10 Aug 2019 - Being born into the family of the Hon. Robert Godlonton (H.RG), Original Grahamstown 1820 Settler, of some repute and renown in the South-East Cape of South Africa as the eldest male Grandchild, may have carried with it, expectations that might well have been impossible to carry out the way his family clearly expected.
Being born into a second family, that of Thomas Burt Glanville (TBG), also RG's Grandfather coming from the side of his mother, also carried with it a sort of gift on the one hand and expectations on the other. For in his own way, TBG, having come from one of those British Blue-Blood-Lines, was in his own right, greatly successful in his life and also bore notable offspring.
Beyond those two immediate families, both blood lines spread far and wide both within and beyond South Africa resulting in an extensive number of Surnames and Christian names many of whom would become successful beyond the average and make wonderful contributions in many fields of endeavor that the world has or had to offer. Ah, life!
What is it about a life that offered far more privilege via the "White Man's Burden," (Code language for Imperialism) in these lands far away from Mother England, that could possibly lead to making life's biggest social mistakes only to worsen one's own life circumstances?
Brought to bear upon society and the family in general has been the Christian religion. Most people have access to the story, for example of the Crusades which were so numerous that they were not only numbered, the different results of these Crusades while temporarily reclaiming lands for Christendom, also would you believe it, managed a net gain in plunder that not only paid for the Crusades but brought home to England enough additional acquisition of gold and precious stones and other precious medals and coinage that had belonged to other peoples, that these initial victories would encourage other countries to either join England of go it alone in a similar attempt to enrich their own coffers.
Having digressed, the parallel to be seen here (if that is possible) is that in the name of religion, vast areas over long distances, beyond the reach of normal supply lines were traversed in the name of religion to achieve the retaking of Jerusalem. The bloodshed and maintenance of the Crusading armies on the way to arrival at the site of final destination and destiny should not completely be recounted and the "recruitment," along the way may or may not include for some of the soldiers of fortune, the goal of having Christendom once again rule the ancient City of David.
What was left behind besides the obvious in front of the observer in person or through the lenses of history, however, is a very bad taste in the mouths of a people. For there are nearly always survivors. Survivors who flee to areas beyond the scope of the Crusades. Peoples of a religion and a culture that knew they'd been taken advantage of in the worst way and would spend as much time as was necessary and even spend as many generations as was needed to eventually return to avenge their having been ravaged with their, "rightfuol lands," taken from them.
Such is the turn of the wheel of life, the Great Mandella of societies that may be one down at one time, but would not always be.
Lessons however from the 1100's through the balance of the Crusades moved forward through history with many empires coming and going in power. Conquests after the dark ages were still found as a way to enhance the treasuries of many nations, into the 1700's and beyond with many nations sending out explorers in search of riches of all types, with England not being the only one. In fact France and Spain and Portugal and the Dutch as well as Germany and even Italy would take their numbers of well trained troops into these areas of wealth that they confiscated for themselves, again in the name of religion, so eloquently described in the prose and poetry of Rudyard Kipling, who literally wrote for the world exactly the feelings, the tenacity and the desire to bring Christ to the nations with a side benefit of wealth to the home treasuries. Of course, occasionally these great Western powers would run into one another and then would skirmish or battle or war over the right to bring their own form of religion to the indigenous people in the areas of dispute. And just to add insult to injury many times, those indigenous peoples of these lands, who had up until this time in history managed quite nicely as tribal kingdoms with their own forms of trading and skirmishing and battling and warring, and amassing their own wealth such as cattle, hides, gold and silver and ivory among many indicators of wealth and power, did not exactly appreciate the foreign invaders coming in and taking their native lands.
People of the earth on all sides prefer going about their business without being interfered with and they really prefer working hard for their families or tilling the land or later engaging in both skilled and unskilled labor, over engaging in the training for war and then utilizing that training in war for the benefit of their superiors weather those superiors be from a free nation of advanced societies with advanced weaponry and tools of warfare.
