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  #31  
Old 31-03-20, 04:46 PM
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Originally Posted by grumpy View Post
There are no acting corporals war dead in the Foot Guards in the Great War.
My knowledge is limited to what Google throws up but it threw up a page from the IWM "LIVES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR" about the Guards Machine Gun Regiment which has details of 55 Acting Corporals.

https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm....cting+Corporal

If I am completely off topic then please forgive me and ignore this post.
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  #32  
Old 31-03-20, 05:29 PM
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Another example currently listed on Ebay (no relation to seller) showing Grenadier Corporals standing with the grenade device above the two chevrons. However the Corporal standing third from the right appears to not have the grenade.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WW1-Soldi...kAAOSw4CFY1QoE

Simon
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  #33  
Old 31-03-20, 05:42 PM
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Originally Posted by mike_vee View Post
My knowledge is limited to what Google throws up but it threw up a page from the IWM "LIVES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR" about the Guards Machine Gun Regiment which has details of 55 Acting Corporals.

https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm....cting+Corporal

If I am completely off topic then please forgive me and ignore this post.
Weird. CWGC could find none. Thats really weird and certainly not to be discounted of course.
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  #34  
Old 31-03-20, 06:02 PM
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Originally Posted by Toby Purcell View Post
NB. I am still looking for the Acting Corporal reference and I don't know if it is correct, but it wouldn't be that much of an aberration. The use of Acting as a term was common at that time and used in such cases as Acting Bombardier and Acting Second Corporal. In each of these latter cases it was to mark out the man who was appointed rather than promoted and whose substantive rank was Gunner (RA), Sapper (RE), or Private (ASC).
Interlude

I worked in a hospital operating theatre as a "Senior" practitioner (different coloured theatre hat) , junior doctors could easily identify who was "experienced" when they needed assistance. The hospital decided (in the name of equality) that there should be no difference between all the practitioners , so the title ...and hat disappeared . New doctors had no idea if their "assistant" had years of experience or was newly qualified !

Perhaps the use of the grenade was to differentiate (for new officers/men) between a "substansive" Corporal (old sweat) and an "appointed" (inexperienced) one who could have his stripes removed at any time.

It may also have been a bit of "snobbery" from those who felt they had "earned their stripes" as opposed to those who were "given" them.
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  #35  
Old 31-03-20, 07:38 PM
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Weird. CWGC could find none. Thats really weird and certainly not to be discounted of course.
See enclosed.

1. Reading 'Perry' under the sections on Lance Corporal and Lance Sergeant, the description for BOTH, further defines them as 'Acting Corporal' and 'Acting Sergeant', someone holding a rank, but not paid for it.

2. The enclosed lists of Lord French's 1914 MID for the Foot Guard regiments mentions both, Lance Corporal and Acting Corporal within the same list. I can only think that this relates to some caveats laid down in the Royal Pay Warrant. It is clear that both, wear the exact same badges of rank/appointment, so the difference can only be in status (seniority, pension, remuneration). It seems then that both terms were in use concurrently.

3. The Foot Guards reference that I saw (and currently cannot find) showed diagrams of the rank badges and the titles alongside. It suggests that Acting had been used as a euphemism for Lance. One can understand why.

NB. See: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...Guards&f=false
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File Type: jpg MID SG.jpg (50.8 KB, 10 views)

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 31-03-20 at 08:03 PM.
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  #36  
Old 31-03-20, 08:02 PM
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Originally Posted by mike_vee View Post
Interlude


Perhaps the use of the grenade was to differentiate (for new officers/men) between a "substansive" Corporal (old sweat) and an "appointed" (inexperienced) one who could have his stripes removed at any time.
I think that you have summed up the most likely scenario perfectly.
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  #37  
Old 31-03-20, 08:07 PM
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Toby, thank you for the reminder.

Can we look at the squad corporal, identified as a corporal on the print.
He has two chevrons and the grenade, He has no GCBs. That squares with the regulations. As the job usually fell to a sergeant it is almost inconceivable that he has not substantive rank.

