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Hi Ian

What the curator told you about the destruction of service papers of men who died in service is largely correct. Service papers were effectively maintained for pension purposes so if the man died on service they no longer served their original purpose.

However, papers of a small percentage of men who died on service do survive. For some reason a fairly high percentage of Royal Artillery papers survive. Other papers escaped the cull by being misfiled and ending up in WW1 records although, like many WW1 records, these are commonly fire and water damaged following the air raid on the PRO in WW2.

Kind regards

David

Hi Jasiain

I've had a look at the GSM Palestine 1945-48 medal roll and there is no G (or G.W.) Kelly of any unit on them so it's a bit of a mystery. Anyone in the Palestine Police between the end of WW2 and the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 would have received the medal.

David

Jude - His regular army papers covering his service in the Royal Irish Fusiliers (4 pages) plus of his Militia papers covering his previous service in the Berkshire Regiment (3 pages) are available online at findmypast or directly from the National Archives. There's no shortcut to either buying credits or paying the NA or a researcher to dig them out for you I'm afraid.

David

Brian - Robert's service papers (4 pages) survive in the National  Archives and are available online at Findmypast.

Briefly, he was born in Liverpool and enlisted there on 23/7/1895 with a declared age of 18 years 1 month. He was a labourer. He was 5'4", weighed 127 pounds and had a chest measurement of 33 inches. His complexion was fair, eyes blue and hair sandy. He had an indistinct tattoo on his left arm and scars on his left hand, left forearm, left eyebrow and left buttock and back.

He attested into the 2nd battalion on enlistment, was transferred to the 1st battalion 2/2/1898 and back again to the 2nd 12/10/1898. He was transferred to the Army Reserve 27/4/1903 and finally discharged 22/7/1907 after 12 years service.

He served in the UK 23/7/1895-27/12/1897 and 26/4/1903-22/7/1907 and the East Indies (i.e. India) 28/12/1897-25/4/1903. His service in India resulted in the award of the India General Service Medal with clasp Punjab Frontier 1897-98. His next of kin is shown as his brother Thomas of 26 Lemon Street, Liverpool.

The absence of the Tirah clasp on his medal confirms he wasn't at Dargai and, despite the Gordons' heavy involvement in the Boer War, he didn't serve in the South Africa either.

David

Hi John

I don't know exactly which one of the three squadrons (A, B or C) Thomas was in. However, the squadron that went to Kimberley would have received the Relief of Kimberley clasp instead of Cape Colony. As Thomas received Cape Colony he must have been in one of the two squadrons that stayed in the Colesberg district.

Unfortunately I don't have any specific information on the movements of the 6th Dragoons before the Boer War other than Thomas being shown on his papers as serving at home (which could have included Ireland). Similarly his army service after the Boer War was at home so South Africa was his only overseas posting.

Likewise I also have no other information on the movements of the 20th Hussars so am unable to add to the information you've already obtained.

You seem to already have most or all of the readily accessible information on Frank Jeffs. The roll shows 23591 Trooper Frank Morton Jeffs awarded the QSA with clasps Cape Colony, Transvaal, South Africa 1901 & South Africa 1902 and slightly wounded at Yzerspruit 25/2/1902. His papers are, as you say, in series WO 128 at the NA although if you only have transcriptions full photocopies can be obtained from the NA. (This series isn't online).

Imperial Yeomanry service can be difficult to pin down because very often units were split, re-formed and frequently combined with other units, etc. It was often a very fluid organisation and the basic company unit was quite small. Unlike regular infantry or cavalry regiments, not many of these IY units published a unit history of the war and those that did issued them in such small numbers that they're very rare and of course very expensive even if you can find a copy.