I hope Private J Arden derived great pleasure from this picture postcard of his daughter Georgie which was sent to him in the January of 1915.
He was serving in the 2nd Troop A Squadron of the 13 Res Regiment at Colchester.
And here I get a tad confused because I can’t find a reference to his unit amongst the heap of ones stationed at Colchester in the first two years of the war. My Wikipedia lists “The 12th (Eastern) Division was organised at Colchester from August 1914 to February 1915. The division was one of the first New Army divisions to be formed, as part of K1.
The division included Kitchener battalions from the Essex Regiment, the Suffolk Regiment, the Norfolk Regiment, the Royal Berkshire Regiment, the Cambridgeshire Regiment, the Royal Fusiliers, the Queen's Regiment, The Buffs, the Royal West Kent Regiment, and the East Surrey Regiment.
The division moved to France in 1915 and fought at the Battle of Loos (1915), the Battle of the Somme (1916), the Battle of Cambrai (1917) and the Battle of the Hindenburg Line (1918)”.*
Nor have I had much luck with the Rotary Photographic Co Ltd who marketed the card. They were active from 1897 till 1916.
The National Portrait Gallery, holds 72 of their cards and records that there were 1,422 images which featured actors, military and naval figures, royalty and other popular subjects.
But as yet I haven’t been able to find an address for them.
And in the same way Private J Arden has yet to come out of the shadows.
A search for him in Manchester has revealed a blank, that said I am confident with more research all the loose ends will be tied up.
Leaving me just to say that the 72 cards from the National Gallery can be seen by following the link and Wikipedia has more.***
Location; Manchester, and Colchester
Picture; Hello People, 1915, Rotary Photographic Co Ltd, from the collection of David Harrop
*Colchester Garrison, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchester_Garrison
**Rotary Photographic Co Ltd (active 1897-1916), Photographers, National Portrait Gallery, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp59320/rotary-photographic-co-ltd
***Category:Postcards published by Rotary Photographic Co., https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Postcards_published_by_Rotary_Photographic_Co.
No comments:
Post a Comment