202998 John Robert Wilson

[KeynstonHQ]

Tim,

Is there any source to provide details about a soldier's early times in the Manchesters, before they went off to join a battalion?  Or details about deployment, movement of troops out of UK to overseas battalions.

Can you point me in the direction to try and find out more?  Any pointers to research, places I can go and find recruit training Manchester records, would be appreciated.   I might be able to get to Manchester late in June if I can find a museum or council records to help me.

I have details of my grandfather, serving in 13th and then 9th Battalions.  He was 18 in July 1916 and I guess he started training or was conscripted after then.   I can't find any attestation records (to suggest he attested early under the Derby Scheme, before he was 18).  I think the Derby Scheme ended in June 16, when he was still 17.

A medal index card records him (very neatly typed out) with a number 202998, against 13th and 9th Battalions.  That matches his brief talk with me before he died (Salonika and returning to France late in the war, summer 1918).

I've read elsewhere that new six-digit regimental numbers (200000 to 250000) were allocated for the 5th Manchesters and the numbers around 202990 were issued to troops from January 1917 onwards.   Any existing number was then no longer used.

Numbers allocated before then were four or five digits, and were replaced with the new six-digit versions.   My grandfather could (might) have been already in training in late 1916, after he was 18, with another (shorter) number?  I don't know anywhere to check that.

Since the number 202998 was mid-way through a batch allocated to 5th Manchesters, and 2/5 and 3/5 were back in England carrying out training for the deployed battalions, I am guessing that my grandfather could have been conscripted into one of those training battalions for his basic training before being sent out to join 13th Battalion.

I know he went out to Salonika as a reinforcement / replacement.   And I got the impression talking to him before he died that he might have worked in battalion or company signalling, messaging (he was a bright boy and was a clerk in civvy life).   I think that signalling back then was a regimental / battalion task and pre-dated the RE signallers and R Sigs.   But I do not know when he went out to Salonika.   He didn't talk to anyone in the family about his WW1 service until just before he died when he suddenly spoke to me for a few minutes (I was an Army Captain and he opened up for a while about WW1 before getting emotional talking about trench life and advancing under fire).

I knew from him that he went out to Salonika and returned to France only (late in 1918, at the end of the war", which is what he credited his survival to, unlike so many others he knew.  And he did some work with morse code, flag signalling and carrying messages for / to / betwene headquarters (which could be anything from platoon level up).

Any pointers gratefully received.   Has the Manchesters' museum opened up?  I can't find anything current about it.

[Tim Bell]

Hi Peter,
I split the topic so we can focus on your relative.  The '202998' number indicates John Wilson trained with a Territorial Bn before embarking overseas.  If you look at the BWM/VM roll, you will see that the number allocation had little relationship with the subsequent posting for later soldiers.
I'm no expert on the training units from 1915 onwards but recognise there were quite a few and these changed over the period.
Funds have allegedly been secured for the Town Hall and Museum to be renovated but the archvie continues to go strong at Tameside Local Studies Centre.  Perhaps start with https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/ to learn more about the training of young soldiers.
I can see John Wilson was discharged with a pension in March 1919 and seems to have died in 1924. 
Tim

[Gingerfreak]

Howdy
I've researched twenty men around your relatives service number. This has involved looking at all the available records that are left and using my own database. These are my findings.
1. Service numbers - I believe your relative may have attested for service in Early-Mid 1916. Other men with numbers close to your relative that have records show attestation or General service dates from Mid Jan 1916 onwards. If he was 17 years old he may have joined at 196 depot (Wigan 5th Bttn. M/C Regt). Before the war started, if a man joined the regulars he had to be 19 years old. (Caveat, there were boy soldiers). A man had to be 17 years old to join the Territorial Force. The reason the ages are different is because the original function of the T.F was to provide Home Service only.

2. The men around your relative were mobilsed, in Jan 1917.

3. From the service records found, I can state, with some certainty that the original four digit T.F. service number issued to your relative falls between 6508 and 6520. 6508 was issued 202992 and 6520 was issued 203004.

4. Out of the 20 men researched, 6 went from the depot to the 18th. Your relative is the only one that i have found who was part of the 13th battalion. There is one other man who went with the 21st to Italy. He was shot through the leg in France and returned home.

