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    1. [GREATWAR] H G BALDWIN
    2. Peter Appleton
    3. I ask the indulgence of the members of this list whilst I set the background. I am working on a personal project to document as much as I can about the men whose names are inscribed on the War Memorial that stands on the village green at Skelton-in-Cleveland (my home village) in north-east Yorkshire. I have a problem with one H G BALDWIN. The War Memorial gives just his initials and surname. However, in the parish church there is a "roll of honour" panel listing the men of the parish who gave their lives during the Great War. On this he is listed as "Pte H G Baldwin" under the unit heading of "Army Cyclist Corps". My problem is that I cannot find an individual on the CWGC database that matches all four of his surname, initials, rank and unit. CWGC gives me two close "possibles" a Private A BALDWIN 7059 in the Army Cyclist Corps or a Lance Corporal H G BALDWIN 20319 in 23rd (Tyneside Scottish) Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. The former individual is attributed to 37th Division Cyclist Company and his sister is shown living at an address in Birmingham. This, to my mind, makes him an unlikely candidate. A local history webpage hosted on a site sponsored by Northumbria University gives additional information for H G BALDWIN as follows: Home address: 1 Harker Street, Skelton (this puts him firmly in the village community!) Taken PoW December 1917. I'm trying to make contact with the webmaster of this site to try and ascertain the source of this extra information. I've searched CWGC looking for BALDWINs dying in December 1917 or after (keeping a particular watch out for any buried in locations that might possibly be attributable to PoW camps). This search turned up one H J BALDWIN of the Middlesex Regiment who died on 24 Jan 1921 and is buried in Cologne Southern Cemetery. Were there any PoW camps in the Cologne area? The regiment is not a good fit for a man from the north-east of England. Isn't this more likely to be an individual serving with the post-war Occupation Army? Of the three individuals, H G BALDWIN has the right initials and is associated with a Northern regiment. If he originally joined up as Army Cyclist Corps is it possible he then transferred or was transferred to Northumberland Fusiliers? If so, would he retain his original service number or receive a new one from his new regiment? Any thoughts or ideas would be very much appreciated. I've traced all the rest of the 70 individuals in the CWGC database. It's annoying not to have a good, solid matching "hit" for H G BALDWIN. regards, Peter Appleton My Family Tree website: http://www.tribalpages.com/tribes/pappleton3

    07/18/2007 03:48:24