They came, they served

Peter De Silva was one of the tens of thousands of men who lost their lives on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Peter had been working as a clerk in the Office of the Governor General before enlisting.

Lewis Aubrey Walcott was born in Barbados but was living in London when he enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1906. He served until 1911 but was called up again at the outbreak of war in 1914.

John Ellis has researched the military careers of these two men who served the ‘Mother Country’ during the First World War and you can read about them here:

http://historycalroots.com/our-boy-peter-private-peter-de-silva-missing-in-action-at-the-somme/

http://historycalroots.com/the-backbone-of-the-battalion-lewis-aubrey-walcott-stoker-1st-class-of-the-royal-navy-1906-1919/

An A-Z index

As the site has expanded it has become increasingly difficult to find information about individuals you may be interested in. For someone entirely self-taught in the mysterious ways of WordPress, creating an index has been a major technical challenge, but, today, I have made an index page live on the site:

http://historycalroots.com/a-z-index/

All the main people on all the pages of the site have been indexed. Some of the main posts have been indexed too but, by their nature, posts may be of only temporary interest and so not all posts have been included in the index. The index is a work in progress and, if you have any comments, please feel free to use the ‘contact’ page to offer feedback.

I will get my apologies in first. The internal links should all work today but that might change (!), I will check from time to time to make sure they are still working but, if you come across one that isn’t and you get a ‘page not found’ message, please let me know. The index will take you to the right page for that person but not always to the exact place on the page where their name appears, you may need to scroll a little to find the name.

I hope the index helps you find what you are looking for!