Stuart Valentine shows us that it is possible to separate family tales from actual, documented evidence – if you are prepared to question what you think you already know…
Look at this photo (shown right) and well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?
He is a Scottish soldier, his cap, his kilt and his piper’s hose couldn’t state the case more clearly. Actually, he isn’t, but that’s just the start of a long and fascinating piece of research.
He was just a name on a family tree; we knew only the bare minimum. He had a tragically short life – killed in 1917, just months before his 21st birthday – in what is today a largely forgotten theatre of the First World War: Mesopotamia. If there was little to know of his life, perhaps it should be possible to find out about his death. We had four pieces of ‘evidence’: a photograph, a name and two ‘facts’ of family information. The first was ‘he was in the Black Watch’.
In fact, he wasn’t. His death certificate showed that he was in the 1st Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, confirmed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Debt of Honour register, and by the regimental museum of the Highland Regiments, which identified the uniform in the photograph.
The second said he was ‘killed at Gallipoli’. Again, he wasn’t. He died of wounds at the end of February 1917 in the Persian Gulf. So, the ‘facts’ were wrong by two years and several hundred miles. At least the name was right: he really was Hubert Hibbert.
Research revealed that Hubert was born on 8 August 1896 in Birch Vale, a village outside the town of New Mills in Derbyshire. He was the eldest child, and only son, of Joseph Hibbert and his wife Annie (née Wharmby). Both families were long-established in New Mills. Hubert was joined three years later by a sister, Doris. She and her brother became very close, and after his death it is little exaggeration to say that she mourned him for the rest of her life. Her only child was named Hubert, a name he disliked, but she told him – and later his children – many stories of her adored big brother. It was a pity that her recollections of fact were so hazy, because it was from her that the pieces of disinformation came.
When trying to uncover the career of a soldier in the armies of the First World War, chance plays a great part. Has his service record survived? With the malevolence of fate, Hubert Hibbert’s papers had not. So tracing his progress from the Der
