City Battalions - Photo Identity Project

[Mark Hone]

Doubtless this has been covered before, but where were all the platoon photos taken at Heaton Park?

[angelab]

I must be being a bit thick about this...
Where are the photographs that you are all ID-ing?

Angela

[kingo]

Angela, The photos are from the book "City Battalions" and are a record of the Pals Battalions with photographs. We think they were taken sometime in early 1915 at Heaton Park. The Men on the photos are named-but not in any order-so we are attempting to identify as many as we can, by various means and put a name to a face on the photographs. The Platoon photo for W.B Bagshaw is attached (Thats him in the middle of the second row) and H.S Bagshaw is in the next post. Have you seen these before ? (Click on photo to enlarge)

[kingo]

H.S Bagshaw (One of the two Officers in the second row)

[angelab]

Hi Kingo,

Great to see those pix!  Yes, I think I have seen them before - many years ago when I contacted the Museum and they must have sent me photocopies.  But I had forgotten about them.

Gosh, my grandfather, William, looks SO young in that first photo.
Unfortunately, I cannot be absolutely sure which is Horace Bagshaw in the second one - so am not much help with the ID.  He never married, so there are no direct descendents to remember him or to have kept photos of him. The only pic I have is the one on this page http://www.angelabird.plus.com/bagshawsindex.htm where I believe him to be the one standing at the back.

Would it be permissable for me to add these two battalion photos to the webpages I have done on William and Horace (reached via the above link)?   I would quite understand if not, of course, as I guess they are the Regiment's copyright.

Angela

[kingo]

Angela, Feel free to use the photo's-they are scanned from the book (of which i have a copy) and are not copyrighted.

[angelab]

Thanks so much, Kingo.  I know my Vancouver relatives (descendants of the third Bagshaw brother, who also went to Canada) will be most interested to see them. 
I have really done the website for them, to keep them all up to speed with my researches.

Angela

[angelab]

Kingo,
I have just uploaded the two images to the relevant pages of my Bagshaw mini-site.  Many thanks again for them.

I see that I have noted from the officer files at the NA, for William B Bagshaw:
"3 March 1915, Posted to 20th Battalion Manchester Regiment. Lieutenant in D Company; commander of 15th Platoon."
Not sure if this is info already known to you, but I presume that is the group that we see in the photo.

For Horace S Bagshaw, I did not find so much detail at the NA:
"3 March 1915, Posted to 20th Battalion Manchester Regiment. Second Lieutenant."
But I do not know to what company or platoon.  Do you?
Maybe he was 2nd in command to the guy next to him in the pic?
Having studied the photo, I am pretty sure that Horace Bagshaw is the officer on the left.  He has the right-shaped face, and also has that look from under his brows, as in the other images on my page for him, even from childhood  http://www.angelabird.plus.com/hsbagshaw.htm .

Angela

[kingo]

Hi Angela, They were my thoughts exactly  . He has a look of his Brother. Horace was the Platoon Commander of 5 Platoon, B Company (See attached nominal roll). The other Officer on the photo is Lt W. C Cooper.

[kingo]

Angela, Attached is the Officers of the 20th Battalion. William and Horace are on this one too !.Also on this photo (Middle row, 3rd from the right) is Captain H.J. Knight, a Boer War recipient of the Victoria Cross-so they were in good company !.

[angelab]

Thanks, Kingo.

Gosh, the ID is a bit tricky with the officers' photo.  I think one of mine - ?William - could be back row, 4th from right.  Maybe the other is the one centre of back row.  Would not like to put money on it, though.
Horace was apparently nicknamed "Shorts" - "because of his height".  Now, I don't know if that means he was short, or whether it would be ironic, because he was tall!
[EDIT:  Just remembered that I had copied the brothers' physical info on enlistment from the Officer files at the NA:
William was 5ft 8.5in tall, haven't noted his weight; Horace 5ft 10.5in tall and weighed 144lb - so the taller tof the two, and fairly thin perhaps. Maybe Horace is 4th from right, back row, and William in the centre?  END EDIT]

Wow, Captain HJ Knight does look as if he is made of stern stuff.

Angela

[harribobs]

we will be expanding this project shortly!!

[harribobs]

hi folks

as i said we have expanded this thread into it's own project

each section of the books 16th to 23rd and the oldham battalion 24th now has it's own photos and lists posted

please feel free to use this thread for discussion or go to the dedicated page in the project

pals photo project

chris

[Mark Hone]

My colleague, the great-nephew of Ernest Armsbey (4th City) and Willie Dickson (1st City), retired this week. At the retirement dinner I presented him with framed photographs of the two mens' platoons, with Ernest Armsbey identified thanks to the contributors to this forum. It was a complete surprise and to say that he was overwhelmed would be an understatement. He is now on holiday in Belgium and France and will be visiting (for the first time with his wife rather than on one of our school tours) Carnoy where Ernest is buried and Thiepval where Willie Dickson is commemorated. Thank you once again for all your help.

[pete th]

Mark, fantastic result. Thanks for sharing.

best regards
Pete