This photo of the Vignale family (reproduced courtesy of Joan Leggatt) shows Raphael Vignale at the top. Raphael was a cocoa planter and this photo was probably taken on the steps of his house in Trinidad. In front of him, from left to right, stand Rudolph (Otho Rudolph), Ralph (Ralph Ernest) and Raphael’s wife, Adelaide. In front of them, again from left to right, are Alice (?), Joe, Adolph, Victor and Marietta. On her own at the front of the group is the youngest, Cicely. We are going to focus particularly on the two eldest boys, Otho Rudolph and Ralph Ernest.
OTHO RUDOLPH AND RALPH ERNEST
We stumbled by accident across the story of Otho (spelt Otto on some records but, for consistency, we have used Otho throughout) Rudolph Vignale on Ancestry, subsequently we also found a reference to Otho and his brother Ralph on a WordPress blog at ‘greatwarlondon’. Both Otho and Ralph served during World War One.
The brothers together in England
Our research into Otho and Ralph picks up the story in 1911 when they appear in the UK census for the first time. We must assume that, at the time of the 1901 census, the boys were still in Trinidad. Ralph Ernest is age 27 (indicating that he was born c1884) and Otho is aged 20 (born c1891). Both brothers declare that they were born in ‘Trinidad, BWI [British West Indies]’ and, more specifically, ‘Arima, County of St George’. Ralph has married Henrietta Adelaide, who was born in Deptford, London and is, presumably, white. The couple have a daughter, Beryl , aged 1 year and 7 months, who had been born in Maida Vale so the family have only moved to their current address in Croydon (17 Amberley Grove) relatively recently. Otho is living with them and is single. The house has six rooms. Both men are employed, Ralph as an ‘electrical engineer – telephones’ and Otho as a ‘dental mechanic’.
Otho
Otho’s military service started on 26th February 1916 when he enlisted in Croydon. His address at the time was 116 St James Road, Croydon. Conscription had not been introduced at this stage (although it soon would be) so we can assume that Otho was a willing volunteer. At his medical examination his eyesight was recorded as 6/9 in both eyes, this is not perfect but is the level nowadays considered necessary for driving. His next of kin is shown as Mr Raphael Vignale of 60 Huron Street, Toronto, Canada (we know from other sources that Raphael’s business failed and, presumably, this prompted him to re-locate to Canada).
Otho was called up in May and on 13th was posted to the Royal Artillery. On 10th June 1916, after a period of initial training, he joined the 2/1st Northumbrian (North Riding) Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery. He moved on to A Battery, Heavy Artillery, where he qualified as a signaler.[1]
Somewhat belatedly on 26th October 1918, Otho was transferred to the Royal Medical Corps where his skills as a dental mechanic could be used to benefit serving troops. Dentists were quite important to the war effort as ‘tooth ache’ was a fairly common reason for people to be treated in the casualty clearing stations in France. In ‘Sisters of the Somme’ by Penny Starns, a Captain Coe is quoted as reporting: ‘The general condition of the teeth of patients is deplorably bad … there is almost an entire absence of appreciation of clean mouths and care of teeth – numbers of men frankly stating they had never used a tooth brush in their lives’.[2]
On Otho’s army file there is a copy of an intriguing Regimental Conduct Sheet, Army Form B.120. The record is badly damaged and only the words: ‘certified that there is no record of […] soldier having occurred […]’ are clearly visible. Some sort of incident had taken place (otherwise why raise the form?) but, due to its damaged state, we cannot know what it was. We could speculate that there had been some sort of altercation due to Otho’s colour but it would just be speculation.
The records show that Otho served the war years in the UK and was never posted to France. He spent four days in hospital with influenza in June 1918, which was a major source of fatalities during and particularly, after, the war. He was demobilised on 13th February 1919 and then served until 1920 at the dental centre in Blackpool.
After the war he continued his career as a dentist and appears in a number of phone directories listed as such: 1931 (in Croydon); 1954 (in Grays); and 1955 (in Grays).
We know that on 30th July 1932 he left Liverpool on board the Duchess of York, bound for Quebec, probably to visit family members in Canada. He travelled alone and 3rd class.
In March 1933, aged c42, he married Florence M Earl in Croydon.
Otho died on 1st August 1955 age 64, seemingly of lung cancer. He is buried in Grays New Cemetery in the District of Thurrock. His grave is unmarked. In his will he left his widow, Florence, around £5,000 (equivalent to around £92,000 today).
