Albert Leggett

Albert Leggett's service record survives as a burnt document in the WO 363 series at the National Archives. Ancestry has just made service records I-N available on-line and so, twenty odd years after I first transcribed Albert's entry in Nurse Oliver's album, I have been able to find out more about him. I've now written up my notes and updated Albert's page on the website.

Albert was not a resident of Chailey but a wound on a battlefield in France would ensure that he would soon be acquainted with the parish. He enlisted with the Northamptonshire Regiment at Norwich in April 1915. By the end of July that year he was in France and, posted to the regular 1st Battalion, would fight through Loos and the Battle of the Somme until severely wounded at Pozieres in August 1916. He was in hospital in France for just under a month and then, returning to England in September 1916, would spend at least another ten weeks in hospitals in England; first to the 2nd Eastern General Hospital at Brighton and then to Beechlands (or Beechland House) in Newick. Later transferred to the 2/5th Scottish Rifles and then the RAMC, Albert would spend the rest of the war in England. The leave that he was granted from hospital in December 1916 was beneficial to Albert and his wife. In September 1917 their second child was born.

Albert was discharged from the army in March 1919 and two months later, a grateful country, acknowledging that his wound amounted to a 20 per cent degree of disablement, awarded him a weekly pension of five shillings and sixpence, to be reviewed twelve months later. Subsequent Board papers do not survive but it seems likely, given the many other soldiers' papers I have seen, that his award was reduced.

John Thomson Allan - Chailey convalescent

Working from my army service numbers database I can fill in some more detail about John Allan. It's conjecture of course, but the logic is good.

We know from the autograph entry in Nurse Oliver's album that he was in Chailey on 23rd October 1915. He drew the Gordon Highlanders' cap badge and wrote underneath it:

J T Allan
4th Gordon Hrs

Wounded at Houdge
25th Sept 1915

The National Archives comes up with one match and this is 3246 Private John Thomson Allan. Looking at my army service numbers database I see that this number would have been issued either in late November 1914 (3243 was issued on the 28th), or early December 1914 (3250 was issued on the 3rd). John Allan's number falls almost smack bang in the middle of these two numbers so it's reasonable to assume that he joined up at this time. Furthermore, the majority of enlistments into the 4th Gordon Highlanders at this time were in the reserve battalion, the 2/4th. So I'm guessing that John Allan was posted to the 2/4th and then subsequently to the 1/4th where he was later wounded at Loos. Thankfully, in terms of trying to understand army service numbers during the First World War, Territorial Force soldiers enlisting in second and third line battalions (eg 2/4th. 3/4th etc) were given numbers from the same series used by the 1/4th.