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CAPTAIN JIMMY FLETCHER RAMC TRAVELS ROUND AFRICA TO SERVE IN MESOPOTAMIA 1918-19, THEN MOVES ON TO INDIA WITH ETHEL & MICHAEL
Links to Fletcher Chronology, Photos & Documents - 1800 - 1911 and 1900 to 1974
Fletcher / Procter ancestor chart Recent Ancestors (with Portraits)
Jimmy Fletcher marries Ethel Burton 1915
Photos of Frank Edward & Elizabeth Fletcher's Sons, Daughters and Spouses 1896 - 1928
The John and Maria Fletcher Story 1824 - 1911 Procter chronology, photos and document links all bmd links
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1914 - Jimmy joins the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC)
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and starts off by getting the job of Medical Officer (MO) to the 2nd / 3rd County of London Yeomanry (The Sharpshooters) who despite their natty title were to spend the war in England with an absence of real shooting. |
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1915 - Frank Rex (Jimmy) Marries - Sunday 15 August |
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Lieut Frank Rex (Jimmy) Fletcher RAMC (25) - marries Ethel Henrietta Florence Burton (also 25) in the very drab Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene, (Old) Milton, Hampshire. Why there ? - Ethel's Dad was in charge of a rehab centre for wounded Indian soldiers at Barton, and Frank Rex (now known as Jimmy) was probably also stationed in the area.
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LINK to page about Jimmy Fletcher in "RAMC in the Great War" |
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September 1917 - Captain Jimmy Fletcher
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seems to have spent the first three years of the WW I as MO to "B team" battalions who had opted to stay in England (as presumably he had as well). As of mid 1917 he was the MO of the little known 2/5 Royal West Kent Regiment who were then camped happily with their horses at Barham windmill (above) near Canterbury (in fact they were so irrelevant that they were disbanded later in the year). Our man really liked horses, as reflected in several of the photos he took, and MOs were allocated their own superior nags (and grooms) by the army.
Captain Fletcher presumably decided to make a more significant contribution to the war effort without going so far as a Field Ambulance on the Western Front like his brother-in-law Charlie Burton or my other grandfather Jimmy Sproule. In mid-September 1917 he set sail on the Union Castle Line's "Durham Castle" for a (leisurely) voyage round the Cape to Basra, and thence up the River Tigris to Baghdad (February 1918) - which had been well and truly recaptured from Ottoman forces about a year earlier by General "Systematic Joe" Maude.
Happily Jimmy also bought himself a new camera, and we have the negatives of several hundred photos he took in Africa, Mesopotamia and India over the next 6 years.
Farewell at Barham Camp (Nr Canterbury) 10 Sept 1917 Ethel Fletcher (Burton) (pregnant wife), Elizabeth Fletcher (Procter) (Mother), Jimmy Fletcher, Gwen Fletcher (to be Kingdon) (Sister).
Ethel and Terry Burton at breakfast - September 1917
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Mid-September 1917 - Jimmy F sets sail on the Union Castle Line's RMS "Durham Castle"
On board getting to know you fun - Tie and Cigarette Competition - 18 September 1917 - wonder how to play !
Freetown market - 27 September 1917
Port Elizabeth Tour - 19 October 1917 - Jimmy F is the one in the middle front surrounded by women.
Capt Jimmy Fletcher, RAMC, at Durban Swimming Pool - 29 October 1917
Zanzibar Beach - 8 November 1917. This photo has been used on the cover of a book, my grandpa would have been so chuffed!
Zanzibar Markets - 8 November 1917
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November 1917 - Capt Jimmy Fletcher arrives in Mesopotamia |
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by which time Baghdad etc had been well and truly recaptured, and Jimmy's photos indicate a fairly relaxed life of huntin and socializing, with the odd River Sick Boat with prisoners on board passing through. The good Captain's day job was Adjutant of the River Sick Convoy.
UK NATIONAL ARCHIVES - THE MESOPOTAMIA CAMPAIGN
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1917 - 1919 Mesopotamia (today's Iraq)
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The Anglo Persian Oil Company (later BP) refinery at Abbadan (November 1917) - what it was all about
Basra - November 1917
Coffee Shop at Ashar - November 1917
First time in Baghdad - February 1918
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23 April 1918 |
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Michael James Rex Fletcher is born back in London (Princes Gate).
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1918 - More photos from Iraq |
March 1918 - Hospital ship loading
March 1918 - PA 1 leaves dock - the hospital ships were old paddle steamers commandeered by the army
Hospital ship number 12 - May 1918
The exception was HMS Moth, an Insect Class purpose build river gunboat
Sisters Webb and Mann being chatted up on a river outing - April 1918
Amira Grain Bazaar - August 1918
"Visit by locals" - October 1918 - Jimmy the horseman would have loved these nags!
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November 1918 - Armistice ends WW I
Proclamation Day Salute, Indian Foot Regiments and Cavalry - 23 November 1918 There were 700,000 Indian troops stationed in Mesopotamia
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Peacetime, but not for ducks - December 1918
Horse and pipe loving doctor - January 1919.
End of war revue - February 1919 - FRF white trousers, centre stage - he was a consummate Gilbert and Sullivan man!
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plus picnics with "Nurse Dorothea" - this one on 11 February 1919 - the lovely nurse (wonder who she was) features in several of Jimmy Fletcher's negatives at the end of his time in Mesopotamia, but does not seem to have made it into any of the little print albums shared with wife Ethel back in England !
Dorothea - 12 February 1919
The farewell picnic pic - 10 March 1919
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1919 |
after the end of WWI (November 1918) Jimmy Fletcher goes regular in the RAMC, and in 1919, after a few more picnics, duck shoots and horse rides, is moved on from the Tigris River, via Bombay and the Taj Mahal (8 May 1919) in Agra, to the British Military Hospital at Murree Hill, 40 miles from Rawalpindi, where Ethel and little Michael join him.
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WWI ended, but the pics kept flowing from NW India (now Pakistan) until the family returned to the UK in 1923. After this there were a few family photos from Folkestone's beach, and a few more from a Sierra Leone posting, after which, sadly, nothing. |
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Bombay sea view 3 May 1919
Bombay Railway Station 2 May 1919
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Grand Hotel, Gwalior 10 May 1919
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Taj Mahal (Agra) - 8 May 1919
Grandson Adrian returns - February 1998
Taj Mahal - view from a minaret, not available to today's tourists !
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Murree Hill from Clulekee Gali Rd - 1921
Jimmy, Ethel and little Michael in India
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Documents and photos related to the Fletchers in the 1900s
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