William Slade Vincent

Appendix 2.0
The Confusion Over William’s Rank in the British Army

Chronologically, the order of notices published by the London Gazette concerning William’s rank are listed below:

The table above agrees with the official records of the Bn. as shown below:

Part of Official record of Service for William [160]

Below are the two notices of his promotion to Lieutenant.

First Notice 4th December 1917 [161]

Second Notice 19th June 1919 [162]

As can be seen by the above, there were two notices published stating that William was promoted from 2nd Lieutenant to Lieutenant, but the effective dates were years apart.

In between those times, on 18th December 1917, he was re-appointed to a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant. However, the critical piece of information was that he was “to retain his temporary higher rank and present seniority whilst doing duty with their present unit”.

The correct date was 1st July 1917. This anomaly was discovered when William sought to retire from the Army and return to Australia. This confusion may have been exacerbated by the Lieut. W.S. Vincent of the K.O.Y.L.I. being taken for W.S. Vincent of the K.O.R.L.R.

The Royal Flying Corps (R.F.C.) was the first service to notice the error, in the official records below.

On 22nd April 1918 a request was sent by the Eastern Command to the 3rd Bn., located then at Harwich, for details on William Jnr. The 3rd Bn. replied that it had already sent the records to the School of Aeronautics. At this stage his divisional command, still referred to him as a 2nd Lieut.

Request for information on William [163]

A telegram to the War Office from Aeronautics (R.F.C.) at Reading referred to him as Lieutenant but someone, on 4th October 1917, overwrote the telegram with 2nd Lieutenant. The reference “928B” in blue writing is from the British Army List which was incorrect.

Request for information on William [164]

It was pointed out in a minute that in the Army British List he was a Lieutenant and a 2nd Lieutenant. Someone has said he was a 2nd Lieutenant which was incorrect.

Someone said that 2nd Lieut. was correct. [165]

Someone else queried his rank and he incorrectly answered that William was a 2nd Lieutenant.

Someone queried was he a Lieutenant? [166]

And finally, the correct rank for William was stated as a Lieutenant (effective from 1/7/1917) until he relinquished his commission.

Someone made the correct judgement on his rank [167]

It is assumed that William was paid correctly during his period of service, as he was quite diligent in knowing how much he should have been paid, as was seen later when he started to receive his pension.

The second entry in the London Gazette (19/6/1919, 4/4/1919, * Promoted from 2nd Lieutenant to Lieutenant) was made as British Officers who had held a temporary rank, anytime in their military career, were entitled to retire at that temporary rank.

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[160] National Archive of UK – Service Record William Slade Vincent
[161] London Gazette 4th Dec 1917
[162] London Gazette 19th June 1919
[163] - [167] National Archive of UK – Service Record William Slade Vincent