Landships II

Excellent - I recognise the setting but not the photo. The tank was long gone when I was last in Bangor! Well done for finding the photo. It tells us that the tank is a Mark IV Female (or at least it has Female sponsons, which is not necessarily the end of the story). It has no unditching rails so may not have gone overseas, a supposition supported by the absence of the white/red/white stripes on the nose. However their absence may be misleading - has the tank been repainted?

What we want to do is to identify the tank's timeline:
- presentation date
- the date any work was done, especially plinth work, fencing, re-painting and re-location as this helps date photographs.
- the tank's fate (probably the scrap heap)
- date it met its fate - this is usually very difficult to find but is probably between 1925 and 1940.

Now ideally I like to identify the tank. This means finding good quality photos that show useful details or having a lucky break by finding an account that records something really important, like the journalist who recorded the serial number of the Pontefract tank.

Also, any interesting stories along the way.

I'd suggest the following:
1. Visit the reference library and find copies or microfilm of local newspapers dating from the time it was presented. Virtually all the south Wales ones were presented in June 1919. The ones in Llandudno and Holyhead were both presented in January 1920, so I would guess that the Bangor tank was also presented in January 1920 and probably in the first week or ten days of that month. Once you find the newspaper articles get the full text. Also watch out for any adverts placed and any letters (possibly of objection). Don't just look for the presentation - look afterwards too for reports of vandalism, complaints about warmongering etc.

2. Visit the relevant archives office. Cyngor Gwynedd will be able to tell you where it is. If you've not used an archives office before then call beforehand as there may be a requirement for a reader's ticket, and to get that you'll need to produce suitable ID. You'll want to see the records of the local council from the time - most probably (assuming presentation in January 1920) from about four months before the presentation so say September 1919. The records held may be incomplete, or non-existant, but use the indexes to find (a) Minute books - councils worked through committees that may well have sub committees, so you need to look at these and not just council minutes (b) Clerks letters - these are usually carbon copies in a book with an alphabetical index in the front. Read the whole of the index, looking for correspondence with the War Savings Committee, National War Savings Committee, War Office or anything that looks likely. Don't assume that War Savings Committee will be under W!! (c) Correspondence received files (d) surveyors reports on maintenance (e) accounts payable - painting a tank, or putting up a fence or whatever must have cost something and this must have been paid so will be in the accounts (f) it's unlikely you'll find these but watch for relevant reports to committees/sub-committees (g) anything else that looks likely - I once found a file on the scrapping of a tank containing correspondence from the public and all the tender documents. Your archives office may also have other information, e.g. in photographs of the area where the tank stood.

3. Ask your local historians what they know. Put a notice on the archive's noticeboard if allowed to do so.

4. Write a letter to your local paper and ask for information. (This has produced astonishing results for me in the past).

5. Try Bangor University history department. Does the University hold any records?

6. I don't know everything, can't think of everything and it's late so I'm off to bed. You will have good ideas of your own. Trust them.

When writing up, put everything in date order, know and record where you got the information from and record any conflicting information. Do this in working papers that you can refer to when doing your final write up.

Please let us all know what you find! And most of all, enjoy the hunt.

Gwyn

-- Edited by Gwyn Evans on Friday 9th of September 2011 11:40:15 PM

One area that might help determine whether this tank ever had unditching rails is the cab. If you can check the top of the cab to see if the attachment points are still there for IIRC camouflage netting, then most likely this tank never had unditching rails and was probably a training machine that did not go to France (my belief).

Another thought - your reference library may hold clippings files from more recent newspapers. These can be useful, as they sometimes contain letters recording reminiscences of people who were there at the time but are now long gone. There may be a card index to help you search (that's how mine works) or there may be files containing clippings on a similar theme (which is how I've seen it organised elsewhere).

Yes, it is likely that there was a Tank Bank event in Bangor that led to the city (not sure if it was a city then?) contributing funds to the War Savings Association. This might be a second aspect to investigate in your research.

And another thought.  The house will with the loos looks quite modern.  The loos would have been provided by the Council, so their provision must precede the tank's demise.  Another clue to the timeline, potentially.

Gwyn

-- Edited by Gwyn Evans on Sunday 11th of September 2011 02:39:56 PM