All sorts of cultural pride and customs are developed from within families and tribes or within small hamlets and villages or cities and metropolises via formal and informal education as well as the religious institutions that have for thousands of years been a part of the fabric of those places mentioned where people gather together for protection and if possible for freedom to spread their wings.
There is a great overlap in the various systems that make up both governments and societies, but like with, "gravity," the mix creates the greatest of forces imaginable. Two types of nations emerged in the 1700's flowing right into today in terms of power of nations and their balances: Despotically ruled locations of the world and the various forms of democratically ruled locations of the world.
Foregoing the descriptions of the governments and the institutions that make up the gravity of nations, the topic here is the militaries that have been developed to ensure at a minimum the safety of countries borders for those citizens within, and at a maximum, expansion of lands (Imperialism) for the benefit of the State, be it Totalitarian or Democratically run are the strength and efficiency of its military forces.
The thesis here is that being a soldier, whether it be a single individual private or a Commanding General of all of the military components of the strongest nation on earth requires more than a single motivational tool for the soldier to either volunteer or to be conscripted to be a soldier.
For that individual bearing part of the responsibility of a martial result, a combination of physical and emotional, psychological and civic, cultural, religious and familial qualities are essential for the creation, development and maintenance of a single soldier. This also includes the same characteristics when the development of multiple soldiers being created and molded into the serviceable groups which have military names to describe them are also considered.
The aspects of cohesion require men who are soldiers to overlook the fact that he or she may really rather being doing something else. Beyond that is the recognition that the occupation itself carries with it the danger and opportunity for injury, illness, loss of limb and loss of life.
Mankind's natural reactions having been broken down to fight or flight, are at some level working and wiling away within the conscious and unconscious mind of almost all soldiers.
Compensation or one kind or another has been developed over history to maintain an adequate force of these people called soldiers in so many ways, that one does not pass the time of day thinking about them. They come to the fore when there is a grand individual case to be observed and even decided upon, or when there are group statistics on connection with large quantities of said soldiers, the outcomes of which are to be weighed and considered by governments and the rest of society not engaged in being soldiers.
In the development of soldiery, the late 1800's, and the early 1900's are herein focused upon in the two greatest countries of the Western World during these two centuries encompassing the periods of the Great Civil War of the U.S.A. and the periods of Colonial wars in one of the most successful of Imperialistic countries, that of the United Kingdom.
In general, there are punitive measure in place to maintain the armies of both nations and at times, voluntary service is sufficient to build and maintain the armed forces of these respective countries.
At times, however, a draft is seen by their governments as being necessary to provide sufficient personnel strength to provide for, "readiness," for the missions that are deemed necessary by these two governments to get the job done and to do so with a margin for error and with efficiency in mind both in development and in maintenance of these institutions.
It was not long in the histories of the development and maintenance of armies and their individual soldiers that the multiple attitudes of men (and women) either volunteering or conscripted for service, had to be dealt with. Despite the positive reinforcements (inducements) and the negative reinforcements (punishments) in place, at some point a percentage of those soldiers would desert. That is, they did not star around to engage in their directed roles and tasks within their assigned units. Essentially, they became, "runaways."
The national safety requires that there be adequate forces to meet goals and requirements of the nations forces and so careful records are kept of who the people are and where they come from, among other statistical information on each soldier. Regular roll calls are held to ensure that these records are up to date on a daily and in some cases on an hourly basis. Records are also kept of, "desertion rates." And punitive measures are formally applied to those soldiers as soon as they are discovered to have deserted.
It is a reflection on a nation as well as the esprit de corps of military groups, whether there is a high, medium or low desertion rate from the forces of the military that have been, over time, developed.
During the periods mentioned above the desertion rates in the ranks of the United States military were compared to those of the British military. It was discovered that through a number of the decades observed that England had a much lower desertion rate than did the United States of American. One of the areas regarding desertion that was examined were or was the types of punishments meted out for deserters who were apprehended.
Essentially the difference in the punishments of Great Britain and the United States of America, is that the latter is extremely tough on the deserter with very heavy penalties. The UK on the other hand has variable punishments and even in certain cases allows reenlistment back into the armed services of the country.
