Regimental Paylists

Has anyone studied the pay-list of the 2/3rd Regt (Buffs)? Having photo'd the 80th Foot pay-list Oct 78 to Mar 79 WO 16/1982 I saw in the remarks column that certain members were transferred to that Regt's pay-list Sept 78?  Also the 88th Foot was also mentioned. I assume it's in reference to the 2nd Squadron Mounted Infantry, though initially these soldiers were the 1st Squadron?

Does anyone know if the forms the paymaster used were loose and then bound by the auditors?  

I've seen mentioned in certain posts and in Noble 24th about "daily parade states" does this refer to the pay-list or is it something else?

Regards,

Bill

Bill

These quarterly pay and muster rolls are bound ledgers (each ledger may contain 4 quarters). One ledger for each battalion. They may have been loose pages - there were set of standard pages for each quarter but for some sections further pages were added to enable further entries. They were probably bound at the years end. However in the Zulu war the Mounted Infantry had there own pay & muster rolls - Julian Whybra may be able help as he has copies of these ledgers held at Kew. There was also a separate roll for the draft which left UK on 1 Mar 1879.

What many researchers overlook is that there are pay and muster roll for the Regimental Depot or District; in the case of 24th Regiment, this 25th Brigade Depot. These may give extra info about individuals - i.e. when they joined, where they were enlisted. when they were posted to the battalion etc. before they went to South Africa.

Regarding The Noble 24th - Norman Holme did have photocopies of the 1/24th and 2/24th Pay & Muster Rolls from Kew. In the Regimental Archives also survives the Daily Order Book (what we would call Part I Orders today) for 2/24th from 28 Jan to 7 Apr 1879.

Kenny,

Thanks, firstly I should mention that the "certain members" I am referring to are specifically the 24th Foot, attached to those Regiments. This came about from Julian's article in Studies in the Zulu War Vol 2, he also mentioned that the Mounted Infantry pay-list was presumably lost on the battlefield.

The reason i asked about loose sheets was because when trying to read certain dates in the "non effective " columns they just disappear off into the centre of the book, so must have been bound at a later date.

I have so far been able to photograph the 1/24th from 1877-79 WO 16/1573 which includes the draft from the Clyde plus separate lists for the detachment at St. Helena for May & June 1877 Also some of WO 16/1574 for 1879-80. The 2/24th complete WO 16/1579 1877-79 WO 16/1580 1879-80 plus the above 80th Regt WO 16/1982 & 1/13th Regt WO 16/1454. I also saw a hint for and then found the Depot at Pietermaritzburg WO 16/2488.

So now when I finish the 1st Battalion I'll look at the 2/3rd and also the 88th which a few men so far have been attached to in 1877 for some reason.

The only reference I've seen for the 25th Brigade Depot is from 1882-84 WO 16/1583 I'm not sure if one existed before then. I'll look again as the search engine for the National Archives can be a bit quirky. One day I'll get down to Brecon, how large is the Daily Order Book?

Is it possible to move this to the General Discussion thread, looks like I posted in the wrong place!

Regards,

Bill

Bill,

The 25 Bde Pay and Muster Rolls are WO12/10247 (1876-77) and WO16/2212 (1877-).  The Daily Orders for 2/24th based at Rorke's Drift post 23 Jan 1879 held at Brecon is about 60 pages - A5 size. I am not sure what you are trying to do - but you need also to look at:

24th Officers movements UK and South Africa (embarkations) 1876-1878 - WO25/3509 and 1879-1880 - WO3510.  There are similar entries for other regiments.

You need also to look at the Record of Service Ledgers for the battalions 1/24th and 2/24th held in the Regimental Archives in Brecon which give the movements/deployment of companies during the period 1877-1880.

Other useful ledgers are the Royal Hospital Pension ledgers which give much detail about medical pensions (and of the soldiers appearing in front of the RH Medical Boards) - WO116/118 to WO116/121.  The original ledgers are now held off site - now only can be accessed at Kew on microfilm.  Although I have pre-ordered originals in advance of a visit to Kew so that I can take images and digest the content at home later.

From experiance there is much to do.

Kenny,

Thanks for the extra information, very useful. I'll add it to my growing list of things to look up at Kew hopefully a week Saturday. Essentially I am just researching a pet project of mine, to try to pinpoint which members of the 24th were probably involved in the first invasion in January.

I know I'll be lucky to be 95% accurate but I enjoy the challenge, it's taken 6 weeks just to trawl through Holmes and type out both battalions onto my laptop so I have a start point. It will take several more trips to Kew just to get copies made of pay-lists before I even start to look at other related stuff, but it's enjoyable enough.

Thanks again for the information.

Bill

Bill,
Sorry I cannot spell ‘experience’ - a slip of the finger!

Now you have to work out which members of the 1/24th were in Fort Harrisson (Pondoland), remained at PMB , were based at Helpmekaar, were with No 3 column and who returned to UK (late 1878/early 1879) (about 26 names) and of course the unknowns (about 8 which includes 3 not on the medal roll ). And you have work out the correct personal numbers, i.e. battalion or brigade prefix.

Kenny,

You make it sound so easy! lol, it seems you have done a similar thing yourself, hopefully you enjoyed the challenge. Working my way slowly through each ledger, filling in missing prefixes and first names etc, from a quick glance through the lists (I have over 2000 images so far) it may not be possible to identify who was in Pondoland. The later lists have little about the station in the muster columns, but I'll have a go.

Just need a good map to plot locations, a bit of outside the box thinking to decipher some damn awful writing and lots of patience. This is going to take a fair few months. Again thank you for the pointers and help.

Bill

Bill

I forgot to mention you need look at WO25/3474 Casualty Returns for the Frontier and Zulu War. You can have a fair guess about Pondoland - because those there only received the 1877-78 clasp - the same was true of those back at base in PMB. It worth going to SA to look at the 24th memorials at Cape Town, Komga, King Williams Town and Pinetown and of course in Brecon Cathedral. Since the publication of the Noble 24th and the more recent help of Alan Baynham-Jones and Julian Whybra, we a lot more about the soldiers of the 24th.

Kenny,

Yes thanks for the tip, I do actually have a copy of that list from the other week. Once I've copied all the pay lists I can find then I'll try to cross reference with the medal roll. I suspect that will take me some considerable time.. I'm off again to the archives next Saturday to finish off WO 16/1574 before copying the depot lists you mentioned and hopefully the 88th Foot.

It brings into focus the amount of work Norman Holmes actually did, I've managed to copy about 30 lists in just over a month digitally and am able to view them on a laptop. He did it probably all by hand. Even with modern technology I still make mistakes, having cross referenced just three lists from April 77 to March 78. Despite being diligent in copying from his book, I've found maybe half a dozen I failed to include in my database plus a few other small errors. Still, at least it's interesting.

In reply to your message in the Bassage thread, yes, I had identified most of the errors were with the replacements, but was not sure why, I did see something in the 1st Bn lists I was copying/viewing last week which indicated previous Regimental numbers. Perhaps it's in the remainder I havn't copied yet or not yet looked at in detail, as I mentioned I have over 2000 pictures so far to check.

Oh well, back to the hard slog. Again many thanks for your input.

Bill