Description:This postcard picture shows Douglass (last name unknown) wearing his best uniform and having his photograph taken in a studio by a professional photographer.
On the reverse Douglass writes: “Dear Auntie and Uncle, Just a P.C. hoping it will find you both in the very best of health as it leaves me very well. I have been for writing to you a good many times but I could not get the change but I wish you both the best of luck. I am your Nephew Douglass”.
Douglass probably sent the postcard in an envelope because he has written across the whole of the back of the postcard leaving no room for his relatives' name and address, or for a stamp and franking mark.
Also on the back of the postcard there is an interesting office stamp ‘Station Veterinary Hospital, Milford’, which suggests that there was an Army Veterinary Hospital unit or office at Milford Station at which horses arriving and departing by train could be inspected by the Army Veterinary Corps. The main Veterinary Hospital which also had an office and a loose box was located at Brocton Camp, just north of ‘P’ Lines and close to Chase Road Corner. In later years most of the adjacent area became a car park. At both Brocton and Rugeley Camps there were numerous facilities for keeping horses including horse shelters, water troughs, dung pits, harness and saddle rooms and forage stores.
Douglass was a Corporal in the Army Veterinary Corps. The lanyard over his left shoulder identifies him as an Instructor. He is also wearing his highly polished Army issue “pattern” leather riding boots. The emblem above his Corporal stripes on his right arm is the symbol of a stirrup which confirms he was a qualified horse-riding Instructor. The smaller, almost circular, rosette-shaped cloth badge on his lower right arm is positioned where proficiency and skill badges were worn; it looks very much like the horse-team driver’s badge. This would certainly fit in with what this soldier’s skills were likely to have been and how he may have been employed at the Cannock Chase Training Camps. A horse-team driver’s proficiency/skill was needed where multiples of four or more horses were driven in pairs pulling heavy and/or awkward loads; each pair of horses in the team had a rider seated on the left horse of the pair and the whole team were led and controlled by the rider seated on the front left horse – he was the team “driver”. Horse-team drivers were used by many units of the Army but especially by the Army Service Corps (ASC), Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) and Royal Field Artillery (RFA).
Part of the skills required to achieve the proficiency of being a horse-team driver would also entail the driving of all forms of horse-drawn vehicles, including driving when seated on a wagon; from the smallest vehicle, which would be a single horse-drawn or maybe double horse-drawn and up to a four horse drawn wagon. He would then which been a “Waggoneer”. Waggoneers could subsequently graduate to become horse-team drivers by showing their proficiency in driving larger teams of horses; some of the larger artillery pieces were drawn by a team of 8 horses. This skill/proficiency would require superb horse husbandry and would also increase his pay, as would his qualification as a horse-riding instructor. The single inverted stripe on his left arm is a “good conduct stripe”; these were awarded for good conduct for service in the Regular Army, for NCO's, worn on the lower left sleeve of the uniform jacket for 2, 6, 12, or 18 years of service. A bonus in pay was also awarded for each stripe. In the Pay Warrant of 1914 soldiers could choose between Good Conduct Pay for each stripe earned, or Service Pay for service overseas.
The Army Veterinary Corps became the Royal Army Veterinary Corps when it gained the royal prefix on 27 November 1918.
If you recognise Douglass in this view please contact us.