Friday, August 29, 2008

W Brown - 9th Middlesex

I'll end my week's blogging on Chailey during the First World War with another convalescent patient and another couple of assumptions based on my army service numbers database.

I know very little about Private W Brown. This is what he wrote in Nurse Oliver's album:

Pte W. Brown
1218 No 2 Coy
9th Middlesex Regt

The 9th Middlesex was a Territorial Force battalion headquartered at Willesden Green, north London. Its rates of recruitment appear to have been a good deal slower than the other Middlesex Regiment Territorial Force battalions and by 11th August 1914, with the war a week old, it was only numbering at 1597. Private Brown though, had enlisted before the war began. His number places him as having joined up in late January or early February 1914.

2 comments:

Amrita said...

Oh my goodness this is like Dad 's Army

Paul Nixon said...

Well, only in the sense that some of these men may well have gone on to serve in the Home Guard during the Second World War.

But these men were mostly young, mostly volunteers, and they and thousands like them (Indian soldiers included) willingly risked everything for their King (or King Emperor) and Country. They deserve our respect and admiration.