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Thanks Adrian

I hope the writer's health and fortunes improved.....

Regards

Rory

Help required with address please.


34 ****** St Belfast

Cheers

Dave....

Dave
I think it is phonetic spelling for Eureka Street Belfast

Jon

Can anybody suggest what the word is between "3rd" & "Regt"?



It is an extract from the 17 February 1900 attestation papers of 4098 Private Thomas Davies when he enlisted in the Pembrokeshire Imperial Yeomanry (30th Company, 9th Battalion).

He served in the Grenadier Guards as Private 3309 from 14 November 1891 to 20 January 1892. His GG service records make no mention of why he was discharged after less than 3 months service.

He was born near Llanfyrnach in NE Pembrokeshire in 1873 and the 1881 Census shows he was the son of Lead Miner - there was indeed a lead mine at Llanfyrnach which also produced silver - despite being a resident of the county for the last decade this came as a surprise to me. The mine closed down in 1890 but the spoil heaps and parts of some of the above ground workings still stand - the spoil heaps are still bare of vegetation because of their lead content and stand worryingly close to the River Taff which rises in the Preseli Hills and discharges in Carmarthenshire Bay, where it was once immortalised by Dylan Thomas.

I presume Thomas followed his father into the lead mine because when it closed he moved to the Glamorgan coalfields along with many of the other redundant lead miners where he can be found on the 1891 Census living with a coal-miner and his family. He obviously wanted something better and tried the army but that did not seem to work out. His next try at a career appears to have been the police force because when he attested in January 1900 he gave his occupation as "Policeman". He was actually one of the first to volunteer for the Pembrokeshire Imperial Yeomanry as he appears in a list of the first volunteers in The Haverfordwest & Milford Haven Telegraph of 3rd January 1900 and they give his address as "Glamorgan Constabulary". He sailed to S Africa on the 14 March1900 aboard the Montrose and returned on 8 July 1901. He appeared on the 1911 Census as a "Police Constable" living in the "Police Station, Llansamlet" along with his Pembrokeshire born wife of 9 years and their two daughters. These days Llansamlet is a suburb of Swansea. By 1921 he had become a Police Sergeant and visiting him and his family were his youngest sister Sarah (now Mrs Jones) and her two daughters - Sarah was 3 weeks old at the time of the 1881 Census. Trying to work out when somebody named Thomas Davies died in Wales is defeated by the multiplicity of choices.

Thus a life story not typical of a first contingent member of the IY but having studied most of the lives of his 114 "rank and file" comrades I have come to the conclusion that the overall make up of the first contingent of the Pembrokeshire Imperial Yeomanry was far from typical - only 6 "Gentlemen" amongst them and one of them had a criminal past.

Hello David

I have to say, I am struggling with the letters to your conundrum.
I think the last 3 letters could be S C L. However, in what context they refer to is a mystery to me. I thought section, possible res (reserve) , but it doesn't make sense at present.

The 1st and 2nd letters look like an H, N E or C. I thought a few glasses of red might help, but unfortunately, I'm none the wiser.

Dave....

Res as in Reserve?

Mike