Posted to South Africa

Just added to ‘TACA latest’: a black-and-white photographic postcard (pictured below), dating from around a century ago, showing the British military hospital at Roberts Heights, Pretoria, South Africa. 

The September issue of Family Tree Magazine features an article that arose from my curiosity about a trio of postcards posted to Bramcote Hall, Nottingham, from Mhow, India, and Dublin, Ireland, in 1913 and 1914. ‘A poignant story from postcards’ explains how I was able to discover more about the members of an army family (the Bartrams) whose lives turned out to have been beset by misfortune. 

The 1911 census for England and Wales is a real boon for those researching British Army families because it is the first census to include soldiers and their dependants posted overseas. And on searching it, I discovered the Bartrams living at Roberts Heights, the father of the family, who was serving with the 100th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, being recorded separately in the ‘Return of all Commissioned Officers, Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, Trumpeters, Drummers and Rank and File’, and his wife and daughters being listed under the category ‘Return of Wives and Children of Officers and Soldiers, who passed the night of Sunday, April 2nd, 1911, in these Barracks or Quarters’. 

South Africa in 1911, India in 1913 and Ireland in 1914 – there is more to the Bartrams’ story, of course, but even taken in isolation, these countries and dates provide an insight into the distances that British Army soldiers and their families were required to cover at a time when travel was far less quick, easy and comfortable than it is today.