This blog has touched on the role that British Home Children had in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and specifically the 18th Battalion. It is estimated that up to 10 percent of all Canadians can trace an ancestral connection with a British Home Child. One of the pleasures of hosting a Facebook Page for the 18th... Continue Reading →
A Numbers Game: Curious Case of Sequential Regimental Numbers and 4 Soldiers of the 116th Overseas Battalion
There are four men represented by sequential regimental numbers that are tied by their common experience and their relationship to each other. Two men were brothers and three men were Barnardo Boys. The fourth man shared the experience of serving with them and their act of enlisting tied them together until their ultimate fates. The... Continue Reading →
British Home Children and Barnardo Boys Who Paid the Ultimate Price
Until quite recently this blog only recognized one British Home Child. Private William Edwin Hunt, reg. no. 54081 was an 18th Battalion “Original” having enlisted in Guelph, Ontario on October 27th, 1914[i]. Sadly the research notes I have do not indicate the source as to how this soldier was discovered but his daughter, Mary Hunt... Continue Reading →
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 