Why didn’t my grandfather fight in the First World War?
QMy grandfather, John Charles Shildrick Nice, was born in 1883 so was a suitable age to serve in the First World War. He was not in a reserved occupation (he worked as a printer), was not a conscientious objector and was a very fit man. Nevertheless, he did not serve, and I am unclear as to why not. He was an ardent socialist and trade unionist. Could it be that he was placed on a War Office ‘blacklist’ of troublemakers?
Christopher Nice
Are you absolutely certain that your grandfather didn’t serve? There’s certainly no service record for him, even stripping his name down to John Nice and giving enough spread on the date of birth to allow for him to have lied about his age. There’s also no obvious Medal Index Card (MIC). However, 60 per cent of service records were destroyed in 1940, and MICs were generally created for people who served overseas – and a lot of soldiers didn’t.
Although Second World War conscription was organised well in advance, and reserved occupations decided upon before the war (there’s a list at anguline.co.uk/free/reserved.
First World War conscription was rushed. A Schedule of Protected
AOccupations (intended to protect munitions production) was drawn up and is online at wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/tav/ id/5370. It doesn’t include printers. However, there were other ways out. A conscripted man, or his employer, could persuade a local tribunal that he was a key worker in his place of employment, and obtain temporary or permanent exemption. Assuming John lived in Gloucester (he was there in 1911 and 1920, according to the census and electoral registers), try the local press for reports or the local record office for tribunal records. There was interest from the authorities in industrial troublemakers. Ministry of Munitions Labour Intelligence (MMLI) monitored strikes and their agents attended strike meetings, as did a small section of MI5. A proposed solution was to actually conscript troublemakers and subject them to military law, but this strategy provoked strikes and seems to have been abandoned.
Of course, John might just have been lucky. Some 2,278,000 men were conscripted, a total that actually included an unspecified number of volunteers, but that is smaller than the number who definitely volunteered. His age may have protected him.
Phil Tomaselli
index: one to Catherine Hanning in 1853/1082 and the other to Eleanor Bride at Windsor in 1859/3126.
However, he may not have stayed in New South Wales. Since you located a reference to the Darling Downs, I also looked at Queensland indexes online ( familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au).
The Queensland Early Pioneers Index 1824–1859 on myheritage.com has three references to a Thomas Stubbs – on 31 March 1844: Thomas Stubbs, British nationality, in Moreton Bay General Hospital; on 24 October 1846: Thomas Stubbs, British nationality, convict, an entry in the
(a newspaper) regarding a ticket of leave to be collected by Thomas Stubbs among others; and on 24 July 1847: Thomas Stubbs, British nationality, another reference in the in a letter from Gowrie (a station) on the Darling Downs. The farm servants on Gowrie subscribed to the Irish/Scotch Relief Fund, and Thomas contributed £1.
The Queensland online death index revealed a Thomas Stubbs who died on 15 April 1881/C2706. The parents’ names were not known, but it was believed his mother was from England. I then searched digital newspapers on Trove ( trove.nla.gov.au) for any reference to this death. A miner named Thomas Stubbs drowned in the Hodgkinson River (Thornborough, North Queensland) owing, it was supposed, to his having taken cramps. A woman was looking on at the time but could not assist. The report appeared in the on 19 April 1881.
Since this was an accidental death, an inquest was held – 112/1881 (Item ID 348674). A copy can be purchased from the Queensland State Archives. The inquest file may have more information about who this Thomas Stubbs was, because people who knew him would be called to give evidence.
There was a reference to the inquest in the Queensland Police Gazette Return of Deaths Reported to the Police, 1881 (available on findmypast. co.uk). This revealed that Thomas Stubbs was a miner, 5 feet 10 inches tall, brown hair, and the woman last seen in his company was identified as Mary Bourne.
The online Queensland death index also listed a Thomas Stubbs who died on 8 May 1887/C3816, with parents George Stubbs and Guen Cladon Davis. Another Thomas Stubbs died on 22 July 1899/B31968 with father’s name Middleton Stubbs.
No marriage was located for a Thomas Stubbs in the Queensland online marriage index.
The only way to prove one of these Thomas Stubbs was your relative is to purchase death/marriage certificates in the hope that there may be some information that ties them to the convict Thomas Stubbs. Given the Queensland connection, you should probably start by obtaining documents for the Thomas Stubbs who died in 1881.
Shauna Hicks