rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic - "W. Bellairs, Col."-Man of Mystery

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:02 pm

Alan,
Outstanding enhancement! Having tried to "lift" handwriting and signatures off a background myself, I can only look at your handiwork with mixed awe and admiration. Enough kudos...
The first letter certainly looks like an upper case "H", but then for that matter the last letter of the first line looks like an upper case "D". And there just aren't that many consonants that can follow an initial "h", so what's that second letter? Could be a vowel (linguistically, I mean) or what else? An "il", an "r", or unlikely a "w" or "y". Any other possibilities I'm missing?
Are we agreed on "Durban- Natal" without a crossed "t" (isn't that cross called a tiddle as in "jot and tiddle"?)? And I see no argument with "28" and "79", but that fancied "4" could be a "9".

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:04 pm

Couldn't be "Harry", could it?

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:11 pm

What about 'Place by Order Book'?

M

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:18 pm

Mike,
Where did THAT come from (LOL)? I'm now seeing "herbeth" as the last part. I'm not crazy, am I? This is incomprehensible!

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:38 pm

Had to resolve one mystery for myself anyway. "Tiddle" means "to fondle" (OK, our kind reader is thinking that this was some kind of Freudian slip on my part?), "tittle" is the dot over an "i" and the cross of a "t" is a "jot" if one stretches the definition just a wee bit.

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:26 pm

Well the logic would be that this is a set of regulations published the previous year and signed off on a date during the war, when presumably the owning unit would be mustered and in the field. Such pamphlets would take time to disseminate, and often only go down to one or two copies per unit. Whichever this unit this was may not even have existed at the time of publication.

It may be a flawed assumption that this is a name indicating personal ownership. If you have a date on an item of military correspondence (in the sense that everything that arrives in the unit mail bag is 'correspondence'), it is often to indicate the date at which the person in authority saw it or read it. Hence say the OC of the unit, or possibly the Adjt, would date it as having been read by someone in authority accompanied by an imperative - in this case that a set of regulations should be placed by the order book. The order book would be what is known today as daily detail and is the central point by which instructions for the following day are disseminated. Thus all the officers in a unit would come to see the order book on a regular basis. This is a good way of drawing things to peoples attention in the days pre-dating any capacity to reproduce things save by means of a printing press. I suggest it only because it sort of looks like that's what it says (to me!) but I absolutley accept it could say almost anything!! Try my form of words against the letters and see if you can see what I mean.

Regards

Mike

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:22 pm

By "THAT", Mike, I meant the unexpected appearance of an eminence grise like yourself with a completely different angle of attack! I've been trying to see a name here (a mindset on my part) and out of nowhere comes the opinion that it might not even be a name at all. A problem I have with that is there's no logic behind written instructions that no one seems to be able to read? I have been around long enough to realize that logic doesn't seem to be a major driving force behind Western Civilizaion! The comfortable and concise style of script suggests to me that the writer was not illiterate so I'm assuming everything is correctly spelled (whatever it is) and I'm also making a leap of faith by believing that only a signature could be so illegible.

For what it's worth, there is a correction written on one page in the same hand as the cover. It's a subset below "Section right" and where "front" was printed in bold, it's been crossed out and "section left" has been written in the margin. Would that suggest the possession by an officer empowered to alter such an item? The handwritten "section left" is cursive and easily read.

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:35 pm

Alan

That's a clever piece of jiggery-pokery, in separating the handwriting from the background!

Sawubona

The top line certainly is a bit of a mystery, even though the handwriting itself is fairly standard Victorian style. There would appear to be one or two missing (i.e. "dry") down strokes, which then tends to present a completely different picture to the words as originally intended. This was quite common in the days of ink and dodgy pen-knibs. (School-days rapidly come back in the memory!) The enlarged version also appears to betray one or two letters apparently in a different style, although this becomes far less obvious in the normal sized example.

It may contain a signature or name but I wouldn't bet on it. The apparent capital H may well be a capital C, the initial connected downstroke merely being an elaborate (but standard) part of it. The letter which precedes the bit appearing to form the syllable "herbe" or "harbe" may well be a "d", featuring a missing downstroke (or upstroke, as that is how it would have been formed). The letter preceding this possible "d" may be an "a". The first syllable or word has several awkward possibilities, mainly because the letters don't all seem to conform in style. I suspect at least one missing stroke here, possibly more.

