After being promoted to acting corporal in April 1917, My Great Uncle William
Alfred Bush was promoted to acting sergeant on the 1st September
1917. He had received the promotion the week before on the 26th
August 1917 and had been acting unpaid until 1st September.
William had been at the front since August 1914 and was serving in the 363 Motorised Transport Company of the Army Service Corps.
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.
William was born in 1879 in
Wimbledon, the 2nd youngest child of the late William James and Jane
Bush (nee Napp). In 1917 he was 38 years old. His older sisters Elizabeth Clara
Bush (born 1863, Wimbledon) was married to William Giles (also a house
painter). Of their nine children one of their five sons Victor Cyril Giles was also serving with the Army Service Corps, both Alfred and James (both born in 1902) were
still too young to enlist. It is likely that Albert James and William Giles were serving but research has not yet identified with who.
His sister, Jane Bush had lost her first
husband James Spice in 1903 and both her children Dorothy (in 1913) and Edith
(in 1905) she had re-married to Edward Charles Gear on Christmas Day in 1911
and had moved from Wimbledon to Railton Road in Lambeth.
His older brother, my Great
Grandad, Albert Henry Bush, was a plumber on Southern Railways and had married Emily
Elizabeth Lemon in 1898 and had four children Albert (my Grandad), Emily
(Elsie), Sidney and Olive. Emily’s younger brother Frederick Lemon was serving with
the East Surrey Regiment in the Labour Corps.
William's younger brother James
Charles Bush (born Wimbledon 1881) was working as a harness cleaner in 1911 and
living at 48 St. James St. Leeds with Emma Wilson and their daughter May Wilson
Bush (born in 1910). They also had two other children William H Bush (born
1911, Leeds) and James C Bush, who was born on Boxing Day 1915. James and Emma
had married in 1912 in Leeds.
Research suggests that James
was serving in the Corps of Hussars as a Private in the 10th and
later 20th Battalion.
