Promoted to Sergeant

After being promoted to acting corporal in April 1917, My Great Uncle William Alfred Bush was promoted to acting sergeant on the 1^st September 1917. He had received the promotion the week before on the 26^th August 1917 and had been acting unpaid until 1^st 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 2^nd 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 10^th and later 20^th Battalion.