TOPIC:

Sorry to get hung up on a name again. ... I am taking a look at Clafton Illingworth's papers held at the National Army Museum. He is author of With Lord Methuen's Column (1901). The database lists him as "Clapton".

The name search database mistake is entirely understandable when you look at his IY attestation paperwork:



Being pedantic his full name was Eli Clafton Illingworth – below is how he appeared on the 1901 Census shortly after his return from SA. He appears in the newspapers during the Great War as the Rev. Eli C. Illingworth, B.A., an army chaplain.



He had an elder brother Thomas Wilkinson Illingworth, who served in the same IY Company (regimental number 523 as opposed to his brother’s 522) whose QSA I believe is in the possession of forummer Dave F. The medal roll says he died of enteric but his service record says he died of morphine poisoning. As he was a medical doctor Dave F suspects he knew exactly what he was doing when he over imbibed the palliative. This newspaper article says otherwise but, to quote Mandy Rice-Davies, “they would say that” (i.e. keeping up appearances).



During the pandemic Dave F noted their father was a Methodist minister, in fact he was a Primitive Methodist Minister:

www.myprimitivemethodists.org.uk/content...gworth-eli-1832-1884

Thus it would appear the father had not passed on to his sons the pacifist teachings of the Primitive Methodists who were vociferously and actively opposed to the war.

One of my Great Grandfathers was a Primitive Methodist Minister and without the Primitive Methodists my life would have been very different if I had existed at all! Thus in taking an interest in the South African War of 1899-1902 I have been on the lookout for Primitive Methodists who served in the war. Until yesterday morning the score was nil.

Yesterday morning in my study of the Staffordshire Imperial Yeomanry I moved on to examining in detail 1084 Trooper Robert Beswick. Interestingly he has proved to be a son of James Wright Beswick who back in 1892 founded the Beswick Pottery – I wonder how many forummers might have a Beswick horse or figurine about their abodes. Anyway the Beswick family were noted Primitive Methodists and my list went from zero to one. Then bizarrely yesterday evening it shot up to three.