Story
Hairdresser Bertie Beagley's Army Service Record, unusually, states that he served on the Eastern Front. That was where the Russians battled against the troops from Germany and Austro-Hungary. There is no further explanation. It is remotely possible, in view of the Allied intervention during the Russian civil war, but was more likely an administrative error. His Army Pension Record Card ledger card states that his military service was in south-west England. Private Beagley, of 338 Ashley Road, Upper Parkstone, was 39 when he enlisted on 6 June 1916 with the 4/1st Cambridgeshire Regiment. He also served with the Norfolks. During his years of service, Pte Beagley was with the "RSP Dept" of the Royal Army Service Corps where his special military qualification was "Loader". (His regimental number was 388659.) He was demobbed on 13 March 1919 and transferred to the Reserve. (His Army papers show that he had the Medical Category of B2, which meant that he was free from serious organic diseases and able to stand service on lines of communication in France, or in garrisons in the tropics. It also meant that he was able to walk five miles and see and hear sufficiently for ordinary purposes.) Bertie Beagley, the son of Alfred Beagley, a builder, was born in Farnham, Surrey, on 15 November 1877. He married in St John's Church, Upper Parkstone on 7 September 1902. His bride, Katie Constance Scase, had also been born in Surrey, in New Malden but had been living in Boscombe. She was the daughter of John James Scase, a commercial traveller. Bertie was 24 and Katie 21 when the exchanged vows. They moved to Poole where a daughter, Violetta Monica Beagley was born in Branksome around 1908. By 1911 the three lived at 338 Ashley Road, where Bertie worked as a hairdresser and tobacconist. A 16-year-old domestic servant also lived with them. Tragically, Katie died in the spring of that year, at the age of 30. The following year, on 28 July 1912, widower Bertie, remarried. His second bride was 20-year-old Henrietta May Allen, also living in Ashley Road and the daughter of a mason called Albion James Allen. Henrietta was born and brought up in Shepton Mallet, Somerset and in 1911 had been working as a shop assistant at a grocer's, baker's and draper's store in Collingbourne Kingston, near Marlborough. Bertie and Henrietta had a son born in the summer of 1915. They called him Joseph. Tragedy revisited Bertie for, on 25 October 1928, his daughter, Violetta died. Though her address was still 338 Ashley Road, Parkstone, she died at Farnham Infirmary in Surrey, the town where her father had been born. She left effects to the value of £298 to her dad. Bertie was still in Ashley Road right up to the year before the start of the Second World War. The 1939 Register lists him as living at 466 Ashley Road and his occupations as hairdresser, tobacconist and shopkeeper. When Bertie died, on 20 April 1952, aged about 75,Lloyds Bank, in Old Christchurch Road, Bournemouth, who were acting as an executor of his will, wrote to the War Office to inform them of his death and for cancellation (presumably of his name on the Reserve list). The War Office was unable to trace his record, having looked in the Burnt Documents of the ASC (many First World War Army records were damaged or destroyed as a result of a fire in 1940) and the regiment's medal cards. His other executor was Miss Marcella Whitelock. Bertie, of 7 Wingfield Ave, Oakdale, Poole, Bertie left effects to the value of £11,461 17s 6d. * Please contact us if you wish to suggest an amendment or have additional information.
Subdivision
- Royal Army Service Corps