Friday, August 15, 2025

August 15th, 2025 - The 80th Anniversary of VJ Day

 I'm ashamed to admit, that I was a bit slow remembering that today is the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of VJ Day.1

I imagine my Mum, in particular, would have had something to say about that, both as an ex-service woman (post war), but also because one of her aunts was later married to a man who had been a rubber planter, and who, I believe, spent much of the war imprisoned in Changi Prison, on Singapore.

Thinking about the day, there didn't seem to be an obvious way of easily identifying servicemen who might have been involved. But the news today reminded me about the "Calling Blighty" films, short films, made by servicemen in the Far East, between 1944-1946, as messages home to their families.2 

On searching the database, I discovered a recording of a Joseph PARRY, from Thatto Heath, Lancashire.3

I might be duplicating research already carried out by the team (since it isn't that difficult to trace some people, these days.) But I thought I would see what I could find out about Joseph.

From the film, as well as mention of his Mum and Dad, we get the names of "Flo", "Davy", "Ronnie", "Ruth", and "Mary". [If I'm hearing them correctly.]

His service number is given on the site, 1731832, but no regiment, or rank. 

My first port of call was the National Archives, from which I learnt that Joseph's records are closed until 20354:


However, as you can see, the entry does give his date of birth, 6 September 1919.  

Using this, I can see that there are at least nine trees on Ancestry for him, although some have the usual issues, such as place names allocated to the USA, a lack of information about vital events, and also several of them are private. 

I am going to ignore the trees to start with, and just see what I can find out using the information I have.

I started with just his name, and the keyword of his service number.  That found me two records in each of FindMyPast and Ancestry

From FindMyPast

First name(s) Joseph
Last name Parry
Service number 1731832
Regiment The Royal Regiment Of Artillery
Year 1940
Country Great Britain
View the original source View the record's source 
Original source Royal Artillery Attestations 1883-1942
Record set World War 2 Allies Collection
Category Military, armed forces & conflict
Subcategory Second World War
Collections from Americas, Australasia, Great Britain, Ireland, UK None

First name(s) Joseph
Last name Parry
Birth year -
Birth place -
Age -
Attestation year 1940
Service number 1731832
Former service number -
Record set Royal Artillery Attestations 1883-1942
Category Military, armed forces & conflict
Subcategory Regimental & Service Records
Collections from Great Britain, UK None


Since his attestation was in 1940, he, unfortunately, appears in the later books, which (according to the description on FindMyPast) give less information than the earlier ones, namely just:
 
Army number
Full name/s
Details of transfer to other Corps or cause of becoming non-effective (including date)

And any abbreviations need looking up in the King's regulations, which were published in 1914, 1923, and 1940.

In Joseph's entry, the last column shows "Field 1/9/44 (7028A)" (in red), "17/10/46 Z/T"(in blue), and "(FIELD BRANCH)" stamped in purple ink.  Under his name there is also "134/113" (written like a fraction).  

I'm not going to stop to find the relevant King's Regulations now, as I would like to post this today. But I might come back to the abbreviations later.

From Ancestry

A card appears for Joseph in the database, "UK, World War II Royal Artillery Tracer Cards, 1939-1948", which comes from the Royal Artillery Museum; Salisbury Plain, Larkhill, Wiltshire.  These cards were used by the Royal Artillery, in order to show where a soldier was, at any particular time.

There are a lot more abbreviations on this one, which, again, I'm not going to try to identify straight away. But from the card, there is the information that Joseph enlisted on 12/12/1940, and his unit was the "304, EA A/TK Regt." There is then a date, "1/9/44", in what looks to be the same ink. Above the "unit" is written "BY5/44", in blue.

Underneath that, are several lines in blue:

216/45 302 (EA F Regt 18/7/45
254/45 Depot RA 24/10/45
Release
Unit 93/46 [?]hist (&) 10/7/46
Release
1484/46 Z/T Ris: 17/10/46

And, finally, more in black

48/Recs/53 DiscPara 234-11, 20/4/53
Docs IY/E Lib

The second record on Ancestry is from the database "UK, British Army World War II Medal Cards, 1939-1945." Unfortunately, the actual image is only available on Fold3, which I don't have a subscription for, so I am using Ancestry's transcription, since it provides some useful details:

Name Joseph Parry
Rank Lance Bombardier
Birth Date 1919
Award Date 15 Apr 1950
Discharge Date 17 Oct 1946
Applicant's Delivery Address 498. Sutton Heath Rd Thatto Heath St Helens Lancs
Service Group Number 33
Class of Release A
Service Number 1731832
Regiment 304. (E A) Regt. Field, (R. A.)
Stars/Medals Issued 1939-45; Burma; Defence; War

Since Joseph did not enlist until 1940, he will appear in the 1939 Register - at this point, I returned to the pedigrees on Ancestry, since I had noticed, in the listing of the nine trees, that a couple of them did include the 1939 Register.

