Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Hi, First post on the forum. I have sorted out a lot of facts on my ancestors down to some quite remarkable help from Mary. I would never have found the crucial stuff without her expertise.

I have an ancestor who died in WW1. There is a letter written to him a week before he died from a young woman in Wellingborough. It was very easy to find out who she was. Her father had died when she was a toddler and her mother is shown having boarders at the censuses of 1901 and 1911. From various sites, my ancestor's regiment, 17th Btn, K.R.R.C., were stationed in Wellingborough for training in early 1916. It would look like he stayed with them. But I am surprised that training soldiers would have such private accommodation; I thought they would have been shut away in an army base. Does anyone know if this did happen? Perhaps things were moving so fast in early 1916 that they had to improvise?

Hi and welcome to the forum.

This question is beyond my knowledge although perhaps others on the forum might have some knowledge, but perhaps I could suggest that you join the WWI forum where some members may have more specialist knowledge and perhaps copies of the War Diaries http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php

My thought was that the young lady was someone he had met whilst stationed in Wellingborough, they became friends, and she wrote to him.

I lived in Wellingborough in the 1970s and 80s and was fascinated to see there was an Army camp in the town. I'm now trying to find out were it was.

Soldiers were definitely billeted in private house in wartime, especially at times of heavy recruiting when barracks or camps could not cope with an influx.

War diaries are unlikely to be of use, as almost all of them were started on embarkation for overseas or on arrival.

Are you sure about 17th Battalion, KRRC and Wellingborough? My information is that the battalion was at Hursley Park from Sep 1915 then Witley from Nov 1915, then Aldershot and Witley again from Jan 1916 before departure to France in March 1916. Perhaps he was in a different unit for training in UK before joining the 17th in France?
D

Education Officer wrote:I lived in Wellingborough in the 1970s and 80s and was fascinated to see there was an Army camp in the town. I'm now trying to find out were it was.

I had an impression that there was some information on that, but you're right - there seems to be nothing. Maybe I was recalling this site which describes how the 20th KRRC were welcomed by the local people:

http://archive.org/stream/20thbattbelpi ... t_djvu.txt

However; I'd be surprised if the British Newspaper Archive didn't have lots of stories from those days. I don't have a live subscription, but even a simple search on 'Wellingborough', filtered for 1916, throws up some interesting stories:

http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.u ... ugh&page=1

daggers wrote:Soldiers were definitely billeted in private house in wartime, especially at times of heavy recruiting when barracks or camps could not cope with an influx.

Thanks for the confirmation - I don't like just telling my relatives 'might have/must have/etc.'.

daggers wrote:Are you sure about 17th Battalion, KRRC and Wellingborough? ..... Perhaps he was in a different unit for training in UK before joining the 17th in France?
D

Spot on - my error - he joined the 20th KRRC and transferred at some point to the 17th. The sequence is a mystery; I'll open another thread for that. Thanks.

It seems to be accepted that as battalions became depleted some were merged and soldiers then changed the number that they served in, sometimes also having a new Regimental number, we often see two numbers on medal cards etc.

I have looked at my source: 'British Regiments 1914-1918' by Brigadier EA James. 20th Battalion, KRRC had a fuller title: 20th (Service) Battalion (British Empire League Pioneers), KRRC.
It was raised in London by the British Empire League in August 1915 and paraded in Green Park. From Feb 1916 they were in Wellingborough attached to 23rd Reserve Brigade. They landed in France at the end of March 1916. From May 1916 they were in 3rd Division as its Pioneer Battalion.
Only the soldier's documents would give a date of transfer between battalions, and most were destroyed by enemy action in WW2.

D

Thanks daggers. [Sorry for delay; phone and broadband dead since Friday morning, but the guy up the pole today did good work!]

daggers wrote:Only the soldier's documents would give a date of transfer between battalions, and most were destroyed by enemy action in WW2.

You're way ahead of me! I was going to post that I had a medal card with mystery regiments, but couldn't find a service record to make sense of them. I'll try to gather together what I have and post it anyway. Maybe you will spot some logic to it, although I'm resigned to it being a case of 'they needed some bodies and the nearest dozen would do'.

Education Officer wrote:I lived in Wellingborough in the 1970s and 80s and was fascinated to see there was an Army camp in the town. I'm now trying to find out were it was.

Here are some stories from the Northampton Mercury at that time that provide some insight:

Friday 14th January 1916:


Friday 18th February 1916:


Friday 25th February 1916 - daggers was right!:


Friday 3rd March 1916:


Friday 10th March 1916:


[All courtesy of British Newspaper archive, available with free 14-day trial of findmypast.]

Those articles are fascinating thank you.

Probably some of the older people at the church I attended in Wellingborough would probably have remembered having soldiers in their homes but no one spoke of it.

Well done, you have really filled in the background surrounding your own question that began this post.