George Edward Coultous

[sarah]

Hello ,I am still looking for any information on the time my grandfather spent in the army ,I am unable to find anything.I found a news paper article years ago at my local libruary on war heroes and found he had been fighting in France in july 1917 and got wounded he was in the Wrst Yorkshire Reg .He was then wounded again in 1918 and was then in the York and Lanc Reg .It seems George Edward Had been wounded 3 times in his army service ,One of which he was shot in the leg .
I have heard he was a member of the Bradford Pals .I cant find anything on my fathers service in the second would war eaither .I have heard these records could been distroyed in a fire.I applied for my fathers medals and was sent them so I know he was in the army ,Its just every seach i try it returns no returns .

Any help would be great

Sarah Coultous

[Megan Roberts]

Sarah

60% of the World War 1 records were destroyed in the Blitz.

Any military records after 1922 have to be applied for to the Ministry of Defence. There are no on line records available.

Megan

[Lesley Robertson]

He's not in the Bradford Pals database on Find My Past.

[sarah]

Thanks everyone for trying to help ,I have tried to find him on find my past in bradford pals and same i could not find him.Even on the Medal Rolls .Its just my luck for them to be gone in the blitz.My father served in the 2nd world war as a cook in the army .I only found his number of service as I sent for his medals other than that no mention of him.At the same time he was in service he had 4 brothers serving at the same time all Coultous.
I will kepp searching see what pops up you never know

Sarah

[Lesley Robertson]

It's usually a matter of spelling when one's dealing with computer searches...
The WW1 medal card should be there - I don't suppose you have GEC's medals as well?

[sarah]

yes they sometimes spell my surname wrong today so it might be spelling errors ,no I only have my dads medals my grandad died before I was born and I dont even have a photo of him .I was wishing a picture might come up of him in the army it would be great to see what he looked like fingers crossed I might find one.

sarah

[timbo58]

Sarah

60% of the World War 1 records were destroyed in the Blitz.

Any military records after 1922 have to be applied for to the Ministry of Defence. There are no on line records available.

Megan

Correct for 'service records', if there is a record outside of these sets then it may well be available however.
I know we've certainly found plenty of records outside of the MOD post 1922 for POWs and other select collections for instance.

[thewideeyedowl]

Hi Sarah, and a very warm welcome to Brit Gen...

Searching the Medal Index Cards (MICs) at The National Archives (TNA) produced a handful of hits for Coultous, but none was for a George Edward. However, there was a Cpl Fred Coultous 1st Yorkshire Reg, No6410 incomplete, and a Pte Arthur C Coultous West Yorkshire Reg, No42894. Entries were indexed by the name under which the man served, which may be slightly different from the full name registered at birth. Also, the surname Coultous is very unusual and open to much misinterpretation, I should think. You could try searching with wild cards, e.g. C*ltou*, which would yield more results.

You mentioned the Bradford Pals. A quick search produced this page of material that is available at, or through, Bradford Local Studies resources: https://www.leeds.ac.uk/heritage/prev...ies/index.html. You will see it really is all sorts from newspaper photographs and articles, to letters and interviews etc etc. If you live within striking distance, it might be worth a visit; if not, you could email them, perhaps?

Fingers crossed that you will get some leads!

Owl

[thewideeyedowl]

Good morning and good news...

I think this is probably his MIC at TNA:
https://discovery.nationalarchives.go...s?uri=D1963616. The details seem to fit with the info in your first post.

The MIC can be downloaded for a small fee from TNA but should also be viewable on Ancestry in a slightly different format.

Have a nice day, as they say!

Owl

[thewideeyedowl]

Is this the family in the 1911 census:

George Edward Coultous 25/m/bricklayer
Susannah Coultous 25/m
Ivy Coultous 5
Frederick Coultous 3
John Coultous 8 mths

They were living at 4 Holdsworth Buildings, Eccleshill, Bradford. They were all born at Shipley, Yorkshire.

Census ref: RG14 Piece 26656

Owl