And, yes, following up the image for those entries does show a PARRY family who live at 498 Sutton Heath Road, St Helens.5

Not all of the family are visible, which indicates some might even still be alive. But the visible entries are:
Sarah PARRY, 9 May 1891, M, Unpaid Domestic Duties
Florence PARRY, (later to become CROSS), 3 Aug 1923, S, Greengrocery Shop Assistant
Joseph PARRY, 6 Sep 1919 S Coal miner (Haulage) Below 
[There are four "officially closed" records below this]

According to the pedigrees, Joseph married a Ruth Mildred SMITH, in 1946, and he died in 1996.  I suspect his future wife might be the "Ruth" mentioned in the film.

As well as Florence, who was visible on the 1939 Register, several trees show a sibling "May" (b.1928). But no other siblings, which is disappointing, since I had been going to stop at this point.
But now I 'need' to find out who else Joseph was referring to in the film. ☺

So, first I'm trying FindMyPast, in case other names have been uncovered in their version of the 1939 Register. 

It turns out one of the four has - Ronald, born 8 March 1925. So that's probably "Ronnie."

The Ancestry trees indicated that the maiden name for Sarah, Joseph's mother, was "Phillips". So I started by checking the GRO Index for births of the known children, to confirm that maiden name, and found the following entries:

Joseph: GRO Reference: 1919  D Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1547
Florence: GRO Reference: 1923  S Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1419
Ronald: GRO Reference: 1925  M Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1308

Since I can find these three entries, which match to the information I have, I'm going to narrow down the search to just the Prescot district, and include the mother's maiden name, to see who else I can find over the years after June 1917, when Sarah PHILLIPS married James PARRY.

Unfortunately, PARRY is a 'frequently occurring' surname so, even narrowing the search terms down like that, produces several 'extras', who are unlikely to be relevant:

Robert: GRO Reference: 1915  D Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1388 
Lily: GRO Reference: 1917  D Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1131
Robert Lloyd: GRO Reference: 1919  J Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1116
[Joseph fits here 1919] 
Albert Charles: GRO Reference: 1921  S Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1484
[Florence fits here 1923]
[Ronald fits here 1925]
Muriel: GRO Reference: 1926  S Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1347
Thomas: GRO Reference: 1928  S Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1150
May: GRO Reference: 1928  D Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1209
Donald: GRO Reference: 1931  S Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1273 
Hilda; GRO Reference: 1933  S Quarter in PRESCOT  Volume 08B  Page 1172

The first three entries can be discounted, Robert Lloyd's birth being too close to Joseph's birth, and the previous two not being shown in the 1921 census, which I later looked at.6

The "females 1927+/-2 years" search results showed four entries without the mother's maiden name, along with one having the maiden name "HORNBY" (which seems a bit strange!) 

The "males 1932+/-2 years" search results showed eight entries without the mother's maiden name, one of which was a David. ("Davy" seemed to be one of the people Joseph named in the film.)

The "females 1932+/-2 years" search results also showed eight entries without the mother's maiden name.

There is an issue on the GRO site, in the later years, with regard to showing the mother's maiden names. The site also doesn't contain birth entries between 1934 - 1984.

So, I resorted to FreeBMD.  That just gave me the same people as above (with the exception of the Thomas in 1928, who wasn't found, for some reason). However, it did allow me to identify that the mother's maiden name of the "David" was MATTHEWS, so he isn't relevant. 

From the trees on Ancestry, and the 1921 census for the PARRY family, I know Sarah had been married before, her first husband, Peter TWIST, dying at Gallipoli.7 The 1921 census shows two children from the first marriage, Peter b. 1912, and Gladys b. 1914 - but those names don't seem to relate to the people named by Joseph in the film.

So I think I am reaching the end of what I can easily discover today.  One last attempt - any newspaper references to the PARRY family in Thatto Heath? (No)

So, quickly rechecking before posting - and I realise that, whereas Ancestry normally seem to batch together all the trees relating to a particular person, the set of nine trees I'd found earlier on Ancestry are not the only suggested ones - there is another batch, of five trees.  These indicate that the birth registrations for Muriel, and for Donald, possibly belong to the same family, and that there is then another, "unknown" daughter.

