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  #1  
Old 08-09-16, 11:40 AM
James18 James18 is offline
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Exclamation Please help me identify the man standing

Hi all,

I was referred here by someone over at the British Medals Forum as my thread there was deleted. Apparently they don't do hat badges.

Anyway, I am trying to identify the man standing in this photograph. I know that not all of the information in the article can be correct, but by identifying the man's hat badge I can at least narrow down the list of suspects.

I've seen Royal Berkshire Regiment (very likely) and King's Own Royal Regiment (less likely) suggested, as well as the Army Service Corps owing to the nickname 'Navvy'. However, if the nickname dates back to their school days then that would be a red herring.

What do you think? All opinions are welcome. Apologies for the poor image, but it's from a 30 year-old newspaper article and so the scan hasn't really affected the quality that much.

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  #2  
Old 08-09-16, 12:30 PM
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Hello James18, welcome to the Forum. Your account is active and open for posts.
(Your image is pretty big, perhaps you could resize it?)
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  #3  
Old 08-09-16, 12:54 PM
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I would go for the 3rd Kings Own Hussars myself

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  #4  
Old 08-09-16, 01:11 PM
James18 James18 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by manchesters View Post
I would go for the 3rd Kings Own Hussars myself

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Thanks for that, Simon. I looked up the image.

You don't think Royal Berks is a closer match? I'm thinking the thickness of the bar with the regiment name on.

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  #5  
Old 08-09-16, 01:21 PM
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As he has spurs and a crop then horses are involved. Now some infantry bn personnel did have horses but in this case I suspect he is cavalry and Manchesters is right with the 3rd Hussars. The collars match too unlike the Berkshires who did not generally wear collars in the war. The cavalry wore collars far more often than the infantry.

The seated soldier also wears jodphurs with black (or leather?) and a cap badge not unlike the Rifle Bde or Royal Engineers.

However I can find only one record for an Albert Eighteen and he is ASC and Labor Corps and that is not the badge in the photo so he may have transferred.

There is no record of him as a casualty and no CWGC record at all which is odd. http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1

In fact there was no one called Eighteen of any first name killed in France in 1918.

There is a HT Eighteen who was a Berkshire casualty before 1918 so perhaps the author's memory was playing tricks on him.

Last edited by Alan O; 08-09-16 at 01:38 PM.
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  #6  
Old 08-09-16, 01:54 PM
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Alan, thanks so much for your reply. You have provided exactly the kind of details I am after and would not have been able to spot myself.

I am aware of the Eighteens killed during the First World War: John Bernard (d. 1917) and Henry Thomas (d. 1916) were brothers, and Frederick Charles (d. 1916) was their cousin.

I have an Eighteen family tree on Ancestry and have been asking for help on a couple of genealogy forums regarding the identity of Albert Eighteen, but so far everything really hinges on circumstantial evidence relating to this article. What we know for sure is that no man by that name was killed during the First World War, although the author would not have known that at the time.

My grandfather - a younger brother of John and Harry - was in the 3rd and 7th Hussars among other regiments, and the man in that photograph looks remarkably like him. If it isn't him it's almost certainly one of his brothers, but he did not join up until 1919 (I have his service records from the MoD) and the author claims the photograph was taken in 1918.

The author's confusion of the facts (written 70 years after the event) presents several scenarios that I can come up with:

- the man standing is John Bernard Eighteen, known as Bert, and therefore the author assumed his real name to have been Albert, and is mistaken as to the date of the photograph and the year Albert was killed;
- the man standing is my grandfather, who was a carter and farrier in several Hussar regiments, but who was not attested until 1919 and so the author is confusing him with one of his brothers or assumed that he was also killed;
- the man standing is another member of the Eighteen family of Reading, perhaps a cousin of my grandfather's but not him or one of his brothers.

I should point out that John Bernard was in the Royal Field Artillery.