The solid, detatched house in Palmers Avenue, Grays where Otho was living at the time of his death, indicates that he must have prospered as a dentist:
Ralph
Ralph married Henrietta in the summer of 1908 and the marriage certificate shows Ralph’s father as Raphael Vignale, a cocoa planter.
On 21st August 1912, Henrietta, Beryl and Gwendolyn (this is clearly Ralph’s wife and two children) arrived in Liverpool on a Cunard ship, the Campania, from New York. Somewhat implausibly, their ‘country of last permanent residence’ is shown as USA (someone merely put dittos down much of the column). We do not know the circumstances of this trip but it is worth noting that, later, army records (see below) show Gwendolyn as having been born in Trinidad in 1912.
Ralph enlisted on 15th July 1915 (seven months before his brother). Originally a Private, he was made an (unpaid) acting Corporal on 23rd October 1915 and appointed ‘paid’ from 17th December 1915. He was promoted to Corporal on 5th February 1916 and posted on 1st September 1916. He served in the 4/4 Queens Ambulance (this is shown on his service record and is also what Otto says when he names Ralph as his next of kin), Royal West Surrey Regiment. He was discharged on 14th February 1917 and re-enlisted on 17th in the British West Indies Regiment (as a Private), this was part of a concerted move by the authorities to get ‘black’ troops out of regular army units where they served alongside white soldiers, and into the recently formed BWIR (all black apart from its white officers).
At the time of his enlistment in the British West Indies Regiment Ralph has three children: Beryl Adelaide (named in the 1911 census); Mary Gwendoline (born in 1912 in Port of Spain); and Joan Edith (born 11th March 1916).
His army records clearly state that he ‘served in France 179 days’ with the British Expeditionary Force but the BWIR in France did not see front line action and so it is probable he served behind the lines after his transfer to that Regiment.
Ralph’s service in the British West Indies Regiment ended when he was discharged on 1st April 1918 ‘being no longer physically fit for war service’ (due to acute nephritis, a serious kidney disease). His military character is described as ‘good’ and ‘according to the records in this office, he is a sober and well conducted man’. His complexion is ‘dark’, his eyes ‘brown – dark’ and his hair ‘dark’. His trade is described as ‘journalism and electrical engineer’. He has a ‘knee scar’. His rank is ‘Private’ (Corporal has been crossed out). He had a tattoo ‘C A’ on each arm.
After the war Ralph studied to become a barrister, passing his final exams in 1922 and becoming a member of the Middle Temple. [3] He may well have had difficulty finding work as a barrister in London due to his colour and on 9th December 1922 he left London on a ship, the Speaker, bound for Trinidad. He seems to have thrived in Trinidad and became Mayor of Arima (possibly from 1935 – 1941), the town of his birth. [4]
He know he returned to England at least once as, on 8th June 1937, he disembarked at Plymouth having sailed from Trinidad. His occupation is given as ‘barrister at law’.[5] Whether he spent all the intervening years in Trinidad is not entirely clear but he does get a mention (it seems likely to be him) in ‘The Trinidad Awakening – West Indian Literature of the Nineteen Thirties’ by Reinhard W Sander. The reference is not an especially flattering one: ‘A coloured man, Ralph Vignale used to write novels which were serialised in the Port of Spain Gazette in the 1920s – all about the English upper class, riding to hounds and all that. How pathetic! What a commentary on British rule!’.[6] The fact that Ralph was having novels serialised in Trinidad seems to imply that he was actually resident there.
Clearly Ralph was a man of some substance in Trinidad and we assume he is buried in Arima.
Two other Vignale brothers
During our research we stumbled across another pair of Vignale brothers neither of whom are shown in the family photograph above. On 8th March 1909 Robert (aged 17) and Vincent (aged 16) Vignale disembarked from a Royal Mail Steam Packet ship, The Nile, having started their journey in Trinidad some weeks earlier. The ship made various stops on its way to England including Kingston, Jamaica and New York[8].