There are numerous photos on this thread of unidentified men with two chevrons and grenade and GCBs. Absolutely not allowed for substantive corporals. I submit that they are LCpls, whether unpaid or paid we have no idea, but see below.

Then we have Bailey in one shot with two chevrons only. Later, he wears the grenade. There could be two reasons at least.

1. The QM has no stock, and Bailey could not scrounge one. My verdict: very very very unlikely ..... this is the GG for goodness sake.

2. He is junior to a LCpl. Verdict: he may be a LCpl unpaid, thus the grenade signified paid status.

Toby, is there anything in your knowledge bank to discredit that hypothesis?
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  #38  
Old 31-03-20, 08:26 PM
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Originally Posted by grumpy View Post
Toby, thank you for the reminder.

Can we look at the squad corporal, identified as a corporal on the print.
He has two chevrons and the grenade, He has no GCBs. That squares with the regulations. As the job usually fell to a sergeant it is almost inconceivable that he has not substantive rank.

There are numerous photos on this thread of unidentified men with two chevrons and grenade and GCBs. Absolutely not allowed for substantive corporals. I submit that they are LCpls, whether unpaid or paid we have no idea, but see below.

Then we have Bailey in one shot with two chevrons only. Later, he wears the grenade. There could be two reasons at least.

1. The QM has no stock, and Bailey could not scrounge one. My verdict: very very very unlikely ..... this is the GG for goodness sake.

2. He is junior to a LCpl. Verdict: he may be a LCpl unpaid, thus the grenade signified paid status.

Toby, is there anything in your knowledge bank to discredit that hypothesis?
If defining the 'unpaid' Lance Corporal was so important then it would surely have been more widely taken up in the Brigade of Guards and something similar would have applied in the other Foot Guard regiments, especially when one considers the pan-Army authority and importance carried by the Royal Pay Warrant.

Conversely, demarcating the Lance Corporal/Acting Corporal, who is generally unpaid apart from the few allocated paid positions by the commanding officer, from the more experienced and, above all, 'substantive' Corporal would in my view be seen as more important, especially among the NCOs themselves. Wearing the grenade was the mark of a qualified Grenadier NCO (as seen on the sergeants dress for a very long time), so it's easy to see how that status would then be carried over to the qualified and paid Corporal. In this regard it's worth considering the attitude in the line infantry between the Lance Corporal and Corporal, which was largely very similar.

On balance then, I think that the theory I've outlined carries more likelihood, although in fairness it has to be conceded that there does not appear to have been anything similar in the other Foot Guard regiments.

There is clear visual evidence, but unless we can drill down to its meaning with some written evidence then it remains conjecture. However, you raise a good point about the Good Conduct Badges. I don't know what the answer to that conundrum is.

Are we not somehow splitting hairs here, in that a Lance Corporal (which existed in the Guards at that time but wore two-stripes) was indeed (in most cases) an unpaid JNCO, but he was one full step below the first level of substantive rank, the Corporal (full), who in the Guards just happened to also wear two-stripes? I imagine that this was unpopular among the Corporals. They would have been conscious that in the line regiments their counterparts ran no risk of being confused with a Lance Corporal, the two-stripe/one-stripe differential made it impossible. Not so with the Foot Guards, so one can see how the extra, the 'grenade', might be valued.

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 31-03-20 at 08:42 PM.
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  #39  
Old 31-03-20, 08:45 PM
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Fair enough. In my hypothesis the GG differentiated between paid and unpaid LCpl status simply BECAUSE THEY COULD.

I certainly concede that "Acting Corporal" existed in the Foot Guards, but, as it does not figure in CWGC records of the dead, it appears to have been ephemeral, perhaps a war-time descriptor of a LCpl filling a Cpl position on a full-time basis, awaiting substantive promotion. I believe acting status in general had to be held for 30 days before rank pay followed.

