James Miles: From Soldier to Telephone Operator

I've recently started travelling down a branch of my tree that has been much neglected in my family history travels, that of my 3 x Great Grandmother, Ann Esther Ibbott Miles' family. As I find happens so frequently, one particular person intrigued me more than most: James Miles, my 1st cousin, four times removed.

James was the nephew of Ann Esther Ibbott Miles and it soon became apparent that he had led an interesting and varied life.

Born at the beginning of 1853 to James and Mary Miles in the small village of Tempsford, Bedfordshire, where so many of my ancestors hailed from, he was the youngest of nine children. His mother gave birth to him at the age of 48, nine years after her last child, so his arrival was probably a bit of a surprise to the family. His father worked the land, as James would have done around his schooling.

By the time he was 18, James was working as a footman at Longstowe Hall, near Cambridge. This grand Elizabethan pile was owned at the time by Sidney Stanley, local landowner and a Justice of the Peace for Cambridgeshire. This was a large and busy household as not only did Stanley and his wife have seven children but they were looked after by a huge staff ranging from the butler, governess and housekeeper at the top of the servant's ladder to a number of housemaids and laundry maids at the opposite end of the pecking order. It was all very 'Downton Abbey'!

Longstowe Hall (photo courtesy www.longstowehall.co.uk)

As a footman, James was not one of the senior or 'upper' servants. Although his days were long and he'd have been on his feet all day, his duties were deliberately undemanding. His main role was to be seen: serving meals, opening and closing doors, accompanying the carriage on journies. Dressed in an expensive uniform, his very presence in the house was to display his master's wealth. As the countryhousereader blog explains, having a footman was a sign of conspicuous consumption, a demonstration of riches. The footman was supposed to look good, so I can only assume, and maybe I'm a bit biased here, that James was a good looking young man. Getting employment as a footman was a good move for James, as he would have earned more than an agricultural labourer, of which many could be found in his family, and would have had room and board as a given.

The servants of Petworth House, Sussex in the 1870s.
Just the type of uniform that James would have worn.
(Photo via https://countryhousereader.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/the-servant-hierarchy/)

Perhap life in this large privileged household didn't offer enough excitement and challenge for the young James Miles as in 1878, when he was 24 years old, James began a whole new chapter in his life; one which offered the prospect of adventure and travel. On the last day of January of that year, at 11am in the morning, James signed up for 12 years service in the infantry of the British army. He was to spend his army career in the 4th Battalion, the King's Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment who had their home barracks in Lancaster.

The badge of the 4th Battalion,
King's Own Regiment

James must have enjoyed the life of a soldier as he was to sign up for a second term, serving for 21 years in total. And what was there for him to dislike? He was clearly well respected as his service record (found in British Army Service Records 1760-1915 on findmypast.co.uk) shows that he was promoted up the ranks from private to corporal to sergeant, until by the time of his discharge he had attained the rank of colour sergeant. He did not see any action but served in several overseas outposts - Gibraltar, the West Indies and Ireland. The role of these outputs was to maintain the security of Britain's trade routes and to guard the British Empire's far flung frontiers.

A posting in Jamaica was once considered a death sentence, and James was not to escape illness. Even though he was stationed in Newcastle high in the Blue Mountains where soldiers were less susceptible to yellow fever, James still succombed to 'neuralgia' and later whilst in Up Park camp in Kingston, he fell ill with a fever that hospitalised him for two weeks.

The only blemish on an otherwise impeccable army career was his demotion from sergeant to corporal as a result of drunkenness in August 1884 whilst stationed at Castletown on the Isle of Man. My reaction to that was 'Oh James, why, oh why, did you do that?'. But it didn't stop him in his tracks and he was soon back on the promotional ladder. His service record states he had a 'very good' character and would have received many good conduct badges if he hadn't been promoted.

At the end of his second term, and exactly 21 years to the day since he had signed up, he was discharged from the army. He was 45 years old.

