INDIA-L Archives

Archiver > INDIA > 1999-02 > 0918047455


From: "JillGrey" <>
Subject: Background and other information
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 13:10:55 -0000


Huge and heartfelt thanks to Tim Frost for the post on the HEIC & British
Armies, and to Robin Volkers and Peter Rogers and all who added comments.

I'm very happy to add my copy of Kitzmiller to the 1824/1873 Army Lists for
general use - although as we've seen in the case of the 62nd Regiment
(thanks again Tim), it still has few omissions.
Large numbers of requests for regimental locations and the sudden increase
in numbers of new list members have slowed up my replies, so please forgive
me if you're still waiting for a reply to an e-mail. I'm getting there!

Have we established how we're going to dispense all this information?

Apart from those invaluable posts on the EIC etc, I'm beginning to wonder
whether new members wouldn't get some use from, for example, the lists of
names from BMD indices that have been painstakingly copied and posted by
various list members, lists of ICS officers and other data about and from
Army lists which I posted last year and details of bibliographies and
addresses which some of us have posted from time to time. It seems to me
that the alternatives are

1. To carry on individually posting the same information at odd intervals
2. To ask Cathy nicely if we could add it to her website !
3. To create a separate India-L website
4. To create a FAQ which could be posted (or referred to) regularly.

Some members might prefer to navigate archive posts. I favour a FAQ,
although we'd need someone to coordinate and regularly edit and update
it....and to ensure that the information expands on, rather than duplicates
Cathy Day's already indispensable site.

The real thorn in the researcher's flesh would seem to be the sometimes
baffling mass of military information - especially which records can be
found and where they might be found, particularly in cases where the
ancestor was an NCO or ordinary soldier. The HEIC Army posts have thrown
very useful light on the background; there's more in the OIOC site at
http://www.bl.uk/collections/oriental/records/iorfamhi.html and to those
who really want to get to grips with it, there are one or two books apart
from Mason's 'A Matter of Honour' that I can't recommend strongly enough.
These are

1) the PRO publication 'Army Records for Family Historians' by Simon Fowler
(ISBN 1 873162 04 9); and
2) Edward Spiers, 'The Army and Society' (Longman, 1980; ISBN 0 582 48566 5)
which answers the many questions about recruitment, Cardwell Reforms, etc
that keep cropping up and which has a whole chapter on the Mutiny.
Both books are reasonably priced paperbacks and (I haven't checked recently)
are probably on Cathy's website. Perhaps I could throw in
3) The 'Men at Arms' series published by Osprey which includes individual
volumes on the Mutiny, Bengal Cavalry and Indian Infantry Regiments and many
others. These are easily affordable, generously illustrated paperbacks and,
as far as I know, in print.
All good, basic, background material.

Until we reach a unanimous decision of some sort, I'll continue to post the
Army/ICS details and book titles from time to time - at the risk of
irritating those who've seen them before!

I trust I'm not sticking my neck out by making these suggestions. I'm
hacking my way through these thickets too, but feel there must be an
efficient way of coordinating, adding and providing direct access to the
material we've put together without having to repeat it over and over again.

Jill

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