The Soldier's Kit

The centennary of World War 1 has created enormous interest in many people for information about their military ancestors.  In order to help interpret digital images of A.I.F. personnel and provide more detail of military life the following breakdown of Australian Anzac ‘Kit’ has been prepared.

The individual AIF infantryman was issued with a universal kit or duffle bag into which he packed the following:

• 2 Pairs of brown leather hob-nail-soled ankle boots, with one psare pair of laces.
• 1 pair of braces
• 2 pairs of woollen cord Commonwealth Pattern breeches.
• Field Service Cap or Slouch Hat, with 2 spare chin straps
• Greatcoat
• Jacket – Service Dress
• 1 pair of Puttees -. Fabric strapping for lower legs.
• Dungaree jacket and trousers

Other pieces of kit included insignia and rank badges, and training garments including white canvas plimsolls and hat. He was assigned three brushes: hair, shaving and tooth. A comb, razor in a case and soap were his allotted toiletries. Underclothes were essential and each man was given two pairs of cotton drawers (underwear), 2 singlets, 2 flannel shirts and 3 pairs of socks. To keep out the chill he was allotted a jersey and khaki cap comforter. Essentially a woolen hat, this was often worn under helmets or during trench raids. All of the essential smaller items were contained in a ‘holdall’ and supplemented by a ‘housewife’, The Housewife was a holdall/pouch containing a thimble, two balls of grey darning wool (for socks), 50 yards of linen thread wound around card, needles, brass dish buttons and plastic buttons for shirts. The personal kit it would be finished off with the essentials of a knife, fork and spoon, that could be used with the D-shaped mess tin. Additionally a service knife was issued, which contained a marline splicing spike, a tin opener and lanyard.

Soldiers wore a British Pattern 1908 webbing arrangement in leather and/or heavy canvas.  Developed for the British Army, this pattern was the most advanced arrangement at the outbreak of the war and utilized by most Commonwealth armies, having the one main advantage that it could be taken off and on in one piece without the probability of losing any pieces. The basic arrangement consisted of the following components:

• 3 inch wide waist belt, with two angled 2 inch buckles at the rear
• 2 inch wide shoulder straps, attached to the aforementioned buckles
• Left and right hand ammunition pouches, consisting of five individual pockets, three underneath and two above. 
• Haversack – this could be worn in a variety of positions and methods from middle of the back to below waist belt
• Water bottle and carrier
• Entrenching tool and helve carrier – a two piece device and the handle of which is carried strapped to the bayonet scabbard, and attached to the bayonet frog
• A large pack was also carried, almost always on the back. Valise straps attached the pack to the wearer.

As the Australian infantryman evolved as a fighting entity, especially into the main Western Front European theatre, the essential kit also contained a gas mask, personalized cold weather accessories and preferred trench fighting weaponry, such as knuckle-dusters, clubs and pistols. Officers might privately purchase trench periscopes, binoculars and personal accessories that could more readily be stored in dug-outs.

The Australian Infantryman was also assigned ‘emergency rations’, only to be used as a last resort and consisted of corned or ‘bully’ beef, hard tack biscuits, tea, salt and matches. In situations like that of the Gallipoli campaign, such rations were regularly called upon. Official kit was supplemented by personally acquired ‘unofficial’ kit, which, if withdrawn during official inspections, was tolerated. Souvenirs, collected from the battlefield or bought from local merchants, regularly found their way into a soldiers pack.

London Workhouse Records on Ancestry

Ancestry has updated the London Workhouse Admission and Discharge Records, 1659-1930. They have added 303,179 new images and 3,771,083  new records, bringing the collection total to 542,642 images and 7,035,609 records. Newly added are the workhouse admission and discharge records for poor law unions in the South of London as well as additional records from Central and West. Future updates are planned to include indexed records from the North and East areas of London.
Boroughs Added or Updated:

• Greenwich
• Lambeth
• Lewisham
• Southwark
• Tower Hamlets
• Wandsworth

This collection includes selected admission and discharge records for workhouses created and administered under the Poor Law Acts. The exact information you can find about your ancestors varies according to the record.

