Can anyone read this signature? .... grrrr!
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by
deehar
The signature of the author/commanding officer of the 8th Divisional Ammunition Column diary is driving me mad. Can anyone help?
Posted
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by
cyngast
moderator
I've tried all the combinations I can think of for now with no luck. I'll come back later for another look.
It looks like his surname begins with an S and that he has the rank of colonel, although if he is a temporary colonel, his actual rank might be lower.
Posted
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Could be Sitcher but only a guess. He may sign orders later that may be typed out with his name on. Not easy to decipher this one. The letter after the S looks remarkably like the letter after the stroke i.e./ The S could be part of the initials.
Posted
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by
deehar
I have been hoping for a typewritten name for several diary months but no luck yet. I thought it was Butcher at one stage. I have tried the London Gazette but didn't know what to search for!
I assume these people will all be Royal Artillery officers.Posted
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by
cyngast
moderator
in response to deehar's comment.
I searched at the Lives of the First World War website and typed in several variations of what I thought it might be, then tried to narrow it down to officers in the Royal Field Artillery. That's still a sizable number, with several hundred lieutenant colonels alone! From there I looked through surnames beginning with S, but I didn't try any other letters.
I just tried a search using Butcher and found a Brevet Colonel, but he died in 1915.
After looking at how he wrote Colonel, it appears that his o's and e's are nearly indistinguishable.
Posted
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by
cyngast
moderator
in response to marie.eklidvirginmedia.com's comment.
No Sitcher turns up at all on Lives of the First World War.
I also tried a Major Butcher, but he has only one forename and it is Frederick, which doesn't seem to fit the initials on this page.
Posted
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by
deehar
Found the answer in a 2010 Ph. D. thesis on the 8th Division from the Centre for First World War Studies at Birmingham University.
Colonel F. W. BOTELER - no wonder we couldn't decipher it!
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Good research Deehar, glad you answered that one.
Posted
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by
cyngast
moderator
in response to deehar's comment.
Good work! I've been known to go off digging for stuff, but I don't know if I would have been tenacious enough for that one!
How did you find it?
Posted
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Cynthia. See pages 375/377/379 of following Thesis:
British 8th Infantry Division on the Western Front, which mentions naming Colonel F. W. Boteler (Re 1914-18 by Alun Miles Thomas).
This was the interesting Thesis referred to by Deehar. Link:
http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/599/1/thomas10PhD.pdf
I have bookmarked this link because it has many names in it, for further reference.
Posted
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by
deehar
in response to cyngast's comment.
I was just lucky - since he must have been a fairly high-ranking officer I started googling publications about the history and organisation of the 8th Division in WW1
and then scrolled through the details!Posted