From looking at old photographs: 2. Dad’s Army?

Continuing the military theme of part 1, among the photographs from my dad’s side of the family is a rather rag-tag-looking group of a dozen or so men in military uniform. The only information given is a date: 1939.

When I asked my dad if he knew what the connection was, he had no idea, but on closer inspection he remarked that to him they looked more like home guard. Certainly the uniforms look incomplete, except that most of their hats match up, and they’re certainly not dressed to military standards. Also, my dad pointed out that there were some older men in the photograph, whom you wouldn’t necessarily expect to have been the first to be going off to war – not ancient, but certainly in their late thirties and early forties at least. However, there were also some much younger men mixed in amongst them. Unfortunately research quickly informed me that the Home Guard weren’t actually formed until 1940, so that rules that out. I suspect that this is an off-duty photograph, and so that explains the slightly unruly state of dress!

After much studying of this and other photographs with a magnifying glass, I think that the man front and centre of the photograph is my great grandfather, the formerly enigmatic Walter Newby. Though most of the other photographs we have of him are taken from a greater distance, and when he was much older, I can see a similarity particularly in his quite prominent chin, which has a deep horizontal line across it. My father never knew his grandfather, who died relatively young, so he’s only ever seen him in photographs. However, the entire family agreed that there was a resemblance between this man and others of Walter. (Though perhaps that was just to stop me thrusting the magnifying glass at them and asking questions!)

As I noted in my post V is for Victory, Walter would have been thirty-five when war broke out and therefore was likely to have seen active service. I’d say that was consistent with the age of the man in the photograph as well. His marriage certificate tells us that he was a motor driver before the war, and so perhaps he continued to work as a military driver as well?

I need to have a hunt around Ancestry’s military records for clues about Walter’s time in the military, methinks!

L x

From looking at old photographs: 1. George Jones

Last weekend I had a lovely extended stay with my parents, mainly for the purposes of Christmas shopping with my mum. However, while I was there I also had a hunt through some old photograph albums. I’ve seen all of these pictures before, of course, but they really come alive after making some progress, particularly on my paternal side.

Unfortunately I have no means of scanning any of the images at the moment, and of course they’re all at my parents, but I intend to get some copies made, and eventually get myself a scanner too – it’s shameful for a ‘serious’ genealogist to be without one! However, I thought I’d write a few posts about some of the images I found. In particular, the ones that provided more questions than answers...

First up, a copy that my mum had made of a photograph that is in fact in the possession of my father’s cousin. It is believed to show George Jones, the second husband (?) of my 2x great-grandmother Mabel Hall. Firstly, I question ‘husband’, because no one seems to be entirely convinced that they were married. However, Mabel’s death was registered with the name Jones, and I have found a potential marriage in Tunbridge Wells in the 1930s. This certificate is on my list of urgent things to order.

I believe they did marry in the 1930s, following the death of Mabel’s first husband William Hedgcock AKA Hayward, whom she had never divorced. Mabel and William’s daughter, my great-grandmother Victorine, was born in 1913, but Mabel must have left William (apparently an alcoholic) not long after this, and then quickly met George Jones, as Victorine apparently grew up believing that George was her father.

The photograph is professionally taken, apparently coming from a series of photographs of aviators. The name of the photographer is given, but I forgot to make a note of it. George Jones stands beside one of those really old-fashioned planes, in what can best be described as typical WW1 flying gear (need to swot-up on my military history!). On the back of the original, George addresses the photocard to ‘to my darling “Little Wife”’.

Though they apparently didn’t marry until the 1930s (if at all), “Little Wife’ is generally believed to be Mabel. She was later known as ‘Little Nana’. Indeed there is another photograph of Mabel’s son-in-law Les in WW2 military uniform addressed to her as such.

(Given that Mabel’s sister, the actress Amy Hall was on one play poster described as ‘the pocket Vesta Tilley’, I suspect that all of the Hall sisters were small of stature!)

Beyond the question of whether this is indeed George Jones and whether or not he was married to my great-great-grandmother Mabel, is another question: Was he really a WW1 pilot? The way forward would be Ancestry’s military records, or the Royal Aero Club Aviators' Certificates, 1910–1950, also to be found on Ancestry, but I’m not sure how far I’ll get without further information – certainly nothing stands out on a basic search at the moment. Ideally I would need a birth record, as you can search the Aviators’ Certificates on birth date, but that may take me a while to track down given how common his name is!

I’m also a little concerned about the timings. Mabel’s daughter with William was born in February 1913, which doesn’t leave much time before the war for her to meet George. Even if you accept that he quite likely didn’t join up straight away, there is evidence in the form of a playbill that William and Mabel ere performing in the same theatre troupe (and thus presumably still married) in June 1916, which squeezes the timescales further. On the other hand, if Victorine really did grow up believing George Jones was her father, as the story goes, then George and Mabel can’t have met much after early 1917, as Victorine would have been old enough to know her real father by then, surely?

Or perhaps George wasn’t a military aviator but a 1920s pilot? Though whether this was then really a ‘career’ I’m not sure?  Everyone who looks at the photograph seems to assume it’s First World War and it certainly can’t be much later than that (because of his age apart from anything else), but there’s no date or anything visibly military on there either. Perhaps I need to do some comparisons with other military photos from the period for more info?