The final character of the top line - as seen in the enlarged version - appears to me not to be a continuation of the last word. Note how the finish of the "e" does not naturally join with the beginning of the next character. (In the unenlarged version this may not be apparent). Is this last character, therefore, a detached capital letter - all on its own? If so, I can't believe it is anything other than a Capital D, not quite exactly the same - but certainly not dissimilar - to the D for Durban below. Was someone initialling for having seen this instructions book, perhaps, as one does before passing it on?

There may just be a signature involved, although it could be a phrase none of us has yet suspected. I certainly don't think a signature containing the surname Herbert is involved. I agree that if a name does appear, then a rank almost certainly would precede it. There are several letters which do not appear to conform to the style of the rest of the words, but the fact is they must, as an educated hand has written it fluently and reasonably quickly, so the rather laboured efforts are not laboured at all but slightly corrupted in appearance. I agree that "proper" handwriting is now a thing of the past. In palaeography, once learnt, 16th and 17th century "secretary hand", although completely different to modern letters, is easier to read than Victorian, the 19th century always being the worst of all!

With regard to your parents (a good idea, by the way) North American and Antipodean writing styles taught in their schools survived much later than they did in this country, so that a 60/70 year old (or older) from across the pond or from Down Under writes completely differently to a 60/70 year old in GB - even though there are similarities, and even though the 60/70 year old Briton writes differently to the younger generations. I like to think I can identify handwriting from elderly(ish) Americans, Canadians and New Zealanders quite easily - they are different from each other and quite different to British styles.

That's another story - I've got a printout of the above handwriting on my desk here and will keep looking at it, hoping to crack it! Not very helpful so far ...

Peter

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:36 pm

Peter,
I'm speechless! It's been obvious to me for a long while that there is a diverse as well as deep reservoir of knowledge, interest and training among the members of this site, but I had no idea that it ranged quite as far afield as your previous comments suggest. How is it that you are privy to such arcana?
I'm going to have to print out a large copy of Alan's "jiggery-pokery" (can that be a transitive verb as well?) and study it carefully in the light of your observations.
Thank you for keeping the hope alive that someday I may know what was written.

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:59 am

Sawubona

Well, still not sufficiently knowledgeable, I'm afraid, that I can offer you an accurate transcription yet!

Accurate genealogical research requires a sound understanding of many primary sources of the last four or five centuries, which means (firstly) learning how to read the hands of different periods (have a look at some medieval, Tudor or Stuart text when you get a chance and you'll see what I mean!). Secondly, a familiarity with Victorian handwriting (which is much closer, almost identical, to that of our own age but was often very hurried) simply comes with the experience of reading it almost every day for 30 years or so.

It's just what one becomes used to. For me, I save that sort of awe on this site for those such as Neil Aspinshaw, Adrian Whiting or John Young etc., when they discuss the finer (very finer!) points of the Martini-Henry and its history, or the development of the military equipment of the period or the myriad changes in uniform and the various bits and pieces thereon!

Peter

Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:52 pm

I was leafing through Barthop's book on the Anglo-Boer War and I noted mention of the town in Natal called Chieveley (which is spelled throughout the book excepting the index as "Chievely") . I wondered if the first word in the first line might not be "Chievely". It's a stretch, but less of one than most suggestions. To anyones knowledge, was there a "Mounted Rifle" unit based or at least stationed for a while in 1879 in this town a bit North-east of Durban?

Peter,
Was there a Victorian cursive equivalent of our not so modern ampersand and could the middle symbol in the first line be such, as in "something AND something"?

Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:26 pm

Sawubona

No, I don't think it says Chievely, unfortunately. In fact, I'm not even sure Chievely existed in 1879. (It was a bit further away than just "a bit north-east of Durban," as it was in the vicinity of Estcourt and Frere, about 120 miles or so from Durban).

There was more than one variant of the ampersand but the script on the booklet doesn't remind me of any of them.

Peter

Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:52 pm

Thanks again for that, Peter. I was reading in bed late at night and came across mention of "Chievely" and there was a flash of a bright light of revelation. I sprang up and ran to get the scan and by that time it "had to be" Chievely. Maps of South Africa certainly are deceiving- it looks just up the road from Durban. It is in Natal though.
Just a thought on the ampersand. I saw several cursive versions of the symbol, but I agree that none of them seem to fit.

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:52 pm

Its wildly annoying!

I get.... i_arber_ at the end or

.... i_erber_ or

.... i_orber_

which gets me precisely nowhere worth being!! The Lord only knows what it says at the beginning!

As ever

Mike

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:05 pm

If there are other samples of writing by the same hand inside the booklet, they might give a clue. Any chance of scans of those? I'd be happy to see if they can be enhanced if sent as reasonable resolutions.