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Looks like her would have been a real womanizer..... Looking forward tp the other items..... Mike

Here's another of Bazeley, circa the Boer War. He was an Orderly to General Kelly-Kenny

I have failed in my initial undertaking to post photos of Bazeley - sourced from a number provided to me by the family. Allow me to address the deficiency forthwith!

Mr Bazeley was, even by Victorian standards, photogenic..

I really enjoy your write-ups Rory, and as a relative newcomer to the ABW and delving into the history of medal recipients, I wondered if you had a "workflow" that you used when starting to research a particular man? I mean, do you start with the medal rolls or somewhere else?

BTW, I know very well the tiny village of Langtree from which Ernest Bazeley hailed, and I spent many a happy day shooting in the woods and fields around Week Farm. It is a very green and wet part of the world, and I imagine very different from what he encountered in South Africa!

Best wishes,
Johnathan

Yes indeed Johnathan - I think it must have been a culture (and climate) shock to, not only Bazeley when he came out here, but to the thousands upon thousands of troops that followed in his wake not many years later.

Please accept my apologies for not replying earlier. Apropos a work flow. There is very little science but quite a bit of method in my approach to a medal recipient. First off - I hardly ever buy a medal without having done some cursory research into the man, This can be a 10 minute exercise or sometimes a great deal longer - it all depends on how much time I have before the auction closes etc. One has to check the medal rolls to verify clasp entitlement - that is a prerequisite - secondly, one has to make very sure that the recipient did or did not qualify for the KSA - one doesn't, where possible, want to buy a medal which is only part of a wider pair or group. You don't want to have to scour the net and other places in the perpetual hunt for missing medals.

I subscribe to Ancestry and FMP and make liberal use of the Unit Information pages on this site, especially the nominal rolls - that will sometimes give me the first names of the medal recipient (if not known) and from there it's a hop, skip and a jump to Familysearch. org to look for death, baptismal and other details. For British recipients I use FMP for their attestation and service papers (these are not available for Colonial chaps)

Then it's on to Ancestry for their census and other data. By these means you slowly build up a picture of your man - a dive into the newspaper archives (British) is also a must as you could well find that your chap was a notable or did something felonious which brought him to the attention of the media.

Once armed with all the above data, you need to work out what your man did in the war - this is where the short articles under each unit on this site prove invaluable - Stirling's Colonials in the South African war has been added to each regiment's page. Regimental histories are also important as are books penned by officers and men from both sides - again, here this site proves it worth with many of the necessary books one needs, transcribed for our benefit. An extensive personal library also helps - here I refer not only to the regimental books but also Civil Lists, directories, Who's Who and so forth.

Then one has to weave the entire lot together into a readable story which is both factual (true to the man and his time) and also peppered with anecdotal stuff (if you have been fortunate enough to get some from the family, with whom I almost always try to make contact.

I hope this gives you a glimpse into what one does - there are many others far better at this than me. everyone's modus operandi is different.

The very best of luck with your medal endeavors for 2021 and beyond.

Regards

Rory

Thanks Rory for your insights - very helpful! It had never occurred to me to check a QSA recipient on the KSA rolls too, though now you mention it, it seems a very sensible and logical early step. As you say, the prospect of trying to chase down a missing KSA etc seems like a pretty fruitless task.
I very much appreciate your advice, and hope to put it into practice in 2021 - best wishes to you and I look forward to reading more of your write-ups in the future.

Johnathan