Each day, thousands of men and women who risk their lives to make our country safer often go unrecognised. We might have ancestors who died decades ago serving their country but whose stories were never told. The availability of service records and medal rolls provides a means for family history researchers to learn more about their forebears who served in the armed forces. My great-great-uncle, Charles Phillip Madell, who served in the Boer War, World War I and as a military policeman in New Zealand, was one of those whose service was largely forgotten.

The youngest of nine children, Charles was born on 23 February 1877 to Thomas and Elizabeth Madell. His father was a carpenter by trade and his mother worked from home as a bonnet shape maker. The family appears in the 1881 census living at 86 Queens Head St, Islington, London. When Charles turned 13 he found a job working as a telephone messenger for the British postal service and then later on as a moulder in a factory. By the time of the 1891 census, the family have moved to 48 Wellesley Street, Stepney. It seemed as though Charles had completely disappeared by the time of the 1901 census. There was no obvious record of his death and the release of the 1911 census provided no clues as to his whereabouts.

The story of his life might have ended there had it not been for the release of the British Naval records by the National Archives (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/royal-navy-ratings-service-records-1853-1928/). This is a great resource for finding ancestors who served in the Royal Navy. The record set contains more than 700,000 Royal Navy service records covering the period between 1853 and 1928, with some of them covering periods of service up to 1950.

Charles joined the Royal Navy in April 1893 at the age of 16. His service record gives us an idea of what he looked like. Charles was 5ft 5in, had light brown hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion. There was a tattoo on his right forearm of a sailor dancing on a rum cask. The minimum enlistment period was 12 years. According to Section VI of the Kings Regulations and Admiralty Instructions for the Government of His Majesty’s Naval Service 1906, ‘marines will be discharged at the end of 12 years’ service from the age of 18, if at Headquarters; and those who re-engage for a further period of 9 years will, at the end of 21 years’ service from the age of 18, be entitled to their discharge with pensions’.

Charles first served on the St. Vincent as a Boy 2nd Class (B2C) from 11 February 1893 to 30 July 1894. By the time he was 18, Charles was serving on the Trafalgar and had started his period of continuous service engagement. He was rated as an ordinary seaman. Over the next several years, Charles served on a number of different vessels including the Hawker (25/3/1896 – 3/7/1896) and the Trafalgar (4/7/1896-11/7/1897). At the age of 21 he became eligible for the rating of Able Seaman (AB) while serving on the Royal Sovereign. Thereafter, he served on the Victory I (17/11/1898-13/2/1899) and the Excellent (14/2/1899-3/8/1899).

Charles saw action when the Second Boer War broke out in 1899. At that time he was stationed on the HMS Gibraltar under the command of Captain A H Limpus. The Gibraltar was a 1st Class twin screw cruiser of 7,700 tons and served from April 1901 to June 1902. Charles was awarded the Queen’s South Africa medal for his service. If your ancestor died in the Boer War, it’s worth looking at the War Memorial collection at TheGenealogist.co.uk. The website Boer-War.com also contains information about the Royal Navy ships that saw action in this war.

Charles served on the Gibraltar until 17 June 1904. His compulsory service was completed on 23 February 1895 and he was discharged on 22 February 1907. He spent just over 13 years in the Navy and his character over the course of his service was mostly very good.

His service to Queen and country did not end with the Boer War. Shortly after his discharge from the Navy, he moved to New Zealand, presumably for a change of scenery rather than a return to his native England. He appears on the 1911 Electoral Roll, as a stevedore or dockworker living at 273 Princes Street, Dunedin, the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand. While there, he met local girl Annie McCormack and the couple married at Knox Church, Dunedin, on 26 April 1912. Annie was seven years younger than Charles, a native of New Zealand and the daughter of Robert McCormack, a carpenter. The couple had four children: Joan (1914); Dorothy (1916) and two other children whose names are unknown. If you have ancestors that lived in this part of the country you might be able to find them in the electoral rolls listed on the University of Otago’s project Caversham site at http://caversham.

otago.ac.nz/dbaccess/index.php. This website also contains the New Zealand Expeditionary Force Roll of Honour records and World War 1 Cenotaph records.

Although World War I broke out in 1914 it wasn’t until 16 October 1917 that Charles enlisted as a private in the A Coy 34th regiment of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces. Prior to his enlistment, he worked as a self-employed storeman. The Ortago Daily Times of 27 September 1917 contains a list of those who voluntarily enlisted: ‘Fifteen men went before the doctors at Kensington on Tuesday, and the following were passed as fit: Charles Phillip Madell…’ (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19170927.2.57.1 ).

Records of Charles’ service can be found online. I visited the New Zealand Archives website (http://archives.govt.nz/world-war-one) and found his name listed in the NZDF Personnel database index. The National Archives of Australia provides free access to his full service record (https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/browse/records/664651/1) including his hospital admission and discharge papers.

Charles was posted to Featherston Camp, which was New Zealand’s largest training camp during World War I and according to the website New Zealand History Online, ‘Featherston Camp could sleep and feed more than 9000 men, and train them to be infantrymen, artillerymen, cavalry, and machine gunners. The government used the camp as a German prisoner of war camp and military hospital in 1918-19… Some 60,000 men were trained for service on European battlefields between 1916 and 1918.’ Charles’s 16-week training program started with three weeks of ‘drill and physi­cal training at Trentham, followed by four weeks – mostly spent at Featherston – of drill, physical training, bayonet-fighting, elementary musketry, individual training, and elementary night training.

Final leave in the ninth and tenth weeks was followed by platoon and company drill, more night operations, physical training and bayonet-fighting, and advanced musketry’ (Featherston Military Training Camp and the First World War, 1915–27).

At 40 years of age, Charles was no spring chicken. His medical examination at the time of enlistment revealed that although he was in fair health, he did suffer with haemorrhoids. After just six weeks of training, Charles was admitted to Featherston Hospital on 26 November 1917 with bronchitis. He was discharged five days later. His health began to deteriorate and by the following year Charles was in so much pain with internal hemorrhoids he was finally discharged on medical grounds on 30 January 1918. The Medical Board recommended that he seek further treatment at a convalescent home. His enlistment in the armed forces lasted little more than three months.

Though discharged due to ill health it appears Charles continued his career of service with the New Zealand military police. Those who served in this unit were all mounted and served on all fronts where the New Zealand soldiers fought during WWI. There is a newspaper article about Charles in the 25 May 1918 edition of the Otago Times. During the inquest into the death of John Robert Sanson, a boilerman, who was found drowned outside the ship he worked on, Charles was on duty at the Bowen Pier barricade between 6 and 10 pm on the day the deceased died. He saw John pass the gate at 6:15 and when challenging him John replied he was going to board the trawler Waitangi, a ship where he worked as a boilerman. Charles saw him board the ship and go down the ladder perfectly sober but had previously told a sergeant he was not sober and had said so unthinkingly (paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19180525.2.109 ).

This was not the only death that Charles was involved in. In 1923 he was travelling in a motor cycle sidecar with William Hastie, a butcher of South Dunedin when one of the sidecar tires burst and the motor cycle overturned, instantly killing the driver. Charles was ejected from his seat unharmed (1923 Evening Post ).

Charles died in 1930 of a heart attack at the age of 53. He left behind a wife and four daughters. Those who knew him have long since passed away but good record keeping and easy access to genealogical records permit us to tell his story and remember him as a man who served his country.