After looking at his medal card again, I believe that Louis returned from India sometime in 1919 and was 'demobbed' from the British Army. It appears that he returned to Lincolnshire where he met and had a dalliance with a Miss Keech resulting in a daughter being born in January 1921. It appears that when he was told of the pregnancy he disappeared back to India where he joined the Eastern Bengal Company A.F.I.
The Eastern Bengal Company was an Auxilliary Force, India - men joining, including ex soldiers, would sign up for 4 years but could extend on a yealy basis. Louis did just this - he was in the A.F.I. when he married in 1922 and was still in the A.F.I. when he died in 1928.
The A.F.I. was the equivalent to the Territorial Army in the UK and was in force until India gained independence.
Thank you for this. So think I summarise it so far that Louis was in the British Army from 1913. He received a medal for his 1914/1915 WW1 efforts in France and Belgium. He was shot through the cheek and his BIL's diary says in the stomach as well. His whole unit was then shipped to India in late 1915 as part of the British Army WW1 efforts in India.
After WW1, he was then demobbed, came back to England. In spring 1920, he got Miss Keech pregnant and rather than marry her (as was the normal/expected thing to do), he scarpered back to India and joined their equivalent of the Territorial Army.
He then served in the same region (Bengal) as before. The AFI records I seek will tell me exactly what and where maybe. Illegitimate daughter was born in Jan 1921 and lived from birth with his mother in Spalding.
He then got married in India in Feb 1922 and they had four surviving children (and family rumour says more who didn't survive but I cannot find any more than four baptism records - yet!).
Joan Mary grew up in Lincolnshire as surname Coley (there is a newspaper record when she gets her pitman shorthand cert) and her grandmother took in lodgers. Joan became a dentists secretary and got married herself in 1943. The couple went to Canada for a few years but returned home to the Manchester area in the 1950s.
The four legitimate children grew up in India and only left after WW2 and Independence of India. They are all now deceased but have children, Grandchildren and great grandchildren surviving them in at least two countries.
Tasks:
1) Try to find Louis Coley's AFI records from the 1920-1928 period (when he died from gastroentiritis in Adra, India) to see where he was stationed etc.
2) Try to find descendants of Joan Mary Coley (Greenwood) as she died in 2001 to see if they know any more.
3) try to find descendants of David Walden Coley (also deceased) as he looks to have been the only one of the four legitimate children who knew of the existence of an illegimate elder half sister.
4) try to find more baptisms from Louis COLEY-Agnes Christobel COOMBS in India during 1922-1929 period. They lived in Gorakphur in Bengal but went up into the hills in summer.
Thank you both for your help so far, you've been great. If you have a chance to help on the above four issues I'd be grateful.
Any assistance or ideas with any of these four would be very welcome.
