Hello,
My grandfather's WW1 enlistment papers appear to be among the many lost/destroyed during the blitz of ww2. I have only his medal index card. He didn't die during the first world war - he was there to the bitter end, which makes it even harder to find out what units he was in. The fallen tend to have newspaper articles about their deaths in local papers, rolls of honour about them preserved, with details of their regiments etc. This does slightly make it easier to track their military history down if enlistment records have been lost.
In my grandad's case, he never spoke of his time on the frontline, and from what my own father has passed on to me more recently, was that he can remember only once being given a few snippets of information, when he joined up for his National Service. My searches have revealed that I might be able to establish my grandad's regiment or unit from the absent voters lists of 1918, but aside from his last recorded address from the 1911 census, I cannot establish where he lived on enlistment, so I don't know which voters lists to look at.
Can anyone help or point me in the right direction?
His medal index card shows his name Robert Taylor and that he was in the Rifle Brigade 13969 and the MGC 13433 received the Victory mesal MGC/10189 and British Medal.
Further info I can give;
Robert Taylor born in Felling, Gateshead, Newcastle (Holly Cottages) on 17th
July 1896 to George and Margaret (nee Stephenson) Taylor (married in 1895 in Gateshead)
1901 Census puts them in Willington County Durham (21 Old Row) George being a Miner at New Brancepeth Colliery.
On January 23rd 1905 George is killed in the pit (i have all those particulars)
1911 Census now sees my grandad Robert aged 14 living at 3 Woolley Terrace, Billy Row, near Crook County Durham, with his mother, siblings and step-father James Trotter
At 14, he was working at the pits too as an helper-up.
The little info I have on his enlistment is that he 'volunteered' in 1914, he was not conscripted. He was caught up in a gas attack but managed to escape major ill-effects, gas smelt like pineapple? He was picked from the Rifle Brigade to train for MGC due to his crack shooting? and that he spent a couple of weeks in field hospital with flu but once effectively treated, went back to frontline duties....
I can't make the connection between Rifle Brigade and Machine Gun Corps and how that would have come about. Apart from a theater of war in the Somme, we believe he was also in the Ypres Salient are too?
It is a big ask, but where could I posdibly go from this?
I do have information following his life post WW1 (his 2 marriages, etc)
Thank you in anticipation
Angela
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Topic: Last resort is Absent Voters List? (Read 1320 times)