The rest of George Jones’ story is equally muddy. Most of what I know about him was told to me by old family friend Brenda, who first furnished me with enough information to get started on my dad’s side of the family. Apparently, he later went to work as a chauffeur in America (Detroit, possibly?), where he was sadly killed in a car accident while working. His employers, a wealthy American couple I seem to remember, wrote a letter to George’s widow Mabel, which she kept for the rest of her life. Brenda saw this letter in the early 1960s, when she first befriended the family and shortly before Mabel died. Sadly, though unsurprisingly, we no longer have it, and therefore the fate of George Jones is perhaps lost forever. The dates are woolly (anytime from mid-1930s to early 1960s), and I have no idea why George was in America instead of at home in England with his wife. Though of course, perhaps she was out there with him? It is only the fact of them having written a letter that gives me impression that she was still living in England.

It’s an intriguing half-story that certainly needs some further investigation!

L x

V is for victory

V was tricky as I don’t have and V surnames at all in my tree. So I decided that V should be for Victory – a blog post dedicated to my ancestors in the military. I haven’t got that many, and I haven’t come up with any really exciting stories but here’s a quick look at what I do know:

Starting on my father’s side, my paternal grandfather John Newby was too young to have served in the Second World War. However, I believe that he did his National Service in Burma - we have old photographs of him with Buddhist statues and things (a bit vague, I know, but as they’re at home with my parents I can’t describe them much better!). National Service was  introduced after the Second World War. Initially these young men went for a year, but this was extended to eighteen months in 1948, and to two years in 1950, as a response to the Korean War.  At the age of eighteen they had to register for service, but if they were doing an apprenticeship or any sort of training for a career they could opt to defer until they were twenty-one. John would have turned eighteen in May 1949. However, he was in the building trade, so there is a possibility that he was doing an apprenticeship and may have deferred his service until 1952. Either way it seems probable that he served two years, sometime in the period 1949–54. I don’t know much more about this, but it might be worth investigating. 

Going back a generation, John’s father Walter Newby would have been in his thirties during the Second World War, but I have no idea what he was doing. On his marriage certificate in 1929 Walter was described as a motor driver, so perhaps he also became a driver of some description during the war?

My mother’s father, Horace James Hancock was born in July 1909, so he would have just turned thirty when war broke out. However, he didn’t go into the armed forces, but worked as a fireman in Brighton. I can’t be sure why this is. He might have failed the medical or perhaps because he was in his thirties he wouldn’t have been immediately called up anyway. In either case, perhaps he joined the fire service because he wanted to contribute to the war effort in some other way – but why Brighton? As far as I’m aware he didn’t live there before or after the war.  A bit of research has revealed that the Fire Services Training Centre was based in Brighton during the war, so maybe that’s what he was doing there? Again, it is something to find out a bit more about.

Down my Rayner line, I know that Leslie Gordon Rayner had moved to Wakefield with his family by the mid-thirties. Leslie I think was in the forces, but more in an administrative capacity. I believe he was stationed at Nostell Priory, just outside Wakefield. I imagine he would have been very thankful to be so close to his young family rather than being sent abroad to fight.

I have talked a little before about Leslie’s brother Alec Maxted Rayner, who joined the Royal Fusiliers in 1908 aged just fourteen, and their father William Henry Rayner, living in a Barracks in Isleworth in 1891, leaving his young bride to return to her parents. A little research tells us:

[in the late Victorian period] Restrictions on the number of soldiers who could marry were eased, and all soldiers' wives could accompany their husbands when they changed station (though not on campaign). However, there was official and practical discouragement of soldiers (and officers) who wished to marry while young. (Wikipedia)

So for William to have married at eighteen was quite unusual. Perhaps he even kept it quiet. It is quite probably the reason that William is wrongly recorded as unmarried on the 1891 census, despite the fact that his wife had just given birth to their first child.

The Wikipedia entry also tells us:

Following the Cardwell Reforms [in 1870], most soldiers served only a few years with the regulars before passing into the reserves. This minimum period of regular service varied over time and with arms of service, from as little as four years in the infantry, to as much as eight in the cavalry and artillery. (Wikipedia)

Might we then conclude that William was in the cavalry or artillery, rather than the infantry? It’s certainly tempting, but I don’t think it can really be conclusive!

That’s really just about it for my ancestors in the military that I know of.

(Stereo)Typically for a girl, I have to admit that I’m not particularly fascinated by military history. I say that  despite having worked at the (amazing) Royal Armouries museum for about six months – perhaps I have a slightly greater appreciation of it than I did once!

I think it’s perhaps because I find it easier to empathise with my female ancestors and their lives. But also, I’ve never felt that it’s a big part of my ancestral story. I knew, for example, that my neither of my grandfathers fought, and as far as I know none of my great-grandfathers were heavily involved either. Btu then again, I don’t have the whole story, so perhaps there is a war hero lurking somewhere in the branches.

That said, I visited the First World War battlefields of France and Belgium with school at the age of fifteen, and that had a profound effect on me. When you stand in the cemeteries, the sheer numbers of crosses are just astounding, the ‘Last Post’ at the Menin Gate is so emotionally charged, and some of the museums exhibits I saw still haunt me. But the strongest memory is of standing at some of the grand memorials, like Thiepval, and just staring at rows and rows of names of missing men. 

I found some Newbys, of course, and wondered if perhaps they were relatives. Even then, six years before I began my genealogical quest, I couldn’t help but wonder about them…

L x