TOPIC:

Redvers,

I make the locations 30 and about 70 individual cottages, but it does depend on how you count them (and my ability to count correctly!). About a third of the individual cottages are dedicated to Prince Christian Victor but my list of Regiments involved is:

18th Hussars (Stroat & Cheshunt), Bedfordshire (Oakley & Cheshunt), Berkshire LI (Wantage), Border (Carlisle), DCLI (Bodmin), Devonshire (Exeter), Derbyshire & Notts (Mickleover), Dorset (Dorchester), Durham LI (Durham), East Kent (Broadstairs), East Lancashire (Burnley), East Surrey (Kingston-on-Thames), East Yorkshire (Fulford), Essex (Warley), Gordon Highlanders (Inverarie), Kings Own Yorkshire LI (Batley), Kings Royal Rifles (Winchester), North Lancashire (Preston), Middlesex (Barnet), Oxfordshire LI (Oxford), Royal Artillery (Bath & Colchester), Royal Berkshire (Reading), Royal Warwickshire (Budbrooke), South Wales Borderers (Brecon), Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds), Yorks & Lancaster (Manfield), Wiltshire (Devizes), Worcestershire (Norton Juxta).

I have created the above checklist to prevent me from trying to re-invent the wheel in the future – you may have a more correct version.

Regarding 2817 Chapman, the 1911 occupier of one of the Wiltshire Regiment Cottages you may have noticed a discrepancy between my account of his military career and that given by Ian(s1900), the author of an excellent, recently published book on the Wiltshire Regiment in the ABW. The discrepancy arises because we used different sources for our information and Ian is currently investigating further. Thus I will hold off on George Webb the other 1911 occupier but mention that I have found the 1921 Census returns for both cottages which add 2629 Lance-Sergeant George William Draper and 1885 Sergeant Albert Edward Gray to the occupier list.

Regarding the 18th Hussars Cottages north of Chepstow – driving north up the A48 one would possibly miss them but heading south from Lydney the Wyvern Garage at a crossroads warns you they are about to come into view on the right. The two original occupants are easy meat to investigate because of their names – Lionel James Bee & Walter Daniel Beatwell. I don’t think either of them was keen on living so near to the River Severn as by 1911 both had returned to their birth counties. Bee (1861-1944) was a Yorkshireman and 1911 found him living in Doncaster, his birth town, where he also passed away. Beatwell (1874-1961) was Essex man and 1911 found him living in Basildon and he passed away in Maldon. He already had a medal when he went to SA – the 1895 India Medal with “Relief of Chitral 1895” clasp attached. Aged 40 he stepped up to the plate in 1914 but his service was all at home and in 1915 he underwent a medical regarding his SA wound and the medic’s report graphically described the journey the bullet took through his body – still trying to transcribe it because the writing is typical of a doctor’s. As result he was discharged “unlikely to make an efficient soldier”. For both their attestation papers & service records have survived – so more eventually to follow. To date have not been able to identify subsequent occupants of the cottages.

Regarding the battle named cottages of the South Wales Borderers in Brecon. You have the wrong Price – the Welsh IY had no official connection to the SWB – the IY man you identified survived the AWB unscathed but died of wounds in 1915 whilst serving in the Cheshire Regiment. The first occupant of “Chillianwallah” was 1402 Colour Sergeant Charles Price of the SWB.

Chillianwala was an 1849 Battle during the Second Sikh War and, like Rorke’s Drift, it figured large in the history of the 24th Regiment of Foot which became the SWB in 1881.

Amongst 1402 Price’s military records can be found his 1941 death certificate from which can be deduced much of the first nearly 40 years occupation history of the SWB Cottages.



Regards, David.

Lovat's Cottage at Clachnaharry may well be another memorial cottage home. From the online OS maps that are available to me, it is not on the 1880 sheet but does appear on the 1904 sheet. The name of the cottage and one of the previous occupants suggests that it is. I will have a look at the British Newspaper Archives website on my next trip to the library to see if I can find any reports from 1900-1904 that may refer to it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

The list that David has compiled accords with what I have (possibly 69 dwellings in total). Some of these are now single dwellings and those at Batley and Cowley have been lost. (I am still trying to persuade those that be to erect plaques or something suitable where these buildings once stood. Perhaps a 'media interest' story might prompt them to do something?)

Thanks for the correction about Price (South Wales Borderers memorial cottage homes).

Smethwick
Thanks for your reply. The two references to James Morrison of Lovat's Scouts (Gardner and in 1901 draft) are one and the same and verified on the medal rolls. He was not commissioned so there was another James Morrison. Unfortunately, Kevin Asplin was unable to find the enlisted James Morrison's details in UKNA - although you were able to add a couple of details to the post I have been putting together; for which I am really grateful.
I don't doubt for a moment that Lovat's Cottage has a solid connection to Lovat's Scouts and the man/men who served therein. My reasoning is that the James Morrison to which I refer suffered a severe injury - possibly during the ABW .
Regards
IL.