In message <0f4401c4463b$f3e36f80$a0cbae51@lovegrove>, Sandra Lovegrove <sandra@lovegrove.org.uk> writes >This is not very old English, but it is a puzzle, so : does anyone have a clue >as to what military rank/occupation might have been signified in 1900 by the >abbreviation L.Q.M. (in a ship's passenger list Bombay-London)? Something Quarter Master, but can't be lance, Could see R for regimaental, or A for Assistant, or B for Battalion perhaps >Also (a little older) does anyone know if soldiers had to be a minimum age for >recruitment in 1841?(Marine private aged 15 found in Chatham Barracks) boy recruitment was common enough - especially for sons of existing soldiers etc. Drummer boys at 10-11, for instance. Wasn't there a tragedy 20-30 years ago, when boy soldiers from a marine barracks in Kent were murdered by terrorists? -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society