Badham WW1 Links - A Follow-up
by Geoff Badham
While I knew when I wrote the article that appeared in Newsletter 13 (Feb 2005) that it was a case of “unfinished business,” I had no idea at the time how unfinished it would turn out to be!
To recap, my Grandfather, Joseph William Badham, had spoken little about his own WW1 service, but according to stories remembered by my father, Grandpa’s brothers Charlie and Bert (Hubert) had been fatally affected - Charlie had been killed and Bert had (allegedly) died from his wounds. This left Grandpa as the sole surviving brother, and the only photos I had were two fairly enigmatic ones showing Grandpa as a very aloof and disinterested elder brother in “civvies” while the two younger brothers were in their uniforms, albeit looking a bit like startled rabbits.
My article concentrated on the WW1 campaign medals they all received which took my attention in the absence of any other information available to me. However, my quest also included finding out more about their service records. For this I obtained a couple of books about their regiments. From the Medal Index Cards copies of which can be obtained for a small “downloading” fee (£3.50 at the time of writing) available from the National Archive, I had established that Charlie and Bert had been in the Hertfordshire Regiment, and Grandpa had been in the Hertfordshire Yeomanry. Beyond those facts I knew nothing, although the Yeomanry link fitted with my father’s assertion that Grandpa had “worked with horses”.
As it transpired, neither of the books have really answered the remaining questions, although they have set me on a path where I may find out more. In particular, Charlie’s date of death does not seem to tie-in with any campaigns fought by his regiment, but that is probably because it was he that died of his wounds and not Bert - after a long search of the GRO records I found that Bert actually lived until 1930 and while he died of bronchial pneumonia, a condition that could be closely associated with being gassed in the war, many other people died of it without actually going away to fight!
Anyway, while these discoveries were answering some of my original questions, there were still gaps, particularly relating to the photos. The next event is something you read about but probably don’t believe! While discussing my quest with my family, my youngest nephew suggested he thought he had seen some old war photos that my sister had retrieved some 20 years earlier from my Grandmother’s maisonette after she passed away many years after my Grandfather had died. What then turned up was a cornucopia of information, and while it didn’t answer all the questions I still had, it certainly helped answer a couple!
Suddenly I had numerous photos of Grandpa and the brothers in their various situations serving in their regiments, some with dates and locations. Most importantly to me, one or two showed Grandpa more as I remembered him – as the “cheeky”, smiling faced character and not the morose and aloof person in the family photo, and Charlie and Bert as the “happy go lucky” volunteers goings off to war with their mates rather than the nervous looking kids in the same photos. In particular, a photo of my grandfather resplendent on a horse as a fully-fledged trooper in the Herts Yeomanry (a cavalry regiment) puts my father’s assertion that he “worked with horses” into a slightly different light. I’ll say no more – here is the pick of the photos and I hope you enjoy seeing them.
Finally, Grandpa on his horse!
1 Unfortunately the exposure has “wiped out” what was written on the card, but this is far too intriguing and I haven’t given up! (although we think it’s likely to be associated with Christmas based on the other text)