royal west surry regiment

[matelo]

|help|Hi one and all, i'm a newbee looking for some info on my grand father,s regiment the royal west surry, I have him on the 1901 census as private William Frost born london aged 19. I'm trying to find out if he served in south africa during the 2nd boar war with this Reg, if indeed the reg was posted there.??? I'm sorry but I do not have his Service No. I know that he served in ww1 and survived. This has been my|banghead|for some time now as he appear's abit elusiveto track down. I'm hoping that someone may be able to help. tia jeff.

[Geoffers]

Where to look and whether anything has survived depends on a bit of luck and when he retired.

I suggest trying to hunt down his service record. Have a browse of TNA's research guides (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/researchguidesindex.asp?j=1) scroll down to 'B' and look at the links prefixed 'British Army'

The West Surrey Regt now forms part of the Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment. Have a look at their web-site (http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/)as to where rgimental archives are now held

[neil1821]

The 2nd Battn were in the Boer War.
The 1st Battn were in India/North West Frontier at the time.

[ladysmith]

Your best bet to start with are the Queen's South Africa Medal rolls which are at the National Archives at Kew. They're not online so you'd have to visit or get a researcher to do a search for you. The West Surreys are in subseries WO 100/166.

If you get a positive hit there your next move would be to check series WO 97 for his service papers. The survival rate of this series is about 70%.

The 2nd battalion West Surreys were in the campaign to relieve Ladysmith and were involved in several battles including Colenso (15/12/1899), Venters Spruit (21/1/1900) and Vaal Krantz (5/2/1900). Ladysmith was eventually relieved 28/2/1900.

David