I was particularly interested to read the ‘Q&A’ article in the April issue of the magazine in which your military expert Phil Tomaselli expressed surprise at a Nottingham man serving in the Royal Fusiliers during the First World War.
When investigating the military service of my grandfather William Fernyhough in the Great War, I was nonplussed to find that he served in the Royal Fusiliers, which as Phil mentioned was also known as the City of London Regiment, having strong ties with the capital. Since my grandfather was from the Potteries and other relatives had served in the North Staffordshire Regiment or other locally based regiments, this didn’t make sense to me.
William’s army medical history reveals that he enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers at Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent, on 1 September 1914, and at that time he was a 21-year-old fitter and turner at an engineering company. He passed away in 1944 so I never knew him and don’t know how he came to join up within a month of Britain entering the conflict, particularly because he was by this time courting my grandmother. The young man was clearly swept up
