Why would a soldier be listed in the 1911 census?
QMy grandfather Samuel Calladine (born 18 December 1889) joined the Royal Field Artillery on 2 March 1908 (Regimental No. 50122), but also appears on the 1911 census as a “coal miner hewer” living in Chapel Street, Kilburn, Derbyshire.
His father is living at the same address, with Samuel’s three sisters and an adopted son, which all fits with other details I have of the family.
I’m sure the Samuel in the census is my grandfather, but how can he be a soldier and a miner?
Bill Calladine
ATry as I might, I cannot see that artilleryman Samuel Calladine and coal hewer Samuel Calladine are the same man. My first thought was that Samuel might be a soldier working as a miner while in the Army Reserve, a soldier on leave incorrectly recorded, or a part-time soldier in the Territorial Force. However, none of these scenarios works out.
On 24 February 1911, the Belper News reported that Samuel Calladine of Kilburn, a miner, was charged with stealing a pair of trousers between 1 January and 21 February, and confessed. There’s only one Samuel Calladine in Kilburn at the time. The census was taken on 2 April 1911, so this information places him there for a period of four months. This cannot be a professional soldier on leave.
You kindly sent Samuel’s Red Book (issued when discharged), which shows that he was discharged to the Army Reserve in March 1914. So that doesn’t work either.
Samuel also (according to medal records on ancestry.co.uk) kept the same number throughout the war, so can’t have been a Territorial, who were renumbered in 1917, and his number and date of enlistment fit the pattern in the Royal Artillery Attestations Book (on findmypast.co.uk).
On looking at the Red Book, it says that Samuel Calladine was born on 2 August 1889 in Sutton Sommington, near Loughborough. He’s not in the 1911 census, which should include all soldiers, but I’m not sure it does. There are records for this Samuel online, which might help.
Phil Tomaselli