TOPIC:

William - welcome to the Forum.

Despite his death during the ABW, William's Militia attestation papers have survived and can be found on find My Past. He attestd on 7th(?) April 1893 in Nottingham and his medical was carried out on 8th May 1893 at Retford. Below extracts from the four pages giving the other interesting pieces of information.

Page 1


Page 2


Page 3


Page 4


I have no idea what the word "Special" refers to on page 2. This is quite often seen and as far as I am aware it puzzles all other Forummers.

Regards, David (of Smethwick & Pembrokeshire)

Interested Forum members
Regarding "Special", on page 123 of E.M. Spiers' "The Late Victorian Army", he refers to special enlistments where a underage or underdeveloped but likely recruit could be accepted.
See cut below


I believe I have answered the question of Special Enlistments once or twice. Might have been some time ago, though.
Regards
IL.

IL - many thanks for the enlightenment, I obviously should have written 'I have no idea what the word "Special" refers to on page 2. This is quite often seen and as far as I am aware it puzzles some other Forummers.' My defence is that It definitely came up for discussion recently on another post and nobody at the time came up with an answer.

3034 William Bingham obviously did not meet the chest measurement requirement. Not sure regarding his 5ft 3 and a half inches as my understanding is that 5ft 3inches was the qualifying height at the time of the ABW - see IY Regs below. It was also the qualifying height at the start of WW1.