Bowerham Barracks, Lancaster - where James spent his 21-year military career.
(Photo: http://www.kingsownmuseum.plus.com/galleryaccommodation02.htm)

In 1890 he had married Annie Gregory, a Yorkshire lass born in Sheffield who had worked at the County Asylum located a stone's throw from the Bowerham Barracks in Lancaster where James lived and worked. They had three children in the space of five years. So it was in 1899 that James and his young family left Lancaster and the army life he, and they, had known for so many years, and relocated to Longsight in Manchester. It was here that James embarked on a new career in a relatively new industry. He became a telephone operator.

James worked for the National Telephone Company [NTC]. The industry had only been in existence since the 1870s with the NTC itself being formed in 1881 and it's around about this time that the first telephone exchange opened in Manchester. Most telephone operators were women, so it strikes me as unusual to find James in this role. However, this is the job that he did from at least 1901 to 1911. A caller would connect to the exchange where a telephone operator such as James would connect them to the required destination. I'm really proud to think that an ancestor of mine worked in a fairly pioneering industry.

James died on 16th February 1915 at his home in Levenshulme, Manchester. He was relatively young as he was only 62.

I became intrigued by him when I discovered on one census that he'd been a telephone operator and on an earlier census he'd been a soldier. What a change in occupation! He was an ordinary chap, and he probably considered a lot of his day to day life to be pretty humdrum, but I think he has a fascinating career history - full of variety and innovation. He demonstrated his character through his army promotions and he looked the future in the face when taking on new fangled telephones in the first decade of the twentieth century. He started his life in a small agricultural village and ended it in a major metropolis working in an industry of the future. His life exemplified how life for everyone changed so rapidly in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Heroes in my Family

On this day of remembrance I felt it was only appropriate to write a few words about my hero ancestors. My family is not unique. Like everyone who delves into their ancestry I have found many family members who went off to fight for their country, to 'do their bit'. Some made the ultimate sacrifice and were laid to rest where they died; some don't have a final resting place; all live on through stone memorials. Others were fortunate enough to make it through their war and return to homes and families. They may not have returned unscathed, either mentally or physically, but return they did. They aren't marked on a memorial but, like their fallen brethren, they are remembered. To me, they are all heroes.

Charles Stracey 1894-1917
My great uncle Charles was 22 years old when he died in France on 17th February 1917. A private in the 6th Battalion, Princess Charlotte of Wales (Royal Berkshire) Regiment, it's probable that he died during the action taken at Miraumont to capture several German trenches. During the early hours of the 17th February, as the troops assembled in preparation to go over the top, the Germans heavily barraged the assembly areas. Most of the day's casualties happened as a result of this barrage and I believe, as Charles' body was never recovered, that it was at this point that he died. His name is recorded on the great Thiepval Memorial to the missing in northern France.

Samuel Ezekiel Hardwick

Samuel Ezekiel Hardwick 1881-1917
Sam Hardwick, my great grand uncle, died of wounds on 7th April 1917. He was a private in the 8th Battalion, Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment. I've been unable to work out where or when he was injured but I find it quite distressing to think that he may have suffered dreadfully in a casualty clearing station before finally succumbing to his wounds. He is buried in Calais Southern Cemetery (which I'm glad to have visited in 2010 to lay some flowers on his grave) and left behind a wife and seven year old daughter.

James Ivanhoe Cullip 1894-1918
James is an ancestor that I've written about before. One of my great uncles, he served as a gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery, one of the men employed to pound the German lines with their big guns. He survived the war but tragically died two weeks before the armistice, and just one week after getting married, as a result of the Spanish Flu pandemic.

Thomas William Cullip 1899-1964
Great Uncle Thomas had been 18 years old for just two weeks when he enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1917. After training on HMS Pembroke he became a member of the crew of HMS Juno in March. He served on Juno until he was demobbed in April 1919.

