Driver Joseph Sparkes, RFA, puzzle

[ainslie]

Geoff's Wonderful search engine has found him, listed as Sparks, with no 'e', 39052, 1st Bn, East Lancs, 21/03/1918.
That earlier casualty list perhaps accounted for the switch from RFA to E Lan.R.
Great team work!!!  Many thanks to all.
A

[jim1]

Good find but they still look like different men. 39052 looks like a man from a non TF Bde. otherwise he would have a 6 digit number.
It's possible he died after the war & it was concluded that his death was war attributed & so included on the plaque.

[cath151]

Liverpool Electoral Registers have an Alice C Sparks living at 4, Neston Street in 1920, perhaps that could help with identification.
I do wonder if he is the right man too,but Joseph Sparks 39052 parents would have been Alice Curry Pearson and George Webster Sparks ( there is a tree on Ancestry) Born c 1895
Cathy

[ainslie]

I am now convinced that the Joseph Spark(e)s in RFA then East Lancs is one and the same.  The E. Lancs medal roll for the 1914-15 Star shows one entry covering RFA 1336 and E. Lancs 39052.  From comparing other pairs of numbers I have for 277 Brigade RFA, 1336 could have been updated to 685984 in the TF renumbering in 1917.
He is remembered on the Arras Memorial to the Missing.

Once again, thanks to you all.
A

[jim1]

39052 J Sparks died in 1918 so therefore not the TF man or he would have had his 6 digit number from 1917 onwards.

[ainslie]

But his East Lancs number was with 1st Battalion, ELR, not with RFA/TF.  Presumably after wounding and transfer.

[jim1]

The E.Lancs number is the one he had in 1918 when he died. Had he transferred to the 277th. he would have had a 6 digit number as the 277th. was TF. Any man transferring into a TF Bde. irrespective of whether or not he was in a TF Bde. prior to this still would have ben given a TF number from the allocated block.

[ainslie]

Jim
I think we are at opposite ends of the table on this.  My view is that Joseph was first numbered as 1336, with 277 Brigade [or its earlier title 3rd West Lancs Bde] RFA.  On renumbering in 1917 he became 685984.  He was wounded late in 1917 - the war diary of 277 records several ORs wounded in November, but of course without names.
In the absence of his service record we have to speculate that when passed fit he was remustered as a private in 1st Bn, East Lancs Regt, as 39052.  I do not know about infantry numbers, but could this be dated?
Whoever created the Battery's memorial may not have known about the infantry posting, and they certainly included other errors and mysteries.
I hope you  can agree with the above.
A

[jim1]

If they were the same man there would be only one MIC. There are 2.