by Steve Beeby » Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:10 pm
Hi, Mike.
Steve Beeby from Peterborough here...
I'm the one who gave Julie the advice on the Worcestershire Regiment man, Herbert Bingham, whose number was fairly close to Sydney Pinchin's number. I'm not a Worcestershire Regiment researcher, but I do have an interest in Regimental numbering, both from the point of view of my own research into the Northamptonshire Regiment, and the bigger scheme of things.
I sourced the information I gave Julie from the WO363 series of Service papers that are now becoming available on Ancestry. Like you, I am trying to build up a database of my own Regiment, and I am always interested in the larger scheme of things. Thus, I have tried to help other people's queries, and, with the aid of the currently available Service Records, I am starting to see some very promising patterns emerging.
I have also done some prior research using the Silver War Badge Rolls, which no doubt you use yourself, and have found that these have tended to confuse matters, especially with deferred call-ups as in the case of Derby Scheme men and some conscripts, where the date on the roll refers to Attestation date and the number issue date is the date of mobilsation. I have resigned myself to the SWB Roll enlistment dates being of limited value in assessing enlistment/call-up dates.
I too am confident that Sydney Pinchin was a "Derby" man, and the date of attestation of December 1915 is looking good... The only thing that does concern me, as Julie has mentioned, is the gap between his attestation (age 19 in December 1915, and his call up at age 20 c. March 1917). The only things I can think of that would delay him for that amount of time are his profession/trade &/or his health.
My belief in March 1917 being the date of his call-up stems from my experience in looking at several other Regiments numbering systems that, in general, have far less crazy anomalies than I first thought.
I, too, await your thoughts with interest!
Thanks for listening.
Steve.
P.S. I see that the 1908 (No. 11168, later 203537) and 1911 (20582, later 203634) enlistments mentioned both have earlier number, (Regular series numbers, I believe) that could explain the discrepancies in time. I would have thought that the 20582 number seems more like Christmas 1914 issue, however!