CUTLER and RANDALL WW1 profiles

New to the website today:

• Serviceman profile for Arthur Edwin Cutler, thanks to Peter Denchfield
• Serviceman profile for Daniel Randall, who passed away 100 years ago today, one day before Armistice Day

Bandages and slippers

Very brief update - there's a couple of new WWI pages on the website! Read about the Rimington brothers' war service, and details of Wing VADs.

PEASE please!

In the course of looking at the PEASE men that served in WW1 it all gets a bit confusing. Perhaps you have a snippet of info that might help?

There is a William George T Pease, son of George, born on 25 August 1885 (assuming I have the correct WW1 record matched to the correct man). Can anyone confirm this birthdate, and does anyone know what the T stands for?

There is also a William son of James, also born in 1885. Does anyone have an exact birthdate for him?

An officer of Wing

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the WW1 death of William Godfrey Willoughby Garforth, estate agent to the Rothschilds. You can read about William on the website. He was a public schoolboy and I am very grateful to the Archivist of Charterhouse School who provided me with information and photos about William.

Twin brothers in arms

1914 only saw a couple of Wing-connected war casualties but unfortunately the same could not be said of 1915 and subsequent years. Today sees the 100th anniversary of the death of Harold Vallentine, the first to die in 1915, who served along with his twin brother Claud. Claud also died in the war in 1917, and a profile of the brothers is now available on the website.

Football during WW1

I've updated the footballers page with the names of a few November 1914 players in a Linslade & District vs Yorks & Lancs Regt match. The newspaper report was useful on two counts as it demonstrates these three men were not currently serving in the war. It would be a more useful clue if Smith had been named in full - was he Samuel Smith from the war memorial?

WW1 newspapers

I've recently been going through the WW1-era editions of the Bucks Herald. Some interesting changes in reporting during this time:

• Any marriages of servicemen may include their regiment - handy!
• The annual Flower Show/Fete at Ascott began to feature more war-related demonstrations (eg Red Cross), and was cancelled from 1916 since the August Bank Holiday was cancelled.
• Oh, the woe - each year a letter to the editor would appear from the Master of the Hunt at Ascott asking farmers to take down wire so this year's hunts could proceed without injury. Once we hit WW1, the letter always included specific comment that the huntsmen now serving at the front were extremely keen to see that the hunts continue for the amusement of those at home (oh yes, I'm sure this was foremost in servicemen's minds) and so the horses and hounds didn't rust (I'm paraphrasing here).
• Reports of military tribunals begin to appear - I'm sad (I'd say devastated but in the context of the overall tragedy of war that seems very selfish of me) that generally these don't name names, however in a number of cases the descriptions of the men seem specific enough that it might just be possible to identify one or two. 
• There's many war-specific committees being established, including the Bucks Women's County War Agricultural Committee which was responsible for getting women to sign up for land work. Reports were periodically published stating the numbers signed up in each parish.

 And in other news, I've just published a page of some very early international immigrants to Wing found in 15th century  tax and fealty oath records.

WW1 event in Wing

If you have an interest in Wing during WWI and are able to get to this event - do go! I won't make it, what with me being in NZ, but I'm sure it'll be an interesting afternoon.

Man down

Today is 14 September 2014, the centenary of the death of the first Wing man to fall in WW1. Thanks for your service, Jim.

WW1 servicemen profiles

Famous last words on that list of WW1 servicemen I uploaded - I knew there would be some extras to be added once I'd managed to identify more details about them, but I wasn't expecting to trip over numerous others! Five RAF, two Royal Navy and three Army boys so far.

I've also finished profiles of the first couple of WW1 servicemen, both men that died in 1914, and one has been added to the website. This did produce a conundrum for me - as a one-place studier I'm interested in everyone who ever lived in Wing, even if it was just for a short while. You can depend on your research to throw up unusual situations though and that's what I have with this first man. His entry for National Roll of the Great War has his address as Littleworth in Wing, which is why he was on my radar, however I've done a fair bit of digging and I'm pretty sure he never actually lived in Wing!

I do know exactly why he was recorded that way, and what his connection to Wing was, and on balance it seems wrong to exclude him from my list since someone may come across that National Roll entry and want to know why he's not on my list (or I might have a senior moment in future and think I've made a glaring omission!) Also, I have already done all that research which might be of interest to someone out there. My solution was to add him to my servicemen list, with a comment he is "of Stewkley", and include his profile complete with an explanation of his Wing connection. If you are interested in Leonard KEEN of Stewkley who first set foot in France 100 years ago tomorrow, head on over to the first of my Servicemen Profiles page to learn more.

Incidentally, I've decided to set up the servicemen profiles pages with a page for each surname. This follows the same logic as the memorial inscriptions pages, namely that if you are interested in one particular person of that surname you are likely interested in others so I may as well have them together on one page.


I've also tripped over a few non-WW1 servicemen (mostly 19th century) in the process, namely BATES and BOYD, and they have been added to the website.

By the way, that process was via placename searches across Find My Past's WW1 record collection. It looks like some of these likely came as a result of their project to re-scan the WO363/WO364 series, but others will simply be differences in indexing as compared to Ancestry.com.

Lights out

Today is the centenary of the outbreak of WW1 and  I have turned the lights out on the Wing One-Place Study website to acknowledge those from Wing that served.

If you continue on to the website, you'll find that the WW1 page has been expanded. You may recall at the beginning of the year I was planning to have profiles of each serviceman up on the website beginning this month. The rapid escalation in the number of men (and women) with Wing connections who served during the war has meant I've now declared this a four-year centenary project. Today I have updated the list of servicepeople, expanding it from 125 to 315 people, so that you can see who I've identified so far - the first step in the project. This won't be my "final" word on the names of WW1 servicemen born in, living in, or with other close connections to Wing, but it's getting there - there's around 50 more men I don't have full names or regiments for yet.

If you have a serviceman ancestor from Wing, have info to share, or are simply keen to see their profile make it online sooner rather than later, please email me so I can prioritise them (and perhaps we can work together on researching them). While you're waiting, can I suggest a trip to the wonderful new Wing At War website from my friend Sarah? She has transcribed the parish magazines for Wing for the WW1 period and collated information on a variety of topics for you to read about.

Dee Saxby, are you out there?

On the offchance Dee Saxby is out there reading this, please email me - I wanted to chat re some of the WW1 servicemen in your CARTER and POLLARD families but the email address I have for you doesn't work any more.

In other news, I now have more than 300 WW1 servicemen from Wing to research. I may be some time.

It's raining men

Servicemen's names, that is......

I have received a big boost to my World War One centenary project. Sarah Roe of the Wing Heritage Group has very kindly sent me the names of servicemen mentioned in the parish magazine written by vicar Francis Henry Tatham during WWI. This has doubled my list of men - now I have 264 known men with Wing connections that served. That's a lot of men for me to research!

Remember, if your ancestor or relative from Wing Buckinghamshire served in WWI please email me (even if you have emailed me before) so that we can share information.

World War One Centenary Project

During 2014 I'm participating in the Society for One-Place Studies annual project to focus on World War One and its impact on our one-place study communities.

I already have a partial list of WWI servicemen from Wing, however I intend to go back and systematically work through researching each man and their service history to create a military profile of them for the website. With 48 casualties recorded on Wing's war memorial and several more known to have died but not been recorded on the memorial, let alone all those who served and returned home, I have my work cut out for me!

If your ancestor or relative from Wing served in World War One please email me (even if you have emailed me before) so that we can share information.