Weather the deserter was caught or not, one of the punishments is to strip the deserter of rank, pay and awards such as medals that were previously earned and awarded. In genealogy, the researcher might be devastated if one of his immediate family is found to have been a deserter.
The approach one takes and the reason for desertion and whether or not the deserter is ever seen or heard from again by the family, may vary greatly. A treasure hunt is possible, however, to gain further insight into the desertion. Occasionally, the search can be relatively easy, but often it will be very difficult with information difficult to come by.
If one has the patience and the time (sometimes the means) and the interest, a search of records and blogs of relatives on search engines of and for genealogy sites can reveal facts about the relative, that one initially thought would be impossible to find out. That is because of the power of digitized records as well as the power of relatives in close as well as oblique family lines possibly finding out just the information the relative or researcher would like to know.
Think it all over. Find out if the disappearance of years in your relative's life has an explanation. Be prepared, though. It can be surprising, shocking and upsetting. Just be prepared ahead of time.
AF
Being born into a second family, that of Thomas Burt Glanville (TBG), also RG's Grandfather coming from the side of his mother, also carried with it a sort of gift on the one hand and expectations on the other. For in his own way, TBG, having come from one of those British Blue-Blood-Lines, was in his own right, greatly successful in his life and also bore notable offspring.
Beyond those two immediate families, both blood lines spread far and wide both within and beyond South Africa resulting in an extensive number of Surnames and Christian names many of whom would become successful beyond the average and make wonderful contributions in many fields of endeavor that the world has or had to offer. Ah, life!
What is it about a life that offered far more privilege via the "White Man's Burden," (Code language for Imperialism) in these lands far away from Mother England, that could possibly lead to making life's biggest social mistakes only to worsen one's own life circumstances?
Brought to bear upon society and the family in general has been the Christian religion. Most people have access to the story, for example of the Crusades which were so numerous that they were not only numbered, the different results of these Crusades while temporarily reclaiming lands for Christendom, also would you believe it, managed a net gain in plunder that not only paid for the Crusades but brought home to England enough additional acquisition of gold and precious stones and other precious medals and coinage that had belonged to other peoples, that these initial victories would encourage other countries to either join England of go it alone in a similar attempt to enrich their own coffers.
Having digressed, the parallel to be seen here (if that is possible) is that in the name of religion, vast areas over long distances, beyond the reach of normal supply lines were traversed in the name of religion to achieve the retaking of Jerusalem. The bloodshed and maintenance of the Crusading armies on the way to arrival at the site of final destination and destiny should not completely be recounted and the "recruitment," along the way may or may not include for some of the soldiers of fortune, the goal of having Christendom once again rule the ancient City of David.
What was left behind besides the obvious in front of the observer in person or through the lenses of history, however, is a very bad taste in the mouths of a people. For there are nearly always survivors. Survivors who flee to areas beyond the scope of the Crusades. Peoples of a religion and a culture that knew they'd been taken advantage of in the worst way and would spend as much time as was necessary and even spend as many generations as was needed to eventually return to avenge their having been ravaged with their, "rightfuol lands," taken from them.
Such is the turn of the wheel of life, the Great Mandella of societies that may be one down at one time, but would not always be.
Lessons however from the 1100's through the balance of the Crusades moved forward through history with many empires coming and going in power. Conquests after the dark ages were still found as a way to enhance the treasuries of many nations, into the 1700's and beyond with many nations sending out explorers in search of riches of all types, with England not being the only one. In fact France and Spain and Portugal and the Dutch as well as Germany and even Italy would take their numbers of well trained troops into these areas of wealth that they confiscated for themselves, again in the name of religion, so eloquently described in the prose and poetry of Rudyard Kipling, who literally wrote for the world exactly the feelings, the tenacity and the desire to bring Christ to the nations with a side benefit of wealth to the home treasuries. Of course, occasionally these great Western powers would run into one another and then would skirmish or battle or war over the right to bring their own form of religion to the indigenous people in the areas of dispute. And just to add insult to injury many times, those indigenous peoples of these lands, who had up until this time in history managed quite nicely as tribal kingdoms with their own forms of trading and skirmishing and battling and warring, and amassing their own wealth such as cattle, hides, gold and silver and ivory among many indicators of wealth and power, did not exactly appreciate the foreign invaders coming in and taking their native lands.