Fascinating discussion, the Forum at its best.
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  #40  
Old 31-03-20, 10:08 PM
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Originally Posted by grumpy View Post
Fair enough. In my hypothesis the GG differentiated between paid and unpaid LCpl status simply BECAUSE THEY COULD.

I certainly concede that "Acting Corporal" existed in the Foot Guards, but, as it does not figure in CWGC records of the dead, it appears to have been ephemeral, perhaps a war-time descriptor of a LCpl filling a Cpl position on a full-time basis, awaiting substantive promotion. I believe acting status in general had to be held for 30 days before rank pay followed.

Fascinating discussion, the Forum at its best.
If you scroll down the MID list, whose link I posted, the ‘Acting’ JNCO descriptor appears against a Bedfordshire Regiment man as well, so it seems to have been used in a particular way, and for a particular reason, so it could, perhaps, be an Army administrative descriptor rather than a regimental one. The answer as to its meaning must appear somewhere, either in the Royal Pay Warrant, or in the contemporary King’s Regulations for the Army. I know for sure it will say somewhere what the term ‘Acting’ indicates.

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 31-03-20 at 10:14 PM.
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  #41  
Old 01-04-20, 08:34 PM
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I have enlisted the help of Great War experts on the GWF, link is

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/...s-regulations/
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  #42  
Old 04-04-20, 12:33 PM
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I have enlisted the help of Great War experts on the GWF, link is

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/...s-regulations/
Courtesy of Graham Stewart some years ago:

WOI 194 of the 22nd August 1914 deals with 'Acting' ranks.

I’ve not seen the detail of that WOI, which would be illuminating to see.

Another interesting point is that in AO 142 of 1920 it was decreed that Lance Sergeants of the RA and RE respectively, would not wear the gun and grenade arm badges respectively, in order to differentiate from full sergeants of those corps. I felt this to be of interest and probable relevance with regards to Foot Guards Corporals and Lance Corporals and their wear, or not, of the Grenadier’s grenade arm badge that I referred to above. It was clearly not a novel method of differentiation.

It also seems possible that the ACI of WW1 insisting that all NCOs on the home establishment were to be promoted to acting rank only might have some bearing on the reference that I had seen to Acting Corporal as an alternative usage for Lance Corporal in the Foot Guards given their unique rank badges. The following thread refers: https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/...the-ra/page/3/

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 04-04-20 at 05:20 PM.
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  #43  
Old 04-04-20, 05:18 PM
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I will brief the forum when I complete my research on my thread.

Meantime:

acting appointments were paid the full rate.

acting appointments wore the rank badge.

acting appointments received full war gratuity for the rank.

acting appointments to corporal were usually made from privates [this may be a book exercise because all LCpls ranked as private soldiers].

acting appointments in the Great War on active service were made to bring units to Establishment, and relinquished when a substantive rank became available.

I have as yet no evidence [and do not expect to find it] that active appointments would be routinely made substantive after a given period.
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  #44  
Old 18-04-20, 12:25 PM
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The use of a grenade to signify substantive Grenadier Guards Corporals seems to have continued until after WW2. See enclosed photo of a GG guard of honour for Princess Elizabeth. In the second rank can be seen a Corporal with grenade above his stripes. The photo can be enlarged at the Wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Gu...moured_Brigade
Also right hand man, centre rank, in the second photo. Enlargement here: https://www.rct.uk/sites/default/fil...1353339573.jpg

I suspect the use of the grenade above two-stripes ended when the Lance Sergeant rank was abolished in the rest of the Army and the Foot Guards decided to retain it, but doing away with one of the two lowermost grades to compensate.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg GG 1945.jpg (69.5 KB, 8 views)
File Type: jpg GG 1945 ii.jpg (67.7 KB, 8 views)

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 18-04-20 at 12:38 PM.
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  #45  
Old 18-04-20, 01:14 PM
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He has what appears to be a formation badge upper left arm, dark shield shape? Although this appears darker and crisper than the background? Retouched at some point?
Hi all, going back to the beginning of the thread as pointed out the Middlesex Regt chap has a formation sign ? any more thoughts on this at all ??

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