Have I misheard some of the names? Or might they be other people, rather than his siblings, that Joseph is naming?

It is very tempting, given the price of pdf birth certificates these days, to purchase those in order to resolve the issue, one way or the other.

But I am going to resist the temptation, and call it a day.  It only remains for me, over the next day or so, to contact all of the tree owners, to see if they are aware of the "Calling Blighty" films, and the possibility that one of their relatives - maybe even an ancestor - is shown in one.  

I hope I have done him justice.


Notes and Sources
1. VJ Day and the 80th Anniversary: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_over_Japan_Day
A Government site, marking the VE Day and VJ Day anniversaries https://ve-vjday80.gov.uk/



4. Joseph PARRY: National Archives result https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C20049000

5. 1939 Register entry: 1939 Register reference: RG 101/4607G

6. 1921 Census reference: RG 15/18047, ED 48, Sch 174; Book: 18047

7. Peter TWIST, on CWGC site: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/683686/peter-twist/



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Half way through August already! (July's news - and more sidetracks! :-) )

Much of my research time during July was spent creating posts for one of my other blogs. So this post was going to be one of those 'last minute' entries, sneaking in just before the end of the month, containing a round up of a few PARRY references that I have come across recently, along with information about some databases that have been mentioned on mailing lists, and which have turned out to contain relevant references.

But things are rarely that simple, and the day (and month!) passed by, with the post still unfinished.

So here we are, the middle of August and I have failed at my goal of writing (at least) one post each month throughout 2025.

Maybe next year..... ☺

But failure is no reason to stop 'practicing' so, to continue with posting something:

Here are some of the databases that came to my attention over the month:

Records for the Home Guard (WW2) for Durham are now available at the TNA and on the Genealogist site. The Home Guard (initially called the "Local Defence Volunteers") existed from 1940-1945.1

From my first glance, I was going to say there are fifteen PARRYs - but then I realised that a couple of them appear more than once so, to be correct, there are fifteen results, covering thirteen men. The 'duplications' appear to be because two of them served in two different battalions.

Their birth dates range from 1894 - 1926, which I thought was quite interesting.  National Service in the UK operated from 1939-19602 and, after a short period in 1939, when it only affected men aged 20-22 years old, the age range was increased to 18-41 years. In 1942, the upper age limit for men was then extended to 51 years.

So, some of the PARRYs would have been too old to be conscripted at the start of the war, and others too young. I'm assuming, at the moment, that those in the middle age range were either working in 'reserved' occupations, or had been rejected for active service as being medically unfit. 

But that would be an interesting follow-up activity to carry out, checking the enrolment forms at the TNA (available for free when signed in) to see what additional information about the men can be discovered. (But I won't sidetrack to do that now, or this post will never get finished!) 

Another database, "French register of deceased persons since 1970"

Somehow, the site https://arbre.app/insee came to my attention.  This is a site produced by an individual (Florian Cassayre), using data from INSEE, which is the French "National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies."3

There are 350 results when I search for PARRYs, and it is possible to download the results. 

Unfortunately, the site interface has 'crashed' several times, initially when I clicked on the settings button, to see what was there, and then again after I downloaded the results. So I'm not sure how stable it currently is - but it could be a useful site for anyone with French ancestry (or who is doing a one-name study.) (Or even just tracing people who disappeared across the channel - I've just found several potential entries for one of my other surnames, NAYLOR, including people who were born in the UK but died in France.)

The "statistics" tab shows a distribution of entries for the surname:

As well as graphs of annual births for the surname:




And also deaths: 




[The births graph shows less entries in the later years, since most of those people will still be alive, and therefore their information will not yet be included in the database.]  

I haven't read all the details about the site but assume it might be updated in the future, as more data gets released. 

A third site that came to my attention was the Oxfordshire Family History Society's database of "Transcribed Wills."4

There are four PARRYs currently mentioned in this, from three Wills:

In 1704, a William PARRY, Jr, was a witness to the Will of a William BOULTER of Kingham.

In 1740, a Barbara PARRY, of Standlake, received £20 from the Will of James TUCKEY of Cassington.  Barbara has been identified as "nee TUCKEY", although the Will doesn't specifically state that.

And then, in 1740, an Elizabeth PARRY, and an Isaac PARRY, are both listed as close relatives of a Thomas KILLINGWORTH, of St Martin in the Fields, Middlesex, Elizabeth being his sister, and Isaac his brother-in-law.  They each received £10, to purchase mourning dress.

