Thank you both, those dates are very interesting, it looks like this man was on compassionate leave from the Canadian army, sick in hospital and on his honeymoon all at the same time.
Here is the story:
At Holmfirth Police Court on Tuesday 8th November 1917, Arthur Rollinson was charged with being absent from the 1st Canadian Machine Gun Company, he entered a plea of guilty.
Constable Rose testified that the prisoner was at home (that is at Holmfirth) because of a family bereavement, and that he had been taken ill, and the doctor had then sent him to the hospital. In answer to the charge the prisoner said that he could not break away from his wife and family, he said his wife was not a strong woman and she had a large family on her hands.
Constable Rose added that Mrs. Rollinson was the eldest of nine children and her father had died leaving her with all the children to look after. The court then ordered Arthur Rollinson to be handed over to a military escort, which was the standard practice. What happened after he returned to his unit was very probably nothing serious, there is certainly no record of a court martial for Arthur Rollinson when he rejoiced his unit.
As near as I can tell from his Canadian army attestation papers he lived at Elmora? And he enlisted at Calgary on 27th July 1916. I assumed that he was single when he enlisted because he gave his next of kin as his mother, also living at Elmora? He was a farmer born on 28th June 1892.
Anything else must be a guess, he obviously came to England with the Canadian army and was given leave which was taken at Holmfirth, he met or more likely re-met and married his wife. He did not return from leave on the appointed date, so his superiors telephoned or telegraphed Holmfirth police and they passed it on to Constable Rose, who incidently had one son dead, one on the Western Front, and one a POW in Germany.
I can see I am going to have to learn these family history techniques,
Thanks again,
Tony.