Albert Edward Cannon (born Cullip) Born 1897
My first cousin twice removed, Albert Cannon, enlisted aged 19 in the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1915. Luckily for me, his is one of the few surviving service records which gives a wealth of information about his time in service. He survived the war and even volunteered for the Army of Occupation in 1919. After demobilisation in 1920 he sailed to Canada where he married and created a new life away from a war weary Europe.

Albert Stracey 1883-1945
My great uncle Albert also survived the war but suffered for the rest of his life from the effects of shell shock. He enlisted into the Royal Berkshires in 1915 at the age of 32. However, just 18 months later he was discharged from service under Paragraph 392 of King's Regulations 1912. He was deemed no longer physically fit for war service and issued with the Silver War Badge. My father remembers how Albert would sit in his chair and physically shake, an affliction he suffered with for the rest of his life.

Nathaniel Joe Stracey

Nathaniel Joe Stracey 1891-1961
My grandfather is another person I've written about previously. He served in the 5th Battalion, East Kent Regiment, the 'Buffs', in Mesopotamia and India. He survived the war unscathed.

John Stracey 1885-1949
I believe my great uncle John may have been one of the Old Contemptibles. Before the war he was a soldier in the regular army, serving as a private in the 1st Bedfordshire Regiment and his medal record shows that he qualified for medals from the 16th August 1914 - he was in it from the start! He may have fought at such major battles as Mons, Ypres and the Somme. Incredibly, he survived the whole four years of war.

Joseph Roy Stracey

Joseph Roy Stracey 1922-1942
I've written quite a lot about my uncle Roy so please see my previous post for an account of his brief life and death. Roy was a royal marine serving on HMS Hermes when it was attacked and sunk by Japanese fighter planes on 22nd April 1942. He was only 19 when he died and his name is recorded on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.


At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Thomas Cullip 1827-1903: An army service record reveals its secrets

My Great Great Grandfather, Thomas Cullip, was always a bit of an enigma to me. His father, Joseph Cullip, was transported to Tasmania in 1844 for stealing a sheep. Within a short time of Joseph's departure, Thomas' mother and his seven siblings found themselves destitute and divided between the Bedford Union and Biggleswade Union Workhouses in Bedfordshire. I could find references to every member of the family on the 1851 census as resident in these workhouses, and in the case of Thomas's sister, Elizabeth, lodging with her illegitimate son in Bedford. But Thomas Cullip was missing. He was still missing on the 1861 census. His whereabouts remained a mystery to me.

Thomas was born in 1827 and I could trace his life easily up to 1847. It was then that Thomas served a month's hard labour for poaching (a trait which appeared to run in the family!). The evidence for this was found on his Bedfordshire Gaol record. But from then on Thomas seemed to disappear off the face of the earth until he reappeared in 1866 at his wedding to my Great Great Grandmother, Susan. I had used every combination of data possible to search for him on the 1851 and 1861 censuses, but to no avail. So where was he between 1847 and 1866? Why was he not recorded on the censuses? Was he in jail? Was he in foreign lands? Or did he just wish to remain hidden on census night, rebelling against the authorities that had sent his father away, possibly forever, resulting in his family falling on perilously hard times and a reliance on the parish for help?

My research seemed to have come to a dead end and I was stumped as to where to look next. Then came a fateful day at work when, during a lunch break spent doing some family research at my computer, I typed Thomas' name into the Find My Past search engine. Bingo! Up popped his service record in the dataset Chelsea Pensioners' Service Records 1760-1913. A random search had revealed a service record for Thomas. I nearly jumped for joy! Thomas had enlisted in the 38th Foot in 1854. This explained his absence from the 1861 UK census as he was in India at the time!

A soldier at the Crimea wearing full marching uniform.
Taken by Roger Fenton 1819-1869, war photographer.
Did Thomas wear a uniform like this?