As is often the case, probate entries, such as these, can provide useful details, which then lead to further information.  For example,  a possible baptism for Barbara TUCKEY can be found in Standlake, Oxfordshire, on 5 Nov 1707, daughter of a Richard TUCKEY (Ancestry). According to a couple of pedigrees on Ancestry, her marriage (to a Thomas PERRY, rather than PARRY) took place in Oxford, on 11 Aug 1730 - although the pedigrees show no source for that.  

However, FindMyPast has the "Oxfordshire Marriage Bonds 1634-1849" database, which does include the marriage (only as "1730," not the full date).  That marriage index can also be found on a page of the Whipple One-Name Study site.5 The database is only a transcription, no images, but the index shows Elizabeth's spouse as a Thomas PERRY, so that probate entry can now be identified as "potentially" not relevant to the PARRY study. (But the marriage index did turn up two other potential PARRY entries though - an Elizabeth PARRY of Abingdon, Berkshire,  marrying a John WRIGHT of Culham, in 1723, and Ann PARRY of Oxford, marrying a William STEEL, of Woodeaton, in 1830. So, lost one, gained two! ☺)

I had better luck following up the Elizabeth KILLINGWORTH. Again, her potential baptism can be identified using pedigrees on Ancestry (30 January 1724, Wootton, Oxfordshire). Her marriage to Isaac PARRY appears in the "England, Select Marriages, 1538-1973" on Ancestry, as having taken place on 5 Sep 1760, at Saint Martin In The Fields, Westminster.  This time, there are also images available, under "St Martin-In-The-Fields, 1757-1762", in the "Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935" database.  And Isaac is very clearly written as a PARRY (and Elizabeth's surname is spelt KILLINWORTH.)

Finally, the sidetrack - this is a bit of a 'meander' along the route my research went!

As I mentioned at the start of this post, much of my time recently has been taken up with other research - but even in doing that, I came across some PARRYs. (They do get everywhere. ☺)

These two are not 'previously unknown' PARRYs.  In fact, they are quite well known ones. 

But it's always interesting to come across new sources (although disappointing when one also finds errors in them!)

I've been looking into the progresses of Queen Elizabeth I and, in particular, her progresses to Coventry and Kenilworth. And I have known for some years that at least two PARRYs were servants of the Queen, both from before she came to the throne:

The first, Thomas PARRY (c.1515-1560), held various offices, including that of the Princess Elizabeth's "cofferer", responsible for paying her household expenses.6 The reference I came across was the 1823 version of the book about the Queen's Progresses, by John Nichols7

This contains an abstract of "The Accompte of THOMAS PARRY" - so I then went down a 'rabbit hole', trying to make sense of some of the quantities. For example, under "The Bakehouse and Pantrye", there were five payments for wheat, totaling 80 quarters of wheat, which I gather was about 160 stones, or 2240lb8

Thomas also paid for supplies to "The Buttery and Cellar", but I struggled to find 'sensible' conversions for these, since the list includes "10 dole of beer" at £10 3s, but the "dole" doesn't seem to be a measurement - it just refers to beer given out as charity. 

Another entry showed the purchase of "10 ton 1 pipe of beer" for £10 3s, the same cost as the 'dole' entry. So my assumption is that, that was likely to be the same quantity purchased in the 'dole' entry, as well.  

But whether the "10 dole of Gaskoine wine" at £80 was also 10 tons, I have no idea!

And yesterday, writing this up, I discovered that Thomas Parry's account of the Princess's household expenses, which covered the period from 1 October 1851 to 30 September 1852, was published by the Camden Society, in 1853 (after the Nichols' publication) and it is available in the Internet Archive.9

So, from that, I now know that there were actually over twenty entries relating to wheat, rather than just the five quoted in Nichols - and a lot more alcohol!

Clearly, I need to do more work to understand the account book.

The second PARRY I had found a reference to, still in Nichols, was Blanche PARRY (c1507 - 1590), one of Elizabeth's gentlewomen, and also keeper of the Queen's Jewels.10

Again, there is a lot of information available about Blanche, who was one of the Herefordshire PARRYs. But this reference initially sent me searching through the various versions of Nichols' work, looking at the listings of New Year gifts to, and from, the Queen.

I also came across the site https://tudorsdynasty.com/elizabeths-ladies/, which has some information, not just about Blanche, but also about the wife of the Thomas Parry above, Anne Rede, and the wife of their son, another Thomas Parry, Dorothy Brooke. Both of these women also served the Queen.

At least that site doesn't refer to any connection between Blanche PARRY, and Thomas PARRY. 

