HMT Royal Edward

[Michael Dobbs]

I have received the following query:

- the many years ago refers back to 2005 - she sent in her original query and my response ! (I no longer have these original queries on my system and so do not know who might have given me the response, but I can probably guess who it might have been)

[color=maroon]Many years ago, as you will see from your email below, you & a member of the FPHS helped me decipher the pms. on a postcard. It was sent by a soldier, Harold Miller, on the last voyage of the troopship Royal Edward, July 1915. His service records are on Ancestry and luckily he disembarked at Alexandria.

Since then I have collected six postcards sent by men on the same voyage, and I have one sent by my grandfather.

I have at last set up a website about the Royal Edward:
www.royaledward.net

I have just finished writing a page entitled "Many men wrote home" about these postcards which will be on the website. I have acknowledged the FPHS help with Miller.

I would be very grateful if you would look at the introduction to the page, in case I have made mistakes.

I have attached the introduction as a word doc.[/color]

Anyone care to comment on her introduction page as requested ?

Many thanks, Mike  :)

[Graham Mark]

p.1, just above the picture of the ship:  The sentence begins "the letters from Malta" so I think 'families' is required in the next liine rather than 'family'.
p.2 re taxing of mail.  As I understand it a soldier on board a troopship in a British harbour was not on active service.  Once the ship was clear of the harbour he was.  If a bag of mail was passed ashore before the ship departed those cards were likely to be surcharged.  If at Bristol the surcharge mark will show the number 134, if at Plymouth 620.  If the bag of mail was handed to the pilot or an escort to take ashore that mail would not be surcharged as the bag should have contained a certificate stating that stamps were not available and that beg would most likely be sent to London for postmarking.
On the website there is mention of the Royal Edward overtaking the other troopship but it says the RE was first spotted off the bows of the other - should this not be off the quarter?

[Michael Dobbs]

Graham

Many thanks for your comments - I will pass these on to the person concerned (who, incidentally, has now joined the Society).

Regards, Mike  ;)

[katkin]

Thank you, Graham, for your detailed reply.

Quote: [i]"a soldier on board a troopship in a British harbour was not on active service. Once the ship was clear of the harbour he was."[/i]
An interesting point, which I did not know.
It recalls the question of entitlement to medals.
Some men on the Royal Edward were awarded the BWM only, as they had not landed in a Theatre of War.

The postcard with a surcharge has 57P after the ½, so neither Plmouth or Bristol?

Quote: [i]"the RE was first spotted off the bows of the other."[/i]

I should, of course, given my source for this.
I was quoting the words of a witness on the Alnwick Castle – Cpt. A.E.Wilkinson of the Auckland Mounted Rifles.
The account appears in the newspaper Feilding(sic) Star, Volume XI, Issue 2848, 29 October 1915, Page 4:
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=FS19151029.2.40

I will take all your helpful points onboard.

Kathryn.

[Graham Mark]

Hello Kathryn
57P does not fit with anything I might have expected.  Even assuming it is a poor strike and difficult to read I cannot fit it to any likely port or London office with such a marking.
Can you post a scan of the card please?
Graham

[katkin]

Graham,
The Royal Edward card was sent by ALBERT SYDNEY FULLER, Private: 20549, 1st Bn. Essex Regiment.
The addressee is Miss V.E. Jackson  Medina House  Trunch  Nr. Nth. Walsham  Norfolk  England
She assisted Robert Young in Trunch P.O.
[u]Kelly's Directory of Norfolk, 1904. [/u]    
TRUNCH Post & M.O.O., S.B. & A. & I. Office. – Robert Young, sub-postmaster.
Letters arrive from North Walsham  7.5 a.m.  & 3.10 p.m.(callers only) & dispatched at 11a.m. & 5 p.m.The nearest telegraph office is at Mundesley, 21/2 miles distant.

[i]I thought it might have been the Nth. Walsham cancellation??[/i]

Kathryn.

[Graham Mark]

Thank you for the scan of the card, Kathryn
I reckon the surcharge mark is numbered 579 which was the Post Office number for North Walsham.  So you were right.
ALl the best
Graham

[katkin]

Graham,
Thank you very much.

Miss V.E. Jackson seems to have been a popular young lady - she had a card in 1918 from a soldier in Egypt.

Kathryn.

[Chris Grimshaw]

Hello Kathryn

A very interesting post and website.

Back in January 2013 I posted on this forum a page from my collection showing a card from a Casualty from HMT Royal Edward,

See page 21 on the Forum titled "Censor Hand stamp Type 2 No 2852, new information.

Cheers

Chris

[katkin]

Thank you, Chris.

I have attached the postcard referred to in post #1.
As you will see it has Censor Hand stamp Type 2 No 2852 as on Oldfield's postcard.
I can't decipher the censor's signature.
I hope this helps.

I'm on a learning curve!
I didn't know a censor would be appointed on a troopship.
I thought it would be all done on land.

Was a ship a floating censor centre?
A handstamp issued to an officer or unit might be more easily lost than one which was part of a ship's equipment.

Is there not anything in army regulations?

Kathryn.

