G/16155 John Wilfred Mitchell, 12th Royal Sussex Regiment

Chailey Parish Magazine first notes John Mitchell serving his King and Country in its March 1915 issue. In October 1915 it states, Mitchell, Lance-Corporal J, 2/4th Royal Sussex, England and in November 1916 updates this information to report that he is in France. This latter information is certainly incorrect as the 2/4th Battalion, formed at Horsham in January 1915, remained in England throughout the war until disbanded in November 1917. He probably went overseas as a 2/4th Battalion man and was posted, on arrival there, to the 1/4th Battalion.

John Mitchell appears to have served throughout the war, his name appearing up to and including the final published roll call in July 1919.  His medal index card notes two army numbers for him: 2170 and G/16155.

G/16155 belongs to a block of numbers issued to men who joined the Southdown battalions in France and John Mitchell's entry in the British War and Victory medal roll confirms that he was posted to the 12th battalion. Later on, he was posted again, this time to the 8th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment.

He is probably the same John Mitchell who was the fourth eldest child in a family of nine children (eight of them boys). His parents, Charles and Emily Mitchell, were married in 1880 and by the time the 1881 census was taken they were living at 1 Upper Birchland, Newick. Both were aged 22 with Charles (born in Lindfield) working as an agricultural labourer.

Ten years on, by the time the 1891 census was taken, Charles and Emily were living at what looks like Plummers Den Cottage No 1 in Lindfield and had five children: Charles Mitchell (aged nine), Henry J Mitchell (aged eight), Alfred Thomas Mitchell (aged six), John Mitchell (aged three) and Albert Basil Mitchell (aged eleven months).

By the time the 1901 census was taken the family was still living at the same Lindfield address but there were now more brothers – and a sister. New arrivals and their ages in 1901 were: Elsie Mitchell (aged seven), Walter Mitchell (aged five), Wallace Sidney Mitchell (aged four) and Maurice Gilbert Mitchell (aged nine months).

John Mitchell’s brothers Albert, Alfred, Henry, Wallace (Sidney) and Maurice, also served during the First World War. All of them survived. Their distant relatives, the Plummer brothers were less fortunate. Albert, Alexander and Owen Plummer all lost their lives.

Which Mitchell is Albert Mitchell?

From the main Chailey 1914-1918 site:

"There are a two Albert Mitchell / Hussars possibilities noted at The National Archives: 6561 (later 45282) Private Albert Mitchell and 8214 Private Albert Mitchell and further research is necessary to positively identify him."

At the time of writing this, I hadn't seen the medal cards for the two men. Now that I have done so, I am a little closer, but only on the supposition that Albert joined the army as a young man. I'll explain.

Army service numbers can provide enormous clues in helping determine when a man joined a particular regiment. I've studied these in depth and I have a separate army service numbers website.

We know that Albert was born in 188o. 6561 could have been issued to a 4th Hussars man at some point between 1902 and 1906 or in September/October 1910 by which time the numbering system for cavalry of the line had changed. Up until December 1906, cavalry regiments numbered individually by regiment; after that date they numbered by corps.

8214 can only have been issued when this corps re-numbering had taken place, and the number itself dates to January 1912. Albert would have been close to 32 years old at this time and I think it unlikely, albeit not beyond the realms of possibility, that he would have enlisted for a regular terms of enlistment which would have taken him up to the age of nearly 40 (assuming a 7&5 term of enlistment).

In the absence of more concrete evidence therefore, I'm going with the deduction that Albert was number 6561 and that he enlisted probably in 1902 or 1903 when he was 22 or 23 years old. If he is that man, he arrived in France on 27th August 1914.

Thomas Pateman, 4th (Queen's Own) Hussars

Thomas and Alfred Pateman. both serving with the 4th (Queen's Own) Hussars, arrived in France on 15th August 1914. I think it likely that Thomas Pateman, six years older than Alfred, joined the 4th Hussars in 1900. His number - 4582 - dates either to early 1900 or to around July 1909. In 1900, he would have been about 21 years old and it seems more likely that he would have joined up as a young man in his twenties rather than as a thirty year old. You can read more about army service numbers between 1881 and 1918 on another of my blogs. 

