal list that can be seen on Ancestry but which has a number of pages missing - the names refer to pages that aren't there.
I would go along with Regorian's thought that the regiments may, in some cases*, have been a way of covering up their real purpose in life but think it would be a mistake, given the lack of evidence and the unlikelihood of any ever being found relating to specific men, to go straight for a specific element of the campaigns such as the Russian campaign. Interpreters would have been in equal demand in the immediate post war occupation force in Germany.
MaxD
*Some cases because there are some who served early enough to have the 1914 or 1914/15 Star with their first regiment named well before the probable time frame of the transfer of men to 10 RF.
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I know you people take a delight in rubbishing me, however, the troops sent to Murmansk 1918 were:-
236th Infantry Brigade.
6th battallion RMLI.
2/10 (cyclist) Battalion, Royal Scots.
52nd (Graduated) Battallion Manchester Regiment.
and dets. Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
The Manchester Regiment also had a 53rd (Graduated) Battalion.
Those 'Graduated' battalions were not sent abroad to be slaughtered.
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Graduated Battalion surely has no connection with “graduates”.
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Got it wrong.....again, I'll get me coat.
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No "rubbishing" on my part, I stated I found no connection with the man we are looking at and the Manchesters.
MaxD
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Info - graduated battalions were the step through which young soldiers "transitioned" as they grew older between Young Soldiers Battalions and the active service battalions.
The units sent to Russia here:
http://www.militarian.com/threads/british-army-in-russia-1918-1919.7652/
MaxD
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Thanks again for clarifying my foggy thoughts.
A