• You may find:
• The person’s name
• Date of admission
• Age
• Date of discharge
• Other details regarding the person’s condition and care

Remember that while Ancestry is a subscription database, you can search their records free at all branches of Campaspe Library - and at many other public libraries.

New Australian Records on FamilySearch

FamilySearch has just released some new Australian records free to search.

Firstly, FamilySearch.org has started a new browsable image collection of the 1828 census from New South Wales. So far, 2,500 images are in the collection. The 1828 census lists the name of the family member (including servants), age, class (free or bonded), ship name and year of arrival, sentence (if applicable), employment, residence and religion. If the resident was a farmer, additional information was also collected such as the number of acres and livestock totals. Currently the images in the FamilySearch collection can only be searched by place, but eventually they will be indexed by name as well.

The second collection is a browsable image collection of Tasmanian civil registrations of births. The collection consists of some 12,700 images and spans the years from 1899 to 1912. A typical record gives the name of the child, date of birth and sex. For the father it lists the name, age and birthplace. For the mother it lists the name, maiden name, age, when/where married, place of birth and other children. The images in this collection are organized by place and then by year. Note that for this collection there is often a long lead time between when the child was born and when it was registered, and it is possible that children who died soon after birth were not put in the register in Tasmania during this time period.

Inside History Magazine

The new issue of Inside History magazine is now available.  Highlights include :

• AN expert guide to finding and using parish maps and land records
• Chat with Sir Tony Robinson on his Tour of Duty discovering Australia’s hidden wartime stories
• 95 new online genealogy resources to help grow your family tree
• The world of the English workhouse, beyond Dickensian stereotypes
• The iconic Tea and Sugar train of yesteryear and its cross-country rides across the Nullarbor
• How to use asylum records and access even those closed to the public
• A pick of the top 5 historical walks around Australia
• The mammoth project to document surviving World War II veterans
• Where to find the newly digitised collections of 14 leading museums from around Australia
• How you can help map the past with geo-referencing projects underway
• Why Victoria’s education system is historically significant

 Inside History magazine is available free online through Zinio from Campaspe Reginal Library.  Ask our staff for more information.

Joy Patricia Green nee Pummeroy

My mother Joy Pummeroy was born at home in East Brighton on 24 January 1942, the second youngest of five children and 14 years after her next oldest sibling. It was war-time, and things were tough. Her two older brothers were away in the RAAF and the Merchant Navy respectively, and she was only 5 when her next oldest brother died in an accident in Argentina while ferrying South American horses to Poland.

Things didn’t get much easier after the war. Though mum enjoyed school, learning Latin and guitar and being a good middle distance runner, when granddad got sick she had to leave school and earn an income to help support her family. She never finished her matriculation, I think one of the reasons she was so keen to see her children get a good education and so proud when we both graduated from university, the first in our family. Her first job was in the old Coles 200 store in Bourke St Melbourne, which stood long enough for both of us to have fond memories of the mezzanine cafeteria on our trips to Melbourne. After that she worked as a telephonist at Allens Music, but she had a yearning to see Australia and left there to take up a position as a governess on a station north of Mildura. It was there that she met Dad and decided he was the one for her,and they were married at St Mark’s church in East Brighton on 16 September 1967.  Her two daughters soon followed.

Mum always thought of her time on the station as the best of her life. But early in 1973, the station had to be sold, and Dad had to find another job, and so we moved to Moama.

Mum taught us to love reading and learning and to go out and find answers ourselves on all the topics that interested us.  She always took an active interest in our educations, helping out at school, volunteering in the canteen, supervising homework, never missing parent-teacher nights. 

Mum was especially proud the year my sister and I were both chosen to lay wreaths for our classes at our school ANZAC Day ceremony.  The event was held in the local community centre, and she and Dad both proudly watched as we did our parts and laid our wreaths.  All was going well until the last post was played.  Overcome with emotion, Mum began to sob.  The more she tried to stop, the louder the sobbing became.  Eventually, she fled the hall.  Unfortunately, we were in a far corner, and she had to run the length of the basketball court, still sobbing loudly, before reaching the exit and heading to the car to compose herself.  There she was later joined by her outraged offspring, mortified by her behaviour.