Both Alfred and Thomas survived the First World War, Thomas ending the war as a decorated Sergeant Major who had been Mentioned in Dispatches (MiD) and awarded the Military Medal. The "Em" and "Emblem" references in his medal index card above, refer to his MiD. The medal index card is Crown Copyright, downloaded from the Ancestry.co.uk website.

On the 13th January 2021, Thomas Pateman's medals, above, with an estimate of between £500 and £600 were sold at auction by Dix Noonan Webb for £2,400.

Alf Pateman - when did he join up?

Alfred Pateman was born in Chailey in 1889 and he was certainly in uniform before the start of the First World War. His medal index card at the National Archives indicates that he was overseas with the 4th Hussars as early as 15th August 1914; an Old Contemptible although he appears not to have claimed the bar to his 1914 Star - the "clasp and roses" so often mentioned on medal index cards of the First World War. But when did Alf enlist?

Alf Pateman's service record does not appear to have survived, but his medal index card gives his 4th Hussars number as 5506. Prior to 1907 all the line cavalry regiments numbered by regiment and so the 4th Hussars had its own series of numbers. Post Army Order 289 of December 1906 however, line cavalry were to be numbered by corps. So one number series for the Corps of Dragoons, one series for the Corps of Hussars and one series for the Corps of Lancers. I've dealt with this topic on a separate post on my Army Service Numbers 1881-1918 blog which looked at Queen's and King's Regulations for the Army. Click the link to read that post.

So the number 5506 was issued twice. Once to a 4th Hussars man when numbering was by individual regiment, and then again when numbering was by line cavalry corps. In the first case, 5506 would have been issued in about 1901 and so we can rule that date out for Alf Pateman as he would only have been about 13 years old. That means he must have joined the 4th Hussars after Army Order 289 had been published, and the number 5506 can only have been issued in the second half of April 1910. So that's when Alf joined his regiment. Fortunately, as his MIC (above) shows, the guesswork has been taken out of the equation regarding the date he transferred to the Machine Gun Corps.

The medal index card is Crown Copyright, downloaded from the Ancestry.co.uk website.

Royal Sussex Regiment - Army Service Numbers

There are several men on my Chailey 1914-1918 site who saw service during the First World War with the Royal Sussex Regiment. Although, Essex-born myself, I have a keen interest in the Royal Sussex Regiment and have recently posted a number of articles on my Army Service Numbers blog about numbering in the various Royal Sussex Regiment battalions. I'll be adding to this series or articles in due course, but in the meantime here are the links to the published posts:

Royal Sussex Regiment - Army Service Numbers

Regular and Special Reserve:

1st and 2nd Battalions (from 1881)
3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion (1908-1914)

Territorial Force:

4th Battalion (Territorial Force)
5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion (Territorial Force)
6th (Cyclist) Battalion (Territorial Force)

Initial complement of the South Down battalions (to August 1916):

11th Battalion (1st South Down)
12th Battalion (2nd South Down)
13th Battalion (3rd South Down)
14th (Reserve) Battalion

Service battalions:

Sussex Regiment service battalions August 1914 - August 1916

Chailey 1914-1918 Bookshop

I've added another page to the website with a few recommended research titles. Well at least I had done until the site chose to play up and deleted everything. I'm now in the process of re-building the page.

As I mention on the Chailey 1914-1918 bookshop page, clicking on any of the Naval & Military Press links and then subsequently making a purchase, sees a commission wending its slow way to me. All such commissions help fund the site.

Research-wise I've had nothing to add in the last few weeks and have been concentrating more on the Army Service Numbers blog and army service numbers research in general.

