TOPIC:

Thanks to all for the information on Brabant's Horse and for the welcome. Getting to know my grandfather through this research has been somewhat challenging as he died three years before I was born and all his contemporaries have passed on. I am working off recollections of recollections and some primary material, of which this website is a trove.

Lewis Gano, as I mentioned above, was a pseudonym. His real name was Leon Kaufman; he was born in New York in 1875 and died in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1948. His parents fled France after the Franco-Prussian war and his father was a restaurateur in New York. Why Leon went to South Africa and why he used an alias, I have no idea. I have a photo of him taken in 1903 in London (which I shall now search for and attach later), in which he sports a proper Boer-ish beard. In his CEF service records fro WWI, he lists a "L. M. Hill, Com VAD, Devonshire House, Piccadilly" as a person to notify if anything happened to him. I assume that Hill was an acquaintance from South Africa or possibly the person he visited in London in 1903. I'd appreciate any tips as to who Hill might have been. I have learned that Devonshire House remained a ducal residence until after the war, but imagine it also functioned as offices for administering the Duke's estates.

I would guess that VAD in this context stands for Voluntary Aid Detachment. These were volunteer units, largely made up of women and girls, providing nursing services during WW1, both at home and overseas. I don't know anything about the hierarchy of the organisation, but I would guess that 'Com' stands For 'Commandant' or similar. Again, without research, I would speculate that Devonshire House could have had a wartime use as a hospital or administrative centre.

All this is top of the head, but might give you a line to pursue.

Patrick

Further to my post above, I've discovered a website named scarletfinders.co.uk which has a big section about Voluntary Aid Detachments. Devonshire House was the HQ and 'Commandant' was indeed a rank. You might find out more about L M Hill by seeing what that site has to offer.

Patrick

But, I always thought it stood for, very adorable darlings.

pjac49 wrote: I would guess that VAD in this context stands for Voluntary Aid Detachment. These were volunteer units, largely made up of women and girls, providing nursing services during WW1, both at home and overseas. I don't know anything about the hierarchy of the organisation, but I would guess that 'Com' stands For 'Commandant' or similar. Again, without research, I would speculate that Devonshire House could have had a wartime use as a hospital or administrative centre.

All this is top of the head, but might give you a line to pursue.

Patrick

Patrick,

Many thanks!

More on VADs, etc...,

Thank you again for the tip on VADs. At the site you provided, I found reference to a Nurse Hill (Leicester/14) who established a Nurses' club at the hospital in Etaples. I think there is a good chance that is the L. M. Hill in my grandfather's CEF records.

I mentioned earlier that I had a photo taken of my grandfather in 1903 in London, probably as he returned from South Africa to New York. If any of you have studied the Cordua Affair/Pretoria Plot, this is Detective Gano (or at least I am 99% sure it is. In the New Zealand Herald article from October 1900, Gano is described as clean-shaven. He evidently grew this beard sometime after the Cordua business.