Rural Relaxation: Wallpaper views of College Lake

Clouds over the Marsh at  College Lake

For various reasons I have not done many things I had planned to do during September - including posting to this blog. I need to relax - and using these pictures as wallpaper is helpful - although taking a break and walking round the Nature Reserve is even better.

Reeds on the water's edge at College Lake

click on pictures for larger images

Photographs of Beds & Herts War Memorial & in India 1923/4

I have just posted details of an interesting photobook  relating to the 2nd Battalion, Beds & Herts Regiment, in India in 1923/4. It contains a history of the regiment (I have quoted the section about the First World War, which identifies the V.C.s) together with many photographs of the officers and men in India.

More details with larger resolution pictures

The Queens Westminster Rifles at Leverstock Green

Military

I have just posted extracts from The War Journal of Bernard Joseph Brookes which I recorded in 1994 when I was drafting The London Gunners come to Town. It covers the period from August 1914 to the beginning of November, 1914.

My original notes are shown unchanged (apart form some minor formatting differences) but I have added some brief biographical details and a portrait photograph of Bernard taken later in the War.

One interesting a feature is that in 1994 I added a footnote about Military Firing Ranges which reads:

The firing range used was probably in the grounds of Mr Secretan's house, The Dell, at Bennett's End, presumably a disused brick pit. The main military ranges were at Gorhambury, and at Chalk Hill, Westfield Farm, St Stephens. However work on constructing these ranges only started towards the end of September and the earliest record I have found of them being used in November, after the Queen's Westminster's had left Leverstock Green.

So I had the answer to the question "Where is the Chalk Hill firing range?" all along - but in an obsolete format - which my searches were not recognizing it!

Some Jokes about Milkmen, from Jacob Reynolds' Scrap Book

At the recent conference on St Albans at War there was mention of the way soldiers were recruited, and also some of the problems of keeping the town supplied with good quality milk, and the problem of adulteration. This reminded me of a 1915 carton in the scrap book kept by my great grandfather, Jacob Reynolds. 

The page contained a number of other humorous stories - mainly about the watering down of milk - that Jacob collected.

See them all.

Report on St Albans at War 1914/5 Conference

A Full House at the Conference

St Albans

 at War

1914/15

20 September 2014

Dagnal Street Baptist Chapel, St Albans.

HFHS Meeting next Saturday

The next Hertfordshire Family History Society meeting will be on Saturday, September 27th

Best Foot Forward

(Shoemakers and Cobblers)

by Ian Waller

Click here for meeting details

First World War Army Hut moving from Herts to Essex.

The Old Army Hut before Demolition had started.

Preparing to Remove the Roof

This First World War Army Hut was built as part of the Gadebridge Army Camp, Hemel Hempstead, in 1915. After the war it was purchased by Tring Parish  for use as a district church, St George. It later became  the New Mill Community Centre. The site is now to be redeveloped for housing and arrangements have been made to move the Hut to a site near Bury St Edmund where a reconstructed Army Camp is being built. Work has just started and the site will be cleared to be ready for the builders by the end of September. I visited the site this afternoon and had an interesting talk with Taff Gillingham, who is moving the hut.

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An Inns of Court Photograph by Newman of Berkhamsted

Help Desk

Jane sent this photograph which contains her grandfather, Charles William Bowell, because she knew very little about his involvement in the First World War.

Military

The picture was taken by James T Newman of Berkhamsted. The cap badges are of the Inns of Court Regiment, which during the War were an officer training corps based at Berkhamsted. It would appear from what Jane said that Charles failed to get his commission.

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I am insulted by the Historypin software

As I am updating my own site I am posting pictures on the "Hertfordshire on the Map" project, deliberately choosing examples which demonstrate the varied needs of any serious historian working in a county whose history goes back to Roman times and earlier. I had already run into difficulties because the software required every picture to be dated and I had discovered that the earliest date acceptable appeared to be 1840. This meant that to post an early engraving or map meant I was forced to lie about the date - and I have already sent a letter querying this clearly unacceptable aspect of the "Hertfordshire on the Map" project. Interestingly the selection slider on at least some of the  pictures that I have examined goes down to 1750 but there appeared to be no way of entering a date before 1840.

I decided to add a cartoon picture post card from 1908, by an unidentified St Albans artist, signing himself Karaktus, associating it with the house/shop at 23 Catherine Street, St Albans, which was also used by a photographer who took pictures of troops in the area during the First World War. I entered the picture and then the address - to be presented with my picture pinned on a strange map - which happened to be in the United States. OK - once spotted that was easy to correct but surely if you are working on a project for Hertfordshire the software should AUTOMATICALLY assume all locations are in or close to Hertfordshire.

I then had to select a date - and much to my surprise I noted that the list of dates offered now went down to 1750. I assumed that someone had spotted that I was trying to enter pictures before 1840 and removed the at least part of the idiotic restriction. In my surprise at finding this "extension" I accidentally selected 1808 rather that 1908 and received the message:

If you have a few pics from prior to 1840 please get in contact, otherwise stop messing with our form!

OK I had made a mistake this time but when I was trying to post a map of 1808 a few days ago I wasn't even given the option - or the dubious benefit of an error message -and had to lie that it's date was 1840. However I got the message, let me make it quite clear that the above error message is completely unacceptable for the following reasons..

1. I did what the software allowed me to do and then get an error message with no explanation as to why there was a {totally unacceptable}restriction on the date history began.
2. It says I should "Get in contact" but it is far from obvious who I should get in contact with and there is no obvious "ask for help" button.
3. It implies that I might have been "messing around with our form" - which I find insulting. No error message should ever insult the "customer" (however silly or provocative the customer may have been). 

I will say no more at this stage, but will be writing a review of the suitability of the software, and will take into account any comments posted below in reply to this posting - and any response I get to an earlier private email.

"Percy Cupid", of Callowland Boys School identified

Class 3, Callowland Boys School, Leavesden Road, Watford, 1920

Schools

Watford

In January I posted the above picture and noted that on the back in named "Percy Cupid, born October 1907" but couldn't find him in the 1911 census. 

Recently Ray contacted me to say he had found a Percy Cupid Bush of the right age in North Kensington, London, and I have now confirmed that Percy was born in late 1907 and his father, another Percy Cupid Bush, moved to Watford in about 1914. Members of the family were still in Watford in 1969. There can be little doubt that it is the right Percy Cupid - leaving 49 other unnamed young faces ...

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