Royal Army Medical Corps - 20th August 1914

On the 20th August 1914, Charles Henry Bush (my 1st Cousin 3 times removed) embarked for France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) having been mobilised from the Army reserve on the 5th August 1914 with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) No. 9 General Hospital as a private. He had re-enlisted in the reserve in May 1913 having previously joined the RAMC at the age of 21 on the 23rd May 1901, at that time he was working as a barman. He served in South Africa from December 1901 to September 1904 being awarded the Queens medal with 4 clasps including Cape Colony.

He married Edith Pearson on 12th June 1905 and had their first child, Charles Alfred exactly 1 year later. By 1911 Charles, Edith & Charles along with their 2nd son Herbert were living at 69 Pelham Road, Wimbledon, with Charles' occupation listed as a bill poster for a theatre. Herbert died a few months later just as their daughter Edith was born.

Royal Army Medical Corps Cap Badge

Charles was born in Wimbledon in 1878, the son of Charles Henry Bush and Caroline Wigman, he was one of 5 children, an elder sister and brother Louisa and Alfred and younger siblings Nellie and William. His father Charles had died young at only 34 and his mother had re-married to William Clack, a scavenger with Wimbledon Borough Council, having a further 7 children. All living at 11 Ashbourne Terrace, Wimbledon, which had been the Bush family home before his father's death.

Charles was 5 foot 7 inches tall, with a fresh complexion, brown eyes and dark brown hair and was 36 when the Great War started.

His elder brother, by 3 years, Alfred Charles Morris Bush had also served in the RAMC in the Boer War and had remained in the services, by 1911 he was a staff sergeant with the London Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance. Alfred also served with the RAMC in WW1, he was married to Ellen and had two children Amy and George.

His cousin William Alfred Bush had already been mobilised and was already in France, serving with the Army Service Corps in Rouen. Charles Henry Bush was posted to No. 9 General Hospital, which was initially based in Nantes.

Tony

References
1911 census - Ancestry.com
WW1 British Army Service records - Ancestry.com
Queens South Africa medal info - Wikipedia

Pack up your troubles

On the 8th August 1914, William Alfred Bush (my Great Grand Uncle) set sail from Liverpool for France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. Born in 1879 in Wimbledon, Surrey. The son of the late William and Jane Bush.

William had initially joined the Army, enlisting in the Army Service Corps in January 1905 as a boiler maker and riveter, having previously been an apprentice for six years at the L & SW Railway works in Wimbledon. he married Elizabeth Jane Pope at Wandsworth Register Office on the 24th July 1905.

Army Service Corps Cap Badge and shoulder title

He completed his three years service in 1908 being based in Aldershot and was put onto the reserve list. William and Elizabeth had four children Lillie, William, Ivy and Dorothy. Their first child also called William died in infancy, Dorothy was only four months old when William was mobilised on the 6th August 1914.

The family were living at 6, Leyton Road, Wimbledon at the outbreak of war, having previously lived at 5, Goodenough Street, Wimbledon where in 1911 William listed his occupation as a house painter. William was 35 when he set of for World War One, 5 feet 4 1/4 inches tall, fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. He had a small tattoo mark on the back of his right forearm and a 1/2 inch long linear scar above his right eyebrow.

He set sail from Liverpool on the 8th August 1914 and disembarked at Rouen on the 18th August. In the Mechanical Transport Depot of the Army Service Corps.

Tony

The first days of War - In pursuit of the enemy

As the lights went out across Europe at the Outbreak of World War One, Robert Harris, my Great Grandfather in law was serving on board HMS Indomitable, part of the Mediterranean fleet based in Malta.

Robert Harris - HMS Indomitable

Robert, at 5 foot 3 3/4 inches and with a sallow complexion, joined the Royal Navy on the 1st September 1913 serving on HMS Pembroke as a Stoker (2nd Class) and had transferred to the Indomitable on the 10th February 1914. Born on 22nd June 1895 in Bethnal Green, he was one of eight children of Dock Labourer Samuel Harris. His mother Emily (Nee Emily Spence) had passed away in 1903 aged just 38.

In 1911 the family were living in Newling Street, Bethnal Green with widow Ann Baker and her family, 12 people in all, in just 4 rooms! By 1913, when Robert joined the Navy, he was living in Barnet Grove, Bethnal Green and listed his trade as cabinet maker. His father Samuel married Ann Baker in early 1914

At 09.30 on the morning of the 4th August, HMS Indomitable accompanied by HMS Indefatigable, under the command of Admiral Milne encountered the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau sailing in the opposite direction heading east after a bombardment of the French Algerian port of Philippeville. Unlike France, Britain and Germany were not yet at war (the declaration would not be made until later that day, following the start of the German invasion of neutral Belguim), so Milne turned to shadow the Germans as they headed back to Messina in Italy to re-coal. 

Initially ordered by Churchill to attack, However, a meeting of the British Cabinet decided that hostilities could not start before a declaration of war, and at 14:00 Churchill was obliged to cancel his order. Milne reported the contact and position, but neglected to inform the Admiralty that the German ships were heading east, rather than west and hence threatening French transport ships, which Britain had agreed to protect, Churchill therefore still expected them to threaten the French transports, and he authorised Milne to engage the German ships if they attacked. 

British ships following The Goeben and Breslau

All three battlecruisers had problems with their boilers, and the Goeben could only manage 24kn (her normal speed was 27kn) and this was only achieved by working men and machinery to the limit; four stokers on board the Goeben were killed by scalding steam, but the Goeben and Breslau were able to break contact and reached Messina by the morning of the 5th.

By this time war had been declared, after the German invasion of Belgium, but an Admiralty order to respect Italian neutrality and stay outside a six-mile limit from the Italian coast precluded entrance into the passage of the Strait of Messina, where they could observe the port directly. 

Therefore Milne stationed HMS Inflexible and HMS Indefatigable at the northern exit of the Strait of Messina, still expecting the Germans to break out to the west where they could attack French troop transports, the light cruiser HMS Gloucester at the southern exit and he sent HMS Indomitable to re-coal at Bizerte (in modern day Tunisia) where she was better positioned to react to a German sortie into the Western Mediterranean.

The German ships however, eventually evaded the British fleet and passed through the Dardanelles to reach Constantinople on the 16th August, where they were eventually handed over to the Ottoman Empire. 

In October, The Goeben, renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim, was ordered by its German captain to attack Russian positions, in doing so brought the Ottoman Empire into the war on the side of the Central Powers.

Writing several years later, Winston Churchill - who at this time was First Lord of the Admiralty - expressed the opinion that by forcing Turkey into the war the Goeben had brought "more slaughter, more misery, and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship."

HMS Indomitable and Robert Harris remained in the Mediterranean to blockade the Dardanelles.

Tony

References
1911 Census of England and Wales (via Ancestry.com)
Robert Harris - Royal Navy Service Record (Personal collection)
Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau - (via Wikipedia.org)