Decipher discharge cerificates

[TAMOWEN4]

Thank you Andy. 

[Neale1961]

Andy, I have been helping TAMOWEN4 with the same man on this thread
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=868063.msg7387225#msg7387225

.... As you have probably seen, he only gained 72 days worth of reckonable service towards a pension, meaning that he wouldn't have been eligible for a pension.......

On the final page of the WW1 military papers for this man, which are accessible on Ancestry, there does appear to have been a pension payment made from Dec 1917.
Are you able to see this, and perhaps make a comment? Perhaps I am misreading /misunderstanding that last page.

[Andy J2022]

Hi Neale1961,
I only saw his documents on FindMyPast, and there weren't any pension payments mentioned there. I find it hard to understand how one year in the TF and about 8 weeks in the Regulars would have qualified him for a pension, given that the reason for his discharge was not due to an injury in service. However I can't say that I know much about how the post-war pensions scheme operated ( see here for instance) but it does appear that the individual needed a solid case before he could claim, presumably in Thomas Clarke's case, for a disability. Are you sure it wasn't a gratuity rather than a pension?

Added. I've just looked again at the documents on FindMyPast and you are correct that there appears to be a pension grant recorded on the final page, but I still find it hard to believe that this was intended as a weekly amount, rather than a one-off payment.  I don't recognise the Authority 7(2). Maybe someone else can confirm what the entry means.

[Andy J2022]

Having done a bit of digging around in the Pay Warrant 1899, courtesy of the Internet Archive, I have found a reference in Article 1176, to the payment of gratuities to soldiers on discharge for disability not caused by the service. Unfortunately the scanning has chopped off some of the left hand side of the page but it is still possible to make out the wording which reads as follows:
 “Gratuity
In special cases, where it may be considered more advantageous to the soldier that a gratuity in money, proportional to the length of his service and the duration of the pension awarded,  should be given instead of the temporary pension, a sum not exceeding £30 may be allowed”
Given that the civilian old age pension, set by the 1909 Old Age Pension Act, was 5s a week, I cannot believe that Pte Clarke was awarded a military pension of £7 10s per week for 72 days service in the Regular Army.   It must have been a one-off payment, and quite a generous one considering the reason for his discharge was not attributable to his service.

[Neale1961]

Andy, thanks so much for all your comments, and for your effort in finding the added info about pensions in special cases.
Like you, and for the same reasons, I was surprised to see Thomas had received a pension, which also appeared to be very “generous”. It would have been interesting to see the original pension application.