WW1 soldier - CONSTANCE Arthur Evan, Longhope, 13th Glosters (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Saturday, March 29, 2014, 15:15 (3893 days ago) @ dink999

Hi Dink,
thanks very much for your full reply, yet another sad story, but sadly far from unique across the land. As I said I wasn’t querying the accuracy of your soldier database, but wondered whether the Medal Cards were a little misleading - I’ve seen a few that seem in error in this way, quite understandably given the huge numbers of soldiers involved for the War Office clerks to manage; thanks for clarifying everything.

Thanks for advising that Arthur, and perhaps his parents, was buried at the Zion Baptist ground. I didn’t look in that section of the Longhope website records, I now see that site only currently shows this Constance memorial inscription,

"Ivor Constance , Died 30th June 1990, Aged 84 years
and his beloved wife Florence May, Died 22nd Feb. 1995, Aged 89 years."

The newspaper article is particularly helpful mentioning Arthur’s treatment at the Notts County War Hospital. Like many of the new War Hospitals, this was formerly the Nottingham County Asylum at Saxondale, Radcliffe-on-Trent. Fortunately this was relatively modern, opened in 1902, so hopefully the treatment was more enlightened than we think of for the older "asylums". According to the Long Trail website it “had 540 beds and was used for mental patients from 25 July 1918 to 30 August 1919”, presumably these were all victims of the War, the socalled “shell shock” and such like. At least by those days such casualties were treated with the respect and kindness they thoroughly deserved.
From http://www.1914-1918.net/hospitals_uk.htm

These sites contain some interesting references to the Notts County War Hospital and treatment therein:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=468725.0
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=2517
http://www.nottinghamhospitalshistory.co.uk/page148.html

RIP CQMS Arthur Evan Constance.

----------

Later Update, May 2016.
I have only just spotted this other, older thread about Arthur, which I'm linking in case it helps other researchers.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/fodmembers/index.php?mode=thread&id=39185