1/1st Battalion, Royal Gloucestershire Hussars
Joe Tagg, as he appears to have been known, joined the Army at the age of 52 but served less than two months.
Walter Joseph Tagg was born at Carshalton, Surrey in 1862. His parents were John and Emma (née Jackson). John Tagg was a shoemaker, who lived from 1825-1870. His wife lived from 1839-1911. The couple had five children, of whom Joe was the only son. Their daughters were Emily (born 1861), Elizabeth (1864), Annie (1866) and Amy (1868). It is believed that Annie died, aged 11, in 1876.
It would appear that by 1881 Joe had left the family home in Carshalton, where his mother and three of his sisters still resided. It has not proved possible to trace him in either the 1881 or 1891 Census but he does appear in that of 1901. In those intervening years he had taken up a position as a domestic groom at Fairford Park, Fairford, working for Albert John Palmer, a biscuit manufacturer and his wife Catherine. It has not proved possible to find a link between his employer and the well known biscuit manufacturer, Huntley & Palmer. He was still working as a groom at Fairford Park, when the 1911 Census was compiled.
His number, 2156, indicates that Joe volunteered for military service around the 10 August 1914. His experience with horses lent itself to his joining a Yeomanry unit and in this instance, it was the 1/1st Battalion of the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars (RGH). The RGH was part of the 1st South Midland Mounted Brigade and had their headquarters in Gloucester and their constituent companies deployed around the county
Joe was 52 years old when he joined the Army and the rigours of Army life may well have come as a shock and he may well have had an underlying health condition either not picked up upon recruitment (or ignored). According to his entry in the Register of Soldiers’ Effects, held at the National Army Museum he died, at Fairford Cottage Hospital, on 4 October 1914, from ‘fatigue while on duty’. As his service was less than six months and in Great Britain, he was not entitled to any gratuity: monies owed was shared amongst his surviving sisters and a nephew.
Private Walter Joseph Tagg was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s, Fairford, where a standard CWGC headstone marks his grave and he is commemorated on the Fairford War Memorial.
Researched by Graham Adams 9 February 2021