In the Guinness Roll of Honour for World War One are a number of men who ended up in the Machine Gun Corps or Tanks Corps, with one in the Ordnance Corps as an armourer.
Of particular interest are Harold Bright and William Tait who both started out in D Company, 7th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and both have mentions in "The Pals at Suvla Bay" by Henry Hanna.
William Tait
Born on the 21st April 1894, William Tait, a Chemists Assistant, enlisted into the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers on the 15th September 1914, number 14240. He had joined Guinness on the 2nd November 1908 aged 14, and is recorded as leaving on the 15th September 1914.
Promoted to Segeant on the 14th September 1915, working in the Machine Gun Section. At Gallipoli he appears to have been transferred from D company to B company and does not have a biography in the Pals book.
He transferred to the Machine Gun Corps on the 28th April 1917 and was assigned the new number 104627. There is a document listing him as being in 35 (Cadet) Company MGC and a note about reporting to No 2 MGC Cadet Battalion on 2nd July 1917. He was discharged as a Sergeant on the 3rd November 1917 , becoming a 2nd Lieutenant in the Tanks Corps.
He was not fit to return to the frontline and was discharged from the Army on 30th June 1919 with the rank of Lieutenant.
His Medal Index Card gives his address in Bowden, Cheshire.
In the 1921 census for England, he is living in Cheshire and listed as an Employer at a foundry. He is listed as married to Dorothy Agnes Eileen Tait and living with them is his father in law, 68year old Robert Lindsay Love, a retired Lt Colonel of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Tait appears on Page 10 in the Brewhouse Department in the Guinness Employees Roll of Honour book.
His promotion to Lieutenant and his Military Cross are not recorded.
Harold Sidney Bright
Born in 1892, Harold Bright was 22years old when he enlisted into D Company, 7th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers on the 14th September 1914. He was alloted number 14158.
He has a small biography in the Pals book and is listed amongst the men in No 11 Section, 16 Platoon who survived Gallipoli and left Suvla on 29th September 1915.
He was promoted to temporary 2nd Lieutenant in Gallipoli on the 29th September 1915 and joined the 7th Bn Royal Munster Fusiliers in Mudros on the 5th October 1915. On the 11th May 1916 he transferred to the 30th Brigade (Company), Machine Gun Corps. Shortly afterwards, Bright was awarded the Military Cross which was gazetted on the 2nd June 1916 for action while serving with the Royal Munster Fusiliers. He would gain a Mentioned in Dispatches shortly after this award.
Wounded on the 2nd October 1916, he was admitted to hospital in Malta on the 22nd October 1916 with a Gun Shot Wound (GWS) to the jaw - compound fracture. Invalided to England on 31st October 1916. The subject of several medical boards, he was eventually granted 2 months leave choosing to stay at his parents house at St Thomas's Whitechurch, Rathfarnham, Dublin.
He reported to the Machine Gun Training Centre in Grantham on the 13th February 1917. Little information appears until his discharge on the 1st August 1920 with the rank of Lieutenant. The Guinness Archives give his address as 1 Lines Mess, Belton Park, Grantham.
Bright's medal etc were sold at auction in 2000.
In the Guinness Roll of Honour, Bright appears in the Accounts Department on page 7, where he is listed as a Captain with the Military Cross and 2 Mentioned in Dispatches.
Bright rejoined the Guinness Brewery on 17th August 1920. In the 1926 census, Bright is living at his parents house and is marked as working as a clerk at the Guinness Brewery.
Machine Gun Corps Database
Both Tait and Bright are to be found in the Sacker database put on the UK National Archives website by the Vickers Machine Gun Collection and Research Association (VMGCRA).
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