Mum never worked outside the home after we moved to Moama, undertaking childminding at home instead, and over a dozen children spent their days being looked after by mum.  She followed the lives of all of them as they moved through our home, and on to school themselves.

As she grew older and her mobility decreased, mum’s life closed in.  She went out less and less as movement became harder and more painful, and she endured just over a year in hospital with an infected leg ulcer and hip replacement.  She was only home for a matter of weeks before Dad’s final illness and death.  By now almost completely housebound, while she occasionally felt the isolation, she still had her books, puzzles and friends who called in regularly.  She even managed to continue volunteering for the library, assisting in storytime and holiday program preparation.  Mum passed away peacefully at Echuca Hospital on May 8th, 2015.  My thanks to everyone out there for your support and sympathy.

Endangered Archives Project

The Endangered Archives programme has now helped archives in 78 countries preserve over 4 million records, each of which have been digitised and added to the website.
The British Library's Endangered Archives website states that "Unless action is taken now, much of mankind’s documentary heritage may vanish - discarded as no longer of relevance or left to deteriorate beyond recovery." The website explains what the Endangered Archives Programme is, and how it can help.

• Learn about the threat to archives. 
• Find out more about the scope of the Programme. 
• Search the Endangered Archives Programme's projects.  
• Browse the Programme's digital collections.

Grants can be awarded to individual researchers to identify collections that can be preserved for fruitful use. The original archives and the master digital copies will be transferred to a safe archival home in their country of origin, while copies will be deposited at the British Library for use by scholars worldwide.  There is also an interactive map highlighting where records originated.

British Red Cross WW1 Volunteers

Over 90,000 people volunteered for the British Red Cross at home and overseas during World War 1.  They performed all kinds of roles from nurses to air raid wardens.  Their work during the war included running auxiliary hospitals and convalescent homes, temporary facilities for wounded servicemen which proved to be vital.  During the war the British Red Cross and the Order of St John worked together as part of the Central Prisoners of War Committee which co-ordinated relief for British prisoners of war. POWs were in dire need of food and clothing during their captivity, with the Red Cross providing food parcels, helping locate missing soldiers who had been captured and ensuring letters between POWs and their families were received. 

The British Red Cross website now allows you to search for your family’s personnel records, and discover what Red Cross volunteers were doing in your local area 100 years ago.

The personnel records for surnames starting with A through I are currently available. Volunteers are updating the site with more names every few weeks, with the aim of making all WW1 records available.

War Graves Photographic Project

Another great project, largely made possible by the efforts of volunteers, makes searching for our military ancestors easier.  The original aim of The War Graves Photographic Project was to photograph every war grave, individual memorial, Ministry of Defence grave, and family memorial of serving military personnel from WWI to the present day. However, due to the popularity of the project their aim has been expanded to cover all nationalities and military conflicts and make these available within a searchable database.
According to their website, the project is a joint venture with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and assisting the Office of Australian War Graves, Canadian Veterans Affairs and the New Zealand Ministry of Heritage and Culture.  The project is ongoing and names in the archive now stand at 1,816,851.  Below is their record and photograph of one of my relatives, Roger Pummeroy

Pummeroy, Roger Francis

Cemetery: Athens Memorial
Country: Greece
Area:
Rank: Private
Official Number: VX3417
Unit: A.I.F. 2/6 Bn. Australian Infantry
Force: Army
Nationality: Australian
Details:
28-Apr-1941 Aged 22 Son of Henry John and Alberta Lillian Pummeroy, of Clayton, Victoria, Australia. Face 11.

Photograph and details by volunteer/s: John Milner / Craig Walker

52 Weeks of Genealogy - Week 35 - Sporting Records

Shauna has chosen Sporting Records for her topic in Week 35, and tells us that "sporting records can tell us how our ancestors were involved in their local communities and what they did in their spare time. Or was it all work and no play?"
I must admit this is not an area I have really spent time focusing on, although while searching the British Newspaper Archives (Britain's version of Trove, although theirs you have to pay for!) I have discovered some of my father's ancestors were avid hunters.  My great grandfather Walter Green even kept a pack of hunting hounds, as shown in the first article below.