However, following up the various references mentioned on the site, led me to discover a doctoral thesis, by Charlotte Merton, concerning "The Women Who Served Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth: ladies, gentlewomen and maids of the Privy Chamber, 1553–1603."  This is available online.11

I'm looking forward to reading this - partly because it is a topic of interest. but also because it does have over forty references to the surname PARRY.  

However, I spotted that, on page 33, the thesis refers to Thomas PARRY (the husband of Anne Reade) as being the brother of Blanche PARRY.

No, they were *not* siblings.

That reminded me of another book I was looking at recently, which also contains an error, regarding their relationship - page 61 of "The Masters of the Revels and Elizabeth I's Court Theatre"12 refers to Blanche as being the wife of Thomas.

No, they were *not* married to each other.

Thomas PARRY was the son of Henry VAUGHAN of Tretower, Breconshire, who was the son of Sir Thomas VAUGHAN, the son of Robert VAUGHAN.

Yes, there is a reason for listing several generations - I often think it is interesting that Thomas took the surname PARRY (from his father's first name of Henry/Harry), in accordance with the Welsh patronymic style, despite the VAUGHANs having been using the English naming system (of a fixed surname), for several generations.  

Bearing in mind that this was at a time when many of the Welsh who were involved with the Royal court in England would have been doing exactly the opposite, particularly following the "Laws in Wales Acts" of 1535 and 1542.

So I often wonder, "Why?"

Blanche PARRY was the daughter of Henry Myles of Newcourt, in Bacton, Herefordshire. 

Again, her surname comes from the Welsh patronymic system - but her family had still been using that system over previous generations, with her line tracing from Griffith ap Henry, down through Henry ap Griffith, Myele Parrie, and then her father, Harry Myles, as you can see in the "Parry's of Golden Valley" pedigree at https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~parryresearch/family/gvfull.htm. 

Blanche never married, serving Elizabeth from the time of Elizabeth's birth in 1533, until Blanche's death in 1590. 

Although the various VAUGHAN and PARRY families in that border area of Herefordshire and Breconshire did intermarry (frequently!) there doesn't seem to be a close link between the two specific families of Thomas and Blanch. 

One day, I hope to get back to working on the early pedigrees, but that's enough sidetracking for now!


Notes and Sources

2. Conscription in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_Kingdom

3. INSEE, the French "National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.": 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_national_de_la_statistique_et_des_%C3%A9tudes_%C3%A9conomiques

4. Oxfordshire Family History Society's database of "Transcribed Wills":
http://wills.oxfordshirefhs.org.uk/index.html

5. Oxford Marriage Bonds, in the Whipple One-Name Study site: https://whipple.one-name.net/oxford/3_alpha_by_grooms_parish.pdf

6. Thomas PARRY, Cofferer to Queen Elizabeth I: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Parry_(Comptroller_of_the_Household) 

7. John Nichols: "The progresses and public processions of Queen Elizabeth. : Among which are interspersed other solemnities, public expenditures, and remarkable events during the reign of that illustrious princess. Collected from original manuscripts, scarce pamphlets, corporation records, parochial registers, &c., &c. Illustrated, with historical notes" available on the Internet Archives, at

https://archive.org/details/progressespublic01nich/page/n10/mode/1up?  

9. The Camden publication of Thomas Parry's account of the Princess's household expenses: "Household expenses of the Princess Elizabeth during her residence at Hatfield, October 1, 1551, to September 30, 1552," available from the Internet Archive  https://archive.org/details/householdexpense00elizrich/page/n11/mode/2up 

10. Blanche PARRY (c1507 - 1590): Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Parry 

There is also a book specifically about Blanche, written by Ruth Richardson, ‘Mistress Blanche, Queen Elizabeth I’s Confidante’.  Ruth's website can be found at https://www.blancheparry.com/index.shtml

11. Charlotte Merton's 1992 Thesis: "The Women Who Served Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth: ladies, gentlewomen and maids of the Privy Chamber, 1553–1603." available online - or, at least, it was a few days ago!

I downloaded the thesis from the University of Cambridge repository, 
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/373daa8b-6592-4796-ae95-25c9ce922988  However, the service is currently (18 August 2025) showing as "503 Service Unavailable". Hopefully, it is just a temporary issue.

12. "The Masters of the Revels and Elizabeth I's Court Theatre", W. R. Streitberger, Oxford University Press, 26 Feb 2016. The book is searchable on Google books, but it is not possible to view whole pages. https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Masters_of_the_Revels_and_Elizabeth.html?id=SQd-CwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y





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