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A fact from William Long (Northern Ireland politician) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 October 2008, and was viewed approximately 472 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
The Guardian seems to have got its dates wrong. The only commssion to a William Joseph Long in teh Inniskillings is in 1942 (perhaps he initially served in the ranks?) see "No. 35493". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 17 March 1942. (the date of commission is given at the pbottom ofthe first page, then click next to find his actual name on the next page), and this commission was not given up until 1952, "No. 39452". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 29 January 1952. David Underdown (talk) 11:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Was his middle name definitely Joseph? Sources differ; quite a few give it as James. I'm not too familiar with likely career paths in the Army, but presumably it's quite possible that he first served in the ranks. I think The Guardian is the only source which specifically claims that he was an officer in 1940. The obituaries do see quite certain that he re-entered civilian life well before 1952 - would it have been possible at the time to do so while officially remaining a commissioned officer? Warofdreamstalk 15:48, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Belfast Gazettes for his election to the NI parliament and his OBE certainly give the middle name as Joseph, so I'm inclined to believe that's correct. It was an Emergency Commission, so possibly he'd been basically demobbed before his commission was formally terminated, it certainly seems to be under Regular Army rather than Territorial Army though - which woul dhave provided a possible explanation. Certainly during the war more people than normal were commissioned from the ranks - the commissioning gazette says the "following cadets to be 2nd lieutenants", which implies one of the war time Officer Training units, rather than going to Sandhurst, you're a "Gentleman Cadet" there (ah the subtleties of the British class structure). Though again the Guardian does mention Sandhurst as one of his places of education.
Good work on searching. That looks like a good confirmation of his middle name. As for the dates of commission and demob - how complete are the online versions of the Gazettes? Could he have been demobbed in 1948, but the page be missing, or the search not correctly read his name? Some of the facts given in the obits just don't seem to tie in with these dates - and, for instance, not only the Guardian, but also the Times, the unofficial biog on David Boothroyd's site, and the biog from the Stormont papers site all say he attended Sandhurst. Warofdreamstalk 17:03, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well all the gazettes are online (for the wartime period anyway, there are some excpetions), though the process of scanning and converting to usable text does someimtes mean the indexing isn't 100% reliable. On the other hand, in 1940 Long would only have been 18. He could have gone up to Vetinary College before he was 18 (particularly since it was in Scotland), and presumably he didn't complete the course since he never practised as a vat. It's possible that although the officers' course was at Sandhurst, but since he only went on to an Emergency Commission, it wasn't a "real" Sandhurst course. Of course the obits don't cite their sources, so we don't knwo to what extent they might be relying on a single (wrong?) source. David Underdown (talk) 18:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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