Chelmsford Chronicle - Friday 26 February 1892

Walter also enjoyed pigeon shooting, and clearly spent a significant portion of his leisure time engaged in these pursuits.  As this is the wealthier branch of the family (where did the money go??) he clearly had the time and means to enjoy these activities.

Essex Standard - Saturday 21 June 1884

As Shauna points out, this kind of information really helps flesh out how our ancestors lived their lives, taking us beyond the basic names and dates and adding color, depth and detail to our knowledge of them.
To read Shauna's post on Sporting Ancestors, click here.

ANZAC Day

With preparations underway all around me for ANZAC Day ceremonies tomorrow, I've been looking at the information I have accumulated about my military ancestors and reflecting on how truly lucky my family has been during the two World Wars.  With so many family members seeing war service, we have suffered surprisingly few casualties or injuries.  So many others have not been so fortunate.

On my mother's side of the family, one of her brothers and four uncles saw service, along with a number of in-laws, cousins and second cousins.  Three of the four boys in my father's family saw service in World War 2, although my father, to his disappointment, never made it out of Australia.  My mother's middle brother, who was in the Merchant Navy, was the only immediate family member to lose his life, drowning in Argentina after the war had ended.  His ship was picking up a load of supplies to take to Poland to help rebuild when he fell overboard.

While none of my immediate ancestors were killed at Gallipoli, their war service had a profound effect on their entire generation, and I will be thinking of them all as I attend services tomorrow.

A carpet of handmade poppies at Federation Square in Melbourne

52 Weeks of Genealogy - Week 34 - Maps

After the excitement of the Canberra Congress, suddenly I find myself a few weeks behind in Shauna Hicks's 52 Weeks of Genealogy challenge, so now I have to try to catch up.
Shauna has chosen Maps for her topic in Week 34, and tells us "I love using maps with my research as they give a different perspective on your family. Knowing where they lived and how far they had to travel to work, school, church or to shop helps to build a picture of their daily lives."  She adds that "while old parish maps tell us about our ancestor’s properties, modern maps can also do the same. With Google maps we can simply search on an address and see where it is  and if we use street view, we can even see what is still at that address. Is it the same house our ancestors lived in or has the area been developed and modernised?"
There are a lot of sources for maps around, many of them free, and I have a small collection of maps of the areas where my ancestors lived.   I have also used google maps to take a virtual walk around several of their home villiages in England.

Fordham, Essex, where my father's family lived.

Looking at old parish maps, I can see how far my ancestors had to travel to go to school or work, to visit their local church, shops and markets, what kind of landmarks and terrain they encountered, and the distances between the homes of ancestors who married.
Maps are yet another great resource Shauna has highlighted.  To read Shauna's full blog post on Maps, please click here.

The Victorian Soldier Settlement Scheme 1917-1935

The Public Records Office of Victoria have digitised selected documents from Victorian Government files kept on returned World War One soldiers who were approved to lease a block of farming land in Victoria. They were known as soldier settlers.
Victoria sent about 90,000 men and women to serve overseas in the First World War, about 70,000 of whom survived to return home. As the war continued, the issue of repatriating returning soldiers became increasingly urgent.  As well as providing War pensions and other financial assistance, State governments of the time set up ‘settlement’ schemes to support returning soldiers with work. These schemes involved subdividing large rural estates into smaller farming blocks and leasing them back to discharged service-people.  Reports from the time indicated there were around 11,000 farms created, although it seems likely this figure includes successful applicants to the scheme who did not end up going on to the land.  Returned service people and their families moved on to the land from the first mass demobilisations right up until the 1930s, although the majority of blocks were granted in the early 1920s.
The records you may see include:

• Applications for a Qualification Certificate
• Applications to lease particular blocks of land
• Lease documents (called Selection Leases or Conditional Purchase Leases)
• Lease transfer and cancellation documents

You can search for government records about soldier settlement files on this website by soldier name, or click on the embedded map and select individuals based on their geographic location.