Can someone please help me transcribe this?

[James18]

Hi all,

I'm trying to transcribe this (https://i.imgur.com/d5HMFGs.jpg) image.

2nd RCR is, I think, the Reserve Cavalry Regiment (16.1.19);
3 Hsrs is 3rd Hussars (10? 13? 19?);
??? Hrs (21.6.20);
4 Hsrs is 4th Hussars (8.1.26)

The word before Holy Trinity is ???

Para. 383 (xxviii) K.R. is, I think, King's Regulations, and the default way of leaving the army, or at least one of them. Does anyone with military knowledge know exactly what this was, and how it meant you could leave?

Sgt, Exemplary?

Anything else is appreciated. I'm sure anyone with some knowledge of these old Army transfer records will know more than I do.

[WendyPusey]

Looks like Carter.

[kiterunner]

The Hrs between 3rd and 4th look like 7th.

[kiterunner]

I found a site where you should be able to read the King's Regulation paragraphs for that time:
http://www.rlcarchive.org/KingsRegs.aspx

edit - except I can't get it to work at the moment.

[James18]

Haha, no, me either. It just comes up with a blank white page when you click a link. :(

[James18]

Seems to be working now, once I registered.

[James18]

Oh, apparently you need to buy credits, so unless someone can get to exactly the right page within the limited number of free views then I am stuck. ;(

[Shona]

Hope the following helps, James.

Para 383 King's Regulations:

Normally, soldiers serving with colours who are under 38 years of age may, subject to any special instructions that may be issued from time to time, within one month immediately preceding their discharge on termination of their first period of engagement, be entered by the O.C. unit for Section D of the regular Army Reserve. The qualifications necessary for such enlistment and for subsequent re-engagement and the instructions to be carried out to complete them are contained in paras. 442 - 453.

With regard to the Roman numerals, the lists I have go up to xxvii only.

The image you linked to is from Royal Tank Corp records which provides a clue as to why Sydney Eighteen was discharged.

I looked at the original image and the occupations of all the men on the same page as Sydney were connected to horses - carter, farrier, horse dealer.

The 4th Hussars (hrs is the abbreviation) transferred from a cavalry regiment to the Royal Armoured Corp in 1936. Therefore, it may be that Sydney's services were no longer required because the Army had no further need for men working with horses when tanks and trucks took over. Therefore he was given the option of transferring to the reserve or re-engaging. I suspect xxviii is connected to the mechanisation of cavalry regiments.

[James18]

Oh wow, Shona that is marvelous. Thank you so much! :)

Yes, he joined up in 1919 when he was 18 1/2 (which is also on that transfer record) and so by 1937 he may have felt he was too old to re-train in order to work with mechanized forces, and presumably a lot of the people involved in that will have been younger and fitter than he may have been then.

It's always good to have another pair of eyes looking at stuff like this, as I had thought it perhaps said 'carter' but I had no idea what that would have been (in this context) and so I wasn't sure it really said that. Often the handwriting on these old forms is absolutely abysmal (from my perspective) anyway, and so it can be difficult to decipher certain things. Maybe it's a generational thing, and I have noticed that sometimes older people have far less of a problem reading old, scruffy handwriting.

I have actually sent off to the MOD for Sid's military records only this afternoon, and so hopefully any surviving documents they have can be copied and sent to me. Unfortunately I do know that a lot of inter-war service personnel files were destroyed during the Blitz, and so I hope his was not among them. I sent copies of his birth & death certificates, and copy of the transfer record linked to above.

Your logic is pretty flawless here, and I imagine you are dead-on with your reasoning. He'd already been in the Army for 17-18 years, and so by this time he may have thought that approaching 40, this was his time to go and move on to other things, and perhaps start a family (which he later did).

Another good piece of news is that I now know that his 1937-1941 trip abroad was with McEwan's Brewery, and not anything related to the Army, as I had previously thought it may be.

Thanks again for all your help. It is hugely appreciated, and I hope in the coming weeks/months I am able to uncover some more information about him.