We welcome any query on Who When Where. If you have previously posted it on another forum (including the old WDYTYA forum), please state this in your opening post - this will save people redoing the research which has been done before: they can look at it and possibly go further with it.
Charles William Stewart Royal Engineers No. 10487
Charles William Stewart Royal Engineers No. 10487
Can anyone help me please with the place name under the column headed 1865. It has me stumped.
I have no knowledge of the Royal Engineers or where they may have been based. CWS attested in 1870 in Westminster and was discharged in 1874 in Aldershot.
Thanks everyone
Sally
- AdrianBruce
- Posts: 366
- Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 18:57
- Location: South Cheshire
Re: Charles William Stewart Royal Engineers No. 10487
The key (I hope!) is that the document is described by FMP as "WO 23 - Royal Hospital Chelsea: Admission Books, Registers, And Papers 1702-1876" - in other words, we are looking at something written from a pensions viewpoint. At the top of that column it says "District 1865" - which it isn't, of course, since he's not even joined up in 1865, they've simply written in the first empty column. I think it was when I saw "Date of Admission" next to it that I twigged what I was possibly looking at - it's the Pensions District, not a Royal Engineers thing.
I have no idea whether there is an up-to-date version of https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov ... itle=WO_22 but that URL lists the Pensions Districts and it confirmed one of my wild guesses at that squiggle, which is "2nd Portsmouth" - or, "2 Portsm'h" as it's abbreviated.
If you scroll down the linked page, you'll find (and I knew none of this before) a table of the Districts and the Pay Offices within them. 2nd Portsmouth District has several Pay Offices, including one at Farnham, which is not far from Aldershot, which was CWS' Intended Place of Residence, according to the last page of his Discharge papers. So that's where he'd have gone to pick up his pension for however long he got it.
(And I have no idea why Aldershot, of all places, didn't have its own pension pay office!)
Retrospective thanks to the late-lamented Victorian Wars Forum for providing the answer that - fortunately - I copied years ago.
I have no idea whether there is an up-to-date version of https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov ... itle=WO_22 but that URL lists the Pensions Districts and it confirmed one of my wild guesses at that squiggle, which is "2nd Portsmouth" - or, "2 Portsm'h" as it's abbreviated.
If you scroll down the linked page, you'll find (and I knew none of this before) a table of the Districts and the Pay Offices within them. 2nd Portsmouth District has several Pay Offices, including one at Farnham, which is not far from Aldershot, which was CWS' Intended Place of Residence, according to the last page of his Discharge papers. So that's where he'd have gone to pick up his pension for however long he got it.
(And I have no idea why Aldershot, of all places, didn't have its own pension pay office!)
Retrospective thanks to the late-lamented Victorian Wars Forum for providing the answer that - fortunately - I copied years ago.
Adrian Bruce
Re: Charles William Stewart Royal Engineers No. 10487
Brilliant, thank you Adrian
Without the list I would never have read that as an abbreviation of 2 Portsmouth! Bookmarked for future reference.
It makes total sense as he married in Farnham in 1873.
Onwards, this is an elusive chap, but he is beginning to unravel!
Without the list I would never have read that as an abbreviation of 2 Portsmouth! Bookmarked for future reference.
It makes total sense as he married in Farnham in 1873.
Onwards, this is an elusive chap, but he is beginning to unravel!
Sally