Gloucestershire Regiment soldiers

I've just posted some army service numbers and corresponding joining dates for the regular battalions of the Gloucestershire Regiment on my Army Service Numbers blog. That provides me with a good enough excuse to draw attention to a couple of Gloucestershire Regiment soldiers on my Chailey 1914-1918 website, and also to draw attention to the Soldiers of Gloucestershire website.

Reginald Pimble and William Fryer Washbourne both served with the Gloucestershire Regiment (Reginald with the 1st Battalion and William with the 1/5th Battalion) and both spent time at Hickwells and Beechlands recovering from wounds. The two men are easily located on the Soldiers of Gloucestershire database which contains details of over 40,000 WW1 Gloucestershire regiment men; a very handy resource indeed.

George Saunders

I've added a little more information about George Saunders. Having spent a considerable amount of time researching army service numbers between 1881 and 1918, I can say with reasonable certainty that George joined the Royal Sussex Regiment on about 29th December 1905.

I had previously guessed that he joined in 1906 and that he was probably a Reservist at the time Britain war with Germany in 1914. However, the man who was given the number after George - L/8390 - joined on 29th December 1905 for 9 years with the Colours and 3 on the Reserve; so too did other men enlisting with The Royal Sussex Regiment at this time.

So it think, in the absence of a surviving service record, that it is reasonable to assume that George also joined up for 9&3 and that therefore he had a little under five months left to serve with the Colours when Britain went to war on 4th August 1914. Eight days later, he was shouldering a rifle in France and preparing to meet the might of the German Army.

George was killed in action on 17th August 1916 and is commemorated on the memorial at Thiepval. His brother, Henry Alfred Saunders, was killed in action seven weeks later on 7th October 1916. He too is commemorated on the Thiepval War Memorial on the Somme. Both brothers are commemorated on Chailey's war memorial.

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Fresh images - home page and Chailey's men

I've uploaded fresh images on some of the main landing pages of Chailey 1914-1918.

On the Chailey 1914-1918 home page, courtesy of Seaford Museum, is a great Southdowns recruiting poster from 1914. I don't know if anybody has ever researched the effectiveness of different types of recruiting practices during WW1 but this one, I suppose, would probably fall into the scaremongering category. Others would be labelled "guilt" - the "What did you so in the Great War, Daddy" type posters; then you'd have those appealing to the patriotic spirit; blackmail in the form of white feathers or lion and unicorn buttons dropped into pockets; many, many inducements which, all combined, saw that Kitchener well exceeded his call for a hundred thousand men. A number of Chailey's men served with Southdowns battalions. I wonder if any of them joined up as a result of the Chichester poster (reproduced here).

On a lighter note, I've also added some comic images to the pages for Chailey's men. Here they are:

Chailey's Men A-D
Chailey's Men E-L
Chailey's Men M-R
Chailey's Men S-Y

Find Southdowns army service numbers and army service records on-line with a FREE 14 day trial to Ancestry.co.uk - Click here!

When did Chailey's patients enlist?

Using information from my army service numbers database, I've been able to update the records for more patients. It's a laborious process but a necessary one. I have updated enlistment/joining date information for Joseph French, John Gale, John Griffiths, Charles Harrald and William Haydon.

The photo above shows convalescent soldiers at Beechlands, circa June 1916.

For more information on British army service numbers and the dates on which these were issued to British soldiers, check my Army Service Numbers 1881-1918 blog.

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William Hugh Blanchard

Here's some more conjecture regarding Chailey men and army service numbers and enlistment dates.

I have assumed from previous research, that the W Blanchard mentioned in Chailey Parish Magazine, is William Hugh Blanchard. The National Archives holds a medal index card for this man giving his number as G/24460 with the Royal Sussex Regiment. Chailey Parish Magazine states that W Blanchard was first with a Training Reserve Battalion in April 1917, and later with the Royal Sussex Regiment (first the Reserve Battalion and later the 9th).

The number G/24460 would have been issued to a Royal Sussex Regiment soldier probably in mid to late November 1917 and so this certainly ties in with the information I already had.