I cannot stress enough how uncanny the resemblance is to my grandfather, and perhaps these photographs may help:

(He was in the Royal Tank Corps at one point, if that helps with any visual identification).



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Old 08-09-16, 02:21 PM
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I suspect that that he was mixing up brothers and the man shown is your grandfather.

With your grandfather's service record showing service with the 3rd Hussars then that would make it almost certain as that's too much of a coincidence.

The standing soldier in the first photo is definitely not a member of the Royal Artillery as their collar badges (when worn) were small flaming grenades.

Superb close up of your Grandfather in the 4th Hussars by the way - the Queen's Own Hussars monogram arm badge is spectacular. The tunic is overseas wear as the regt were in India c.1921-31.

Last edited by Alan O; 08-09-16 at 03:21 PM. Reason: typo
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  #8  
Old 08-09-16, 02:42 PM
James18 James18 is offline
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Thank you so much for your help, Alan, and I'm glad you liked the photographs.

I hope it wouldn't be rude of me to ask what you can make of these. These are other brothers, and so I thought you may be able to work out a few bits of information from the uniforms and badges.

I'll put the regiments I know them to have been in parenthesis. Are you able to confirm any of these visually? The ones I am unsure of are John and Harry.

Vincent Eighteen (Royal Garrison Artillery)


Stan Eighteen (Royal Berkshire Regiment)


John ('Bert' ?) Eighteen (Royal Field Artillery and Royal Horse Artillery)


Harry Eighteen (Royal Berkshire Regiment)


Bill Eighteen (this is a later photo, interwar years; no idea what regiment(s) he was in)


Incidentally, I am on the look out for John & Harry's death pennies.

Thank you ever so much.
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  #9  
Old 08-09-16, 02:48 PM
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Photo one group photo - The uniformed man is a Sgt I n the Royal artillery. Note the cannon badge above his stripes.

He appears to have a single wound stripe on his cuff so its at the end of the war as these were not introduced until 1917 (someone please correct me if it was 1918)

Had you noticed that there is a Scottish bonnet from the Highland Light infantry on the bed. I would suggest that it's either a hospital hut for recovering wounded (one is visibly bandaged) or a demob centre at the end of the war.

Last edited by Alan O; 08-09-16 at 03:04 PM.
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  #10  
Old 08-09-16, 02:49 PM
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Group of 4 - the 2 soldiers are Royal Berkshire regt. WW1 era by the clothes.
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  #11  
Old 08-09-16, 02:51 PM
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Photo 3 is WW1 again but I can't help with any more than that. The RA, RGA and RHA all wore the same badge but the swords would suggest RHA.

Last edited by Alan O; 08-09-16 at 03:00 PM.
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  #12  
Old 08-09-16, 02:51 PM
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Alan,

where are these photos you are referring to?

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  #13  
Old 08-09-16, 02:53 PM
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Photo 4 is WW1 and Royal Berkshires. several wear simplified tunics (there are no pocket pleats) so it dates from 1915 onwards. By the belts, they are not regulars but look like a war-raised Service battalion. From 1916 the caps would have been simplified as well so I would date it to 1915.
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  #14  
Old 08-09-16, 02:53 PM
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I'm with the 3rd King's own Hussars. See this example. http://www.britishbadgeforum.com/for...ictureid=94045
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  #15  
Old 08-09-16, 02:54 PM
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The final photo is 1938 onwards as they are wearing battledress. The side cap went out of use c.1942 but if its Home Guard then it could be as late as 1944. At his age in 1938 then I suspect that he was the right age to be in the HG or at least Home Defence - do you know if he ended up in the Artillery in WW2? I can't see any HG unit patches so RA may be the answer.

If you look at the arm of the soldier on the far right he has a dark horizontal bar - this is an arms and Service strip and dates it to after 1941. The RA was a dark red and blue. However the cap badges are so blurred it could be another regt so I would not be 100% sure of any ID.

Last edited by Alan O; 08-09-16 at 03:10 PM. Reason: add A&S detail
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