I have done some research into the life and service of Charles St Maur Ingham. Much of this research was done using the vast resources of the internet, although some has come from my own sources. Some of the primary online sources are:
www.ancestry.ca This, or one of it’s other national forms, is an absolute essential for research. Although set up as a resource for tracing your own family tree, it is the best source of it’s kind for military records. I have the ’world’ version, which costs a little more, but allows me to look up records from all over the world.
www.thepeerage.com This resource is only useful for tracing members of the British aristocracy, as Ingham was.
Anglo Boer War website An excellent reference site on all aspects of the Second Boer War 1899-1902
The Long, Long Trail Best WW1 reference site on the British Army on the internet
London Gazette Home Page Trying to research a British or Commonwealth officer without using the London Gazette is pretty much impossible
Here is what I have so far. At the moment it is just a rough series of events that I have grouped into a basic history of his life:
Early Life
Charles George St Maur Ingham was born in the Parish of St George Hanover Square, Middlesex, England (now City of Westminster, London) on 5 September 1873. His parents were James Penrose Ingham and Lady Caroline Margarite Stanhope. The youngest of three children, he was fairly typical of the British ‘officer class’ of the period, born into a wealthy family and receiving a good education. I found a reference of his time at Eton College in the book Eton in the Eighties by Eric Parker which states: “On the Collegers' side, in these two years, the names in the record of the war are not so frequent. In 1889 C. G. St. Maur Ingham played goals, and ten years later served with his battery in South Africa”.
The London Gazette for 5th March 1895 records his commission into the RA from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich: “Gentleman Cadet Charles St Maur Ingham, from the Royal Military Academy, to be Second Lieutenant in succession to Lieutenant A. F. S. Scott, seconded. Dated 1st March, 1895”.
Second Boer War
The next references to him I have found are from the Boer War. He is listed on the roll for T Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, which must have been his original unit.
This picture is captioned as “T, E and J Battery Officers”, and it is very likely that St Maur Ingham is one of the subalterns on the right. His entry on the medal roll for the Queen’s South Africa Medal confirms that he qualified for the following clasps, which give a general indication of his service: Relief of Kimberley (February 1900), Paardeberg (February 1900), Dreifontein (March 1900), Johannesburg (May 1900), Diamond Hill (June 1900) and Belfast (August 1900).
His participation in the Relief of Kimberley has been recorded in the following montage picture:
Despite it’s rather Monty Pythonesque look, the picture has all officers involved in the relief, with Lieutenant C St M Ingham being number 210. The Medal Roll for T Bty, RHA is reproduced here:
The remarks column on the right notes that Captain C St M Ingham transferred on 1st March 1901 to the “1-Pr Maxims”, a Royal Field Artillery unit. This is confirmed by this second QSA Medal Roll for a unit entitled 1-Pr Maxims RA (Pom-Poms). These 1-Pr Maxims were new weapons, basically a 37mm machine gun (known as a Pom-Pom from the sound it made) and, despite later being classed as an anti-aircraft weapon, it was used against infantry in South Africa. Here is a picture of an example manned by Australian troops:
Although the weapon had originally been rejected by the British government, Maxim-Nordenfelt had sold the weapon to South Africa, and some of these early versions were used by the Boers against British troops.
The next reference I have for him is another Gazette entry from 10th September 1901, when he was ‘mentioned in despatches’ (the first of 5 MIDs that I have found).
His entitlement for the King’s South Africa medal was recorded thus:
And he is also noted on the following QSA Medal Roll:
This last roll gives his unit as 116th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, which I am assuming was his unit after the 1-Pr Maxims. After the Boer War, he married his wife, Phyllis Geraldine Betton-Betton-Foster on 29 September 1903. They had one daughter, Geraldine St Maur Ingham.
I will continue this with evidence I have uncovered about his WW1 service and subsequent life.
Rob
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