Many thanks for that suggestion, Sylvia. Having at last had some time to do so, I've now browsed through quite a lot of the images that those words bring up. (Found that adding "
- football" shortened the list rather usefully!
) As you doubtless saw yourself, the hits produced include some very interesting photocopies of individual documents that people have put up onto the web in relation to their own family history research -- though one does wonder how many of them sought copyright clearance first. Excellent samples of what one may hope to find.
But the best thing I came across was the write-up that an Australian called Grahame Thom has placed onto his genealogical website (
here). Although he understandably focuses on the copious surviving records about payments to pensioners resident in the Antipodes, his thoughts have more general relevance, and other RootsChat users may therefore find the above link quite helpful.
His bibliography -- near the foot of the page -- referred me to a good article by Rosemary Oliver published in the London SoG's
Genealogists' Magazine back in 1984. Its full citation is:
Oliver, R. M., “War Office District Pension Returns 1842-62”, Genealogists’ Magazine, Vol. 21 No 6 (June 1984), pp.196-9
Unfortunately I have failed to find any info that assists with the narrow problem specified in my original post -- i.e. no ref. to the exact Payment District that included the office at Ruthin. Interestingly, Rosemary Oliver's experience during her research was that district names that initially appear to cover a single county often in fact include a number of offices beyond that county's boundaries. As she wrote about Lincoln, Sheffield and Carlisle Districts,
I noted the places at which pensioners were paid and found that some of them were well outside the relevant counties ... It is not sufficient merely to consult the volumes for the obvious county town.
Examples she goes on to cite include the offices at Newark (located in Lincoln District); Bakewell, Chesterfield and Worksop (Sheffield District); and Langholm, Annan and -- for a period -- Stranraer (Carlisle District).
As the Carlisle example actually includes payment offices over the border in Scotland, it must intensify the risk of a parallel situation applying in relation to Ruthin -- suggesting the town's possible attachment to Chester, regardless of its being geographically in "East Wales".
So, if anything I am left even less certain than before. I fear that any TNA visitor who may step forward to help really will need to order up the volumes for both districts.
Two other practical points for researchers emerge from Rosemary Oliver's piece:
[T]he returns for 1852-53 tend to be bound in front of those for 1842-51, at least in the volumes I have seen.
So one should not too hastily assume that the returns for the years one is seeking are lost or in another volume.
As to RN and HEICS pensioners, this observation seems worth bearing in mind:
Until 1847 only Chelsea is mentioned, thereafter names of Greenwich and East India Company pensioners begin to appear ...
Hope some of the foregoing may assist other people.
Rol