[Michael Dobbs]

I can only offer limited comment here - but certainly in WW2 censor stamps were regarded and treated as SECRET documents.  This would be issued to an officer as an individual who would sign for it and needed to keep it secure and treat it as a SECRET document.

Censorship was normally undertaken at unit level, so depending upon the size of the troopship and the number of units carried it could be possible for more than one censor.  However, if the troopship was carrying drafts (i.e. reinforcements) it is likely that an officer on board may have been nominated by the transport officer (or whatever the senior officer aboard the troopship was called) to be censoring officer for the voyage. 

The above is not definitive, but a likely scenario.

Regards, Mike

[katkin]

Thanks, Mike, I'm guessing the WW2 regs. were a continuation of those of WW1.

Quote post #10:
[size=10pt]"Censorship was normally undertaken at unit level, so depending upon the size of the troopship and the number of units carried it could be possible for more than one censor.  However, if the troopship was carrying drafts (i.e. reinforcements) it is likely that an officer on board may have been nominated by the transport officer (or whatever the senior officer aboard the troopship was called) to be censoring officer for the voyage. "[/size]

On this, the July trip of the Royal Edward, there [u]were[/u] a number of units:
1/Essex
1/Border
RAMC
1/K.OS.B.
2/S.W.B.
2/Hants.
A.S.C.
1/Lancs. Fus.

The 2 examples of  censored postcards we have seen were from:
Miller, Harold RAMC (TF)
Robert Charles Oldfield, RAMC, 54th (1st/1st East Anglian) Casualty Clearing Station.

It seems likely Riddell was nominated by the S.O., Lt.-Col. G. F. H . McDonald.
CWGC
Frederick James Riddell,  Lieutenant"D" Coy. 9th Bn.  Bedfordshire Regiment
Date of Death:13/08/1915 Age: 39
    HELLES MEMORIAL    Panel 54 and 218.   
Additional Information:
    Son of Frederick George and Charlotte Riddell; husband of Clara Elizabeth Riddell, of 38, Ramsden Rd., Balham, London. Served in the South African Campaign as Serjt. with North Somerset Imperial Yeomanry.

Kathryn.

[Graham Mark]

Hello Kathryn
Square censor 2852 - this comes from a column of censor numbers for which we have no allocations, BUT the 54 Division comes immediately before this column, and that Division included four Essex Regt Battalions in 161 Brigade.  The listing, by the late Frank Daniel, is not based on any official records but from evidence of covers where the postmark, officer's signature and addressee combined give clues reinforced by "Army logic".  All the units of 54 Div which went to Gallipoli are accounted for in the list and for the blank column, from 2850-upwards, Frank wrote "confusion of units from 10, 11, 13 Divisions.
Remember a soldier did not always have his own officer stamp the censor mark,  His officer signed as censoring the letter then that officer had the duty to take the letters he had censored to the holder of the censor stamp (only one per Battalion or other unit).  So when two formations were close together there is sometimes a signature and censor stamp which belong to different units.
I hope I have not added confusion to this topic.
Graham

[katkin]

Thank you, Graham, for your explanation.
I see the Society's library has Mr. Daniel's book.

"a soldier did not always have his own officer stamp the censor mark,  His officer signed as censoring the letter then that officer had the duty to take the letters he had censored to the holder of the censor stamp (only one per Battalion or other unit).  So when two formations were close together there is sometimes a signature and censor stamp which belong to different units."

I now have an idea of what happened.
Apologies if this is basic knowledge I should have had.

I thought one officer read/censored a letter and then he stamped it.
If the censoring officer knew that that another officer might check his censoring he would be careful!

Kathryn.

[Alan Green]

Hello Kathryn,

Another Malta postcard for you from the Royal Edward !!

As before, the censor mark is CM2-2852 and the censor's signature is clearly F J Riddell.
Contemporary records show Frederick James Riddell as Bedfordshire Regiment, detached to the Essex Regiment at the time. As the Essex Regiment were one of the larger contingents on this voyage of the Royal Edward, this unit may have been allocated the 2852 censor handstamp?

The writer signs as Fred and I think it's a reasonable assumption that this is Fred Sketchley writing whilst at Malta to his brother in Smethwick. According to Genes Reunited, Fred enlisted in 1915 at Birmingham with the Hampshire Regiment. The everymanremembered.org website records his service number as 11944 and his brother's address (same as the postcard). Unfortunately, he seems to have perished in the torpedo attack, as CWGC record his death on 13.8.15 at the age of 27.

Fred uses some colourful language in his message ......the black girls and chaps moving round our vessel, I've got my eye on one big fat wench, she keeps winking at me...!! This does at least confirm that the troops were kept on-board whilst coaling at Malta.

The Received From HM Ships marking is dated AUG 15 15E, which is consistent with other examples sent as naval bag mail from Malta. Unfortunately for his brother, the postcard would have been delivered after news of the sinking, but maybe before the casualties were named?

I hope this is useful to you, but a request if I may - do you have the arrival & departure dates for the Royal Edward at Malta? I believe they were 6th August and 7th August respectively, but it would be useful to confirm these dates.

Kind Regards,
Alan