Clearly they didn’t settle well in England because in 1910 they appear to have approached the Croydon Charitable Society requesting help with the cost of repatriation. The authorities in Trinidad were asked whether the boys’ father, Raphael Vignale, was in a position to help. A reply from Government House, dated 16th November 1910, states that: ‘I have ascertained that Mr Rafael Vignale, the father of these boys, was at one time a cocoa proprietor here but that he has lost his properties, and has several judgements against him. He is therefore not now in a position to contribute to the cost of repatriating his two sons’. The file concludes with the comment that the Croydon Charitable Society should be informed ‘I don’t see that we can do any more’.[9] There is no trace of any Croydon Charitable Association papers in the Croydon archives.[10]
It seems likely that these two boys were brothers of Otto and Ralph but it is odd that they don’t feature in the photograph (unless they are Joe / Adolph / Victor travelling under different names)..
Another two brothers!
Just when I thought I could draw my Vignale research to a close I found this on an Ancestry forum:
‘Raphael Vignale arrived in Trinidad with his mother as a babe in arms in the middle of the 18th settling in Arima the highest point in the island His father, a planter owned and operated a plantation in Venezuela . Raphael and his brother took over the plantation after his father died still keeping the home in Arima. where their children were born namely, Adolph, Otho, Percy, Oliver , Cycely , Marietta , Ralph , Victor and Joseph At this time Venezuela became even more unstable with the cutting of the Panama canal by indentured labour mostly Indian. Yellow fever was rampant and many left the canal to work on the plantations It was later in the political upheaval of the American Spanish war that the brothers were incarcerated and the family plantation was lost. The family emigrated to Canada except for Otho who had been sent previously to England for his education.
Ralph , Otho , Victor and Percy were conscripted to joined the armed forces of the first world war spending their service time in France. Percy was an war artist and depicted the war saga however he died just after armistice. Victor settled in Ontario as a market gardener later becoming a councilor for the greater Toronto area Joseph graduated as a vet practicing in North Bay Ontario.’
This is intriguing as it introduces two new names: Percy and Oliver (although still no mention of Robert or Vincent). It also identifies two more brothers who are said to have served in the war, Percy and Victor:
‘…Victor and Percy were conscripted to joined the armed forces of the first world war spending their service time in France. Percy was an war artist and depicted the war saga however he died just after armistice’.
Neither come up on Forces War Records site, however:
Percy does come up on ‘livesofthegreatwar.org’ which gives a service number for Percy L Vignale (Army Service Corps, service number M2/152861. Also ancestry.ca includes the information that a Percy Vignale died, aged 38, on Monday 22nd February 1926 in York, Ontario. It seems reasonable to assume this is the same man although 1926 can hardly be considered ‘just after armistice’.
Victor’s involvement in the war has not yet been tracked down but we have found the name Victor Vignale on a 1958 list of elected councillors for the Township of Ontario.[11] so it seems likely that he led a long and productive life.
Summary
What started out as a quest to show the role two brothers played in World War One has identified that, in fact, at least four Vignale brothers served their country during that conflagration. We are left wondering how many more black and mixed heritage soldiers served but have been forgotten by history?
POSTSCRIPT (March 2021)
It is probably evident from the above article that by the end of it we had identified more brothers than we started out with! It is also evident, I think, that there were some loose ends that we failed to tie up. The following article was shared with us by Nick Moreau of the Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives based in the town of Brampton, Ontario. The article makes it clear that there were actually ten siblings in total. This proves, if proof were needed, that historical research is an iterative process and that initial research sometimes prompts further interest and fresh revelations. Nick stumbled across our story about the Vignale brothers and kindly shared this further information about several of the brothers with us.
https://www.modernmississauga.com/main/2021/2/24/remembering-mississaugas-victor-vignale
References
[1] The basic source for this information is Otto’s military service records which can be found on ancestry and which have been summarised on ‘greatwarlondon’, a wordpress blog
[2] ‘Sisters of the Somme’ by Penny Starns, The History Press, 2016
[3] This is taken from ‘greatwarlondon’
[4] Borough of Arima Facebook page
[5] Ancestry UK incoming passenger lists for 1937
[6] ‘The Trinidad Awakening – West Indian Literature of the Nineteen Thirties’ by Reinhard W Sander. I found this through a google search via warwick.ac.uk. Ralph is criticised for aping white culture rather than writing from the perspective of native Trinidadian traditions
[7] Newsday.co.tt website
[8] ancestry UK incoming passenger lists for 1909
[9] The National Archives at Kew reference: CO 295/460/58
[10] The brothers’ case is briefly mentioned by Jeff Green in his book ‘Black Edwardians’ but, like us, he was unable to discover the outcome of the case
[11] cawthra-bush.org