23331 Pte William H Baddock, 3rd Grenadier Guards

Private William H Baddock of the 3rd Grenadier Guards was a convalescent patient at Chailey in early 1916. Wounded in the head by a rifle grenade on Christmas Eve 1915, he arrived back in England four days later, was operated on in Brighton and then despatched to Hickwells in Chailey. He is the most prolific entrant in Nurse Oliver's autograph book and thanks to this, as well as mentions in local newspapers - we are able to build up a reasonably comprehensive picture of his stay at Chailey. (Having said that, I still do not know what his middle name is or what happened to him after he recovered from his wounds).

Having consulted my army service numbers database for the Grenadier Guards I can also now add that Private Baddock enlisted in March 1915, sometime between March 4th and March 10th. This means that he would have only had around seven months' training before he was sent to France as part of a draft for the Grenadier Guards. Three months later he was back in England.

Thomas Pateman MM - enlistment date

I'm going to apply some more logic to Thomas Pateman's army service, based on my army service numbers database. Although I will be launching the armyservicenumbers.com website with infantry regiment service numbers, I do have considerable data for other branches of the British Army.

On Thomas Pateman's page I state, "I could not find Thomas on the 1901 census and it is quite possible that by this stage he had already joined the army and was serving overseas, possibly in South Africa." We know that Thomas was serving as an RSM with the 4th (Queen's Own) Hussars by October 1915 and that he was a pre-war regular soldier. His medal index card gives two numbers and it is the first, four digit number - 4582, which is important here.

Prior to 1907, the cavalry numbered individually by regiments. This changed in 1907 and they numbered by corps - so one series of numbers for the household cavalry, one for the dragoons, one for the hussars and one for the lancers.

Assuming that Thomas joined the 4th Hussars pre 1907, his number indicates an enlistment date of late 1899 or early 1900. If he enlisted after 1907, this number would have been issued to a man joining up with the Corps of Hussars around August 1909.

It is difficult to say with certainty when Thomas enlisted in the British Army, but given that he was already an RSM by 1915, my money would be on an enlistment in 1899/1900 and that he probably extended his army service and therefore was still serving with the 4th Hussars (rather than on the Reserve) when war was declared in August 1914.

Army Service Numbers 1881-1918

I've set up another blog on the topic of army service numbers. I've always been surprised that so many people seem, if not ready to dismiss these vital pieces of information, at least a little reticent at times, to dig down a little.

Eighteen months ago I decided to try and build upon the fledgling database of army numbers that I'd started to build when I commenced work on the Chailey site. My one criterion was that the information should come from original sources, and that meant going back to original attestation papers.

What's come out of that is a database of some thirty or forty thousand records I should think (I haven't had the time to count up exactly how many records there are), and a unique reference resource which can help a researcher narrow down a likely joining date for a particular soldier. I use the word "joining" rather than "enlisting" or "enlistment" deliberately. A man could enlist in one regiment and then transfer to another. If he transferred, he would be given a different number and he might also be given a different number if he was posted from one battalion in a regiment, to another in the same regiment.

The Army Service Numbers blog is really the companion to a far bigger work which is http://www.armyservicenumbers.com/ The site isn't up and running yet but it will be soon and when it is, visitors will be able to type in their ancestor's number and come up with a likely time-frame for his "joining". The first release will concentrate on infantry regiments between the years 1881 and 1918. Future releases will target other branches of the British Army within the same time frame.

There are exceptions (there are always exceptions in the British Army). At present, the following are beyond the scope of the Army Service Numbers project:

• The Militia and Volunteers (pre 1908)
• The Army Service Corps
• The Labour Corps
• The re-numbered Territorial Force (ie TF numbering from March 1917 onwards)

Nonetheless, even with these exceptions - and also understanding that in some cases there will be a number of caveats - I still believe that the database will offer the best resource on the web for identifying soldiers' joining dates from their numbers. In the meantime though, the army service numbers blog will provide tasters and pointers and I'll be more than happy to answer questions and queries as time permits.