Oliver Bowdler's military service: frustrating conundrum!

[JaneyH]

I've returned to researching my great-grandfather's military service after a few years' break. From the outset I should emphasise that I'm only looking for information specifically about his WW1 Army service, nothing more. I have pages and pages of information about his life before and after this period. Here's what I've researched so far.

Oliver William Bowdler was born in 1883 in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. He worked as a coal miner and married in 1908.

On the birth certificate of one of his children, born in October 1915, the father's occupation column says "Private, 13th Gloucester Regiment; coal hewer".

I have his pension record card which gives a service number of 17909, Gloucestershire Regiment (no battalion though), which says he was discharged from the Army on 16 June 1916. He was suffering from tuberculosis, “aggravated by” service but not “attributed to” it.

Paul Nixon's Army Service Numbers website states that there is no data for numbers starting 179xx and 180xx in the Gloucestershire Regiment, although blocks just before and just after these were issued January to March 1915. So it seems that my great-grandfather probably served for around 15 months before being discharged.

I've read the history of the 13th Gloucestershire Regiment on the 'Long, Long Trail' website and it seems they were based at various places in England from formation in 1914 until being mobilised and sent to France in March 1916.

So to the conundrum - despite extensive searching across Ancestry, FindMyPast and The National Archives I can find no record either for a medal record (assuming he actually went to France) or a Silver War Badge record (which he would have been eligible for regardless of going overseas or not). Searches on the British Newspaper Archive have thrown up other useful information about him, but not about his Army service. The newspaper local to the Forest of Dean - the Dean Forest Mercury - has not been digitised so I'm awaiting the end of lockdown to consult it there. I'm aware of the pitfalls involved in searching WW1 records, and it may be that I've reached the end of the road on this one. Still, I'm posting this in the hope that someone more expert than me, or a fresh pair of eyes, might just find something useful.

[VALLMO9]

For what it's worth, Ancestry has these British War Medal and Victory Medal records in their "UK, WWI Service Medal and Award Rolls, 1914-1920" collection. Included in records for service numbers 17901 to 17921 are these soldiers with numbers close to your great-grandfather's:

William John Arthur, 13th Bn, Gloucester Regiment, service number 17903
His Silver War Badge record indicates he enlisted on 11 January 1915.

Alfred James Allen, 13th Bn, Gloucester Regiment, service number 17906
His Silver War Badge record indicates he enlisted on 13 January 1915.

Alfred Bevan, 13th Bn, Gloucester Regiment, service number 17908

Charles Beard, 13th Bn, Gloucester Regiment, service number 17911
His Silver War Badge record indicates he enlisted on 8 January 1915

[AdrianBruce]

I've tried Ancestry and FindMyPast and nothing seems to be coming up for your GF. I've tried searches with his number (mostly on FMP, which does better with them) and without it, also trying various wild-cards, including Glo* for the regiment.

Logically, this suggests that he never left the UK, which would explain the lack of any medal roll or medal index card. And, of course, his papers were burnt in WW2.

The absence of a Silver War Badge is annoying - however, I can't work out how SWBs were issued. I'm looking at one page of an SWB Roll on Ancestry - this page is for the Gloucesters (compiled December 1916) but discharge dates are all over the place in 1915 and 1916, enlistment dates even more ranging from 1903-1915 and (no surprise) regimental numbers equally all over the place. So the process is not clear to me.

http://www.seftonrugby.org.uk/SilverWarBadge.html contains some press clippings relating to SWBs. There seems some complexity over the issue of SWBs to those who had never served abroad. There's a long cutting headed "Pension Notes" that seems to imply that discharged men who had never served abroad were only entitled to a SWB if they were classed as permanently unfit (Grade IV). If they were Grades I-III then they were not entitled - primarily because they might recover fitness later on, I suspect. And it looks like even Grade IV men had to apply. (If people had to apply, then that would explain why the dates are all over the place on those SWB Roll pages - there is a point to being that geeky!)

So my suggestion would be:

• He never left the UK, which would explain the lack of any medal roll or medal index card.
• His papers were burnt in WW2.
• He was probably discharged due to illness.
• If he was discharged due to illness then either it was felt he might recover fitness later on, or it was felt to be permanent but he never applied for an SWB.

That last bullet is quite speculative because I'm not 100% certain that I understand the cuttings.

[JaneyH]

Thank-you so much, VALLM09 and Adrian!

I'm pleased to see that my assumptions about service numbers and enlistment dates seem likely to be correct. It's interesting to see that one of the others in the sequence was an Alfred Bevan - I have another another Bowdler in my tree who married a Bevan in the Forest of Dean.

Adrian: I've done so many wild-card searches across all sites that I've come to the conclusion he either wasn't eligible for a SWB or didn't apply for one. He was discharged suffering from TB, although the pension ledger makes clear it was 'aggravated' by his service rather than caused by it. I imagine that as a coal miner (and pits in the Forest were notoriously wet under ground) he could well have developed TB at some point before joining up. I don't know if he ever went back to work as a miner after the war; I have no records to show he did, and in 1920-21 he was in partnership running a garage business.

The pension card is covered with dates and initials, throughout the 1920s and then a lot all in 1930. It's unclear whether they're the initials of doctors or officials who confirmed he was eligible to continue receiving his pension or whether they're abbreviations of some sort. The ones in 1930 include E&A, O/T, AATS and TRIB(A) - might the latter relate to some form of tribunal? I think I need to find a guide to reading pension ledgers!

[AdrianBruce]

Janey - lucky you to find something on those pension cards. After all the fuss, when I got a free weekend on Fold3 to check those for my lot, the cards had virtually nothing beyond the basic name, address and serial number. A string of illegible codes and signatures (must have been the doctors! ) in one column and that was about it. Certainly nothing of real interest....

[VALLMO9]

Jane - you could try contacting the WFA to ask if they can decipher the abbreviations/prefix references on your great-grandfather's pension card.
P.S. They have a wonderful website!
https://www.westernfrontassociation.com ... n-records/
https://www.westernfrontassociation.com ... -indexing/