5. This part is for other researchers: There are a number of 'missing' numbers in this sequence. Many of these gaps, are men who were allocated a four digit number and then posted to another Corps or Regiment. For example 6507, should have been allocated 202991, however he went to the Army Pay Corps and his M/C Regt number doesnt look like it was allocated. The medal roll of the Nottingham and Derbyshire Regt shows a high number of ex M/C regt men. I'm presuming that this occurred when the Brigades were reduced from four to three and amalgamations took place.

I hope the information is helpful.
Regards
Ginge

[KeynstonHQ]

Tim,

Thank you for the details.   Sorry I've been off line; we were due to move house at the start of June and were hard at it, packing etc; too busy to respond.  We were then gazumped by a cash buyer but rather than lose our sale we decided to carry on and live with relatives, go on holidays for a "few" weeks, until a new, 2nd purchase can go ahead.   Trying times, and all our stuff is now in storage and we are living from suitcases at various relatives or doing short weekend breaks.  Hey ho, worse happens at sea.

From your response, it seems I need to start afresh.   My granddad certaily didn't die in the 1920's, in fact he passed in 1990, just before I went off to Gulf War 1.  So from the details you have access to, that my cousin & I had not found, we must have the wrong guy. 

The reference to 202998 J R Wilson was tracked down by a cousin 3-4 years ago, who is into family research.   I think that he had gone through all (Manchester???) records for a John Robert Wilson (and quite a lot of just Johns or just Roberts) and for some reason he ended up with that number / record.  Whilst there seem to be very many "just" John or Robert individuals I gathered that there were not many "John Roberts" and certainly the date of birth in 1998 (3rd July) helped narrow them down.

It was from a single conversation that he had with me that anyone knew about his WW1 service, he never spoke of it to his three sons (other than when I asked them separately, they all knew the one word "Salonika").

I separately knew (from that brief conversation with my grandfather, the only time it seems he spoke of his experiences) that he served in Salonika and then went back to France towards the end of WW1.  He talked to me about how lucky he was to go first to Salonika (and possibly Egypt, Suez?  I'm a bit hazy on that) before coming back to France for the final months of the war.  He spoke about being or working with messages, morse code, maybe signalling and runnign phone wires.   He was reminiscing about some good (and safe) times away from the carnage in France, when he started talking about (seeing? being involved in?) pretty grim trench warefare and advancing to contact under fire (as I knew the term from my Army service).  He then choked up and said no more.   

He'd also mentioned being in or passing through Bicester (I was just being posted to MOD Bicester, which is why he started talking to me about things he'd never spoken of at all).

That puzzled me, since there were only local militia units around Bicester in WW1 until the RAF arrived, but then I realised that the railways from north to south passed through of past Bicester back in 1914-1920s.  There were a lot of training camps down around Bordon, Aldershot, Deepcut and Blackdown.  Access from the north was by train and Bicester was one of the routes.   There was also a Red Cross Hopsital in Bicester for WW1.  But I never heard that granddad was injured.

I don't know if the Army Medical Service WW1 records survived or are accessible, but I know they have a museum near Aldershot, Ash Vale.   (The Army Medical records from 1991 from Gulf War1 didn't survive, they were destroyed in theatre, which affected my pension!!!!).

When I started reading up on WW1 myself during lockdown time, I didn't initially appreciate the sheer number of Lancashire and related regiments and corps, and service units that would have recruited from Manchester.  The family lived in (west) Gorton back then, with a few links to the railway companies based there.  I assumed that the only Pals to look into would be Manchester Regiment Pals.  And I think I read somwewhere that 13th Manchesters recruited around Gorton and Ardwick.

And from that I eventually whittled down to the 13th / 9th Battalions being the only unit mix that fitted into a Salonika and late-1918 France deployments.  And that corresponded with my cousin's tracking down Private 202998 .....

Family knowledge was that he'd been "a Pal" but as he never spoke to any of his sons about it the assumpation was that he'd been a Manchester Pal.

I will have to restart my research, once I get the opportunity.

My wife and I are still "temproarily" living with relatives between Hampshire and Yorkshire (possibly County Durham in a fortnight if the soliciotrs do not pull their fingers out).   So I am not really in a place to carry out research.  My laptop doesn't come everywhere with us.

But one day I will have time and access to internet etc, and maybe try researching elsewhere.

Thanks again for providing such good, information, we can cross that one soldier off our list.

[Tim Bell]

Good luck with your eventual move.
I may have thrown a red herring into the ID.  A Pension Card states 'DEAD' and the date 05/08/24.  This may be the death of the man, or possibly the end of the pension ie the Case file is finished.  I don't want you to dismiss this man on this single record.
Tim