Why did he enlist? As a healthy young man he should have been able to find work on the land. Why did he not stay to help his mother and siblings? Or did the break up of his family and the hardship they fell upon induce him to seek a life away from the places associated with his family's plight and the memories they provoked? Whatever his motivations, it was a decision that would take him far from home and into potentially deadly situations.

His service record has been a mine of information, although it has also thrown up a couple of new questions which I would like to have answered.

Thomas, a labourer by trade, enlisted in the 38th Regiment of Foot on 30th November 1854 in Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland. That immediately raised the question of what on earth was he doing in Berwick-upon-Tweed? My only clue is that the signed witness to Thomas' enlistment appears to be a representative of the Bedford militia, although Thomas states he had never been in the militia prior to this date. Did he therefore volunteer in Bedfordshire before being taken to Berwick-upon-Tweed for the official enlistment?

The next issue which soon came apparent was that of Thomas' age. He stated on his attestation papers that he was 22. This was not true. Thomas was in fact at least 27. Had I got the wrong man? I don't think so. All the information on the papers, except his age, match what I know about him, even down to his description (5 ft 4, grey eyes, dark hair, fresh complexion) which is identical to his Bedfordshire Gaol record. Perhaps he felt that his age would be prohibitive if he stated he was 27.

Other than those particular issues, his service record has provided me with some fabulous details. He enlisted for the term of 10 years, though in actuality he was to serve 10 years and 192 days. And on enlistment he was paid the grand total of six shillings and sixpence. His character and conduct were described as: "very good. He is in possession of two good conduct badges... His name does not appear in the Defaulters Book. Has never been tried". Also his "Habits were regular, Conduct good" and he was "Temperate". Other intriguing facts revealed that he was vaccinated as an infant, took 18 breaths a minute and had a pulse of 72 beats per minute. His attestation papers show that when he signed on in 1854 he was only able to make his mark, but by the time he was discharged in 1864 he could sign his name. Thomas had learnt to read and write.

In 1854 Thomas could only put a cross against his signature. 

By 1864 he could write his name.

Perhaps most interesting is the record of where he was stationed. At some stage between his enlistment in November 1854 and August 1857, Thomas served 17 months in the Crimea. From August 1857 he was stationed in India where he was to spend the next 7 years. Fortunately for Thomas, he did not play a part in many of the major incidents of the Indian Rebellion (aka the Indian Mutiny) which began in May 1857. His medal record, found on Ancestry, states that although he served in the field from December 1857 to May 1858, he played no part in the capture of Delhi nor the defence or relief of Lucknow. He was, however, engaged in the operations against Lucknow in March 1858. I need to find out more information as to what that specifically entailed for Thomas.

Whilst in India Thomas suffered two prolonged bouts of sickness. In 1859 he was confined to hospital in Rai Bully (sic) and then in 1864 he was struck down again, this time in Delhi. In both cases his illness was caused by 'climate'. The second illness meant he was out of action for 43 days and he was treated by 'poultice'. An intriguing fact is that this second spell of illness hospitalised him until the 29th November 1864. The very next day was the 10th anniversary of his enlistment. Had Thomas had enough of the illnesses, or the army life, or being away from England? What is recorded is that having served his 10 years, and the very day after he left hospital, Thomas requested a discharge in consequence of "his having claimed it on the termination of the term of his limited engagement". Therefore on the 30th November 1864 a regimental board convened "for the purpose of recording and verifying the Services, Conduct, Character, and Cause of Discharge". Thomas' discharge was approved and he set sail for England in February 1865. His final destination was Tempsford, a small rural village in Bedfordshire, where a year later he was to marry Susan Browning and go on to have four children. He lived out the rest of his life in Tempsford as a ubiquitous 'ag lab'.

Thomas' life had remained a conundrum to me until that day when I found his service record on Find My Past. I had subscribed to FMP for many years up to that day, and it just proves that it pays to keep looking even in places you've searched before, as new records are coming online all the time. I still don't know where Thomas was when the 1851 census was taken, but I'm positive I will find out one day.