People of the earth on all sides prefer going about their business without being interfered with and they really prefer working hard for their families or tilling the land or later engaging in both skilled and unskilled labor, over engaging in the training for war and then utilizing that training in war for the benefit of their superiors weather those superiors be from a free nation of advanced societies with advanced weaponry and tools of warfare.
All sorts of cultural pride and customs are developed from within families and tribes or within small hamlets and villages or cities and metropolises via formal and informal education as well as the religious institutions that have for thousands of years been a part of the fabric of those places mentioned where people gather together for protection and if possible for freedom to spread their wings.
There is a great overlap in the various systems that make up both governments and societies, but like with, "gravity," the mix creates the greatest of forces imaginable. Two types of nations emerged in the 1700's flowing right into today in terms of power of nations and their balances: Despotically ruled locations of the world and the various forms of democratically ruled locations of the world.
Foregoing the descriptions of the governments and the institutions that make up the gravity of nations, the topic here is the militaries that have been developed to ensure at a minimum the safety of countries borders for those citizens within, and at a maximum, expansion of lands (Imperialism) for the benefit of the State, be it Totalitarian or Democratically run are the strength and efficiency of its military forces.
The thesis here is that being a soldier, whether it be a single individual private or a Commanding General of all of the military components of the strongest nation on earth requires more than a single motivational tool for the soldier to either volunteer or to be conscripted to be a soldier.
For that individual bearing part of the responsibility of a martial result, a combination of physical and emotional, psychological and civic, cultural, religious and familial qualities are essential for the creation, development and maintenance of a single soldier. This also includes the same characteristics when the development of multiple soldiers being created and molded into the serviceable groups which have military names to describe them are also considered.
The aspects of cohesion require men who are soldiers to overlook the fact that he or she may really rather being doing something else. Beyond that is the recognition that the occupation itself carries with it the danger and opportunity for injury, illness, loss of limb and loss of life.
Mankind's natural reactions having been broken down to fight or flight, are at some level working and wiling away within the conscious and unconscious mind of almost all soldiers.
Compensation or one kind or another has been developed over history to maintain an adequate force of these people called soldiers in so many ways, that one does not pass the time of day thinking about them. They come to the fore when there is a grand individual case to be observed and even decided upon, or when there are group statistics on connection with large quantities of said soldiers, the outcomes of which are to be weighed and considered by governments and the rest of society not engaged in being soldiers.
In the development of soldiery, the late 1800's, and the early 1900's are herein focused upon in the two greatest countries of the Western World during these two centuries encompassing the periods of the Great Civil War of the U.S.A. and the periods of Colonial wars in one of the most successful of Imperialistic countries, that of the United Kingdom.
In general, there are punitive measure in place to maintain the armies of both nations and at times, voluntary service is sufficient to build and maintain the armed forces of these respective countries.
At times, however, a draft is seen by their governments as being necessary to provide sufficient personnel strength to provide for, "readiness," for the missions that are deemed necessary by these two governments to get the job done and to do so with a margin for error and with efficiency in mind both in development and in maintenance of these institutions.
It was not long in the histories of the development and maintenance of armies and their individual soldiers that the multiple attitudes of men (and women) either volunteering or conscripted for service, had to be dealt with. Despite the positive reinforcements (inducements) and the negative reinforcements (punishments) in place, at some point a percentage of those soldiers would desert. That is, they did not star around to engage in their directed roles and tasks within their assigned units. Essentially, they became, "runaways."
The national safety requires that there be adequate forces to meet goals and requirements of the nations forces and so careful records are kept of who the people are and where they come from, among other statistical information on each soldier. Regular roll calls are held to ensure that these records are up to date on a daily and in some cases on an hourly basis. Records are also kept of, "desertion rates." And punitive measures are formally applied to those soldiers as soon as they are discovered to have deserted.
It is a reflection on a nation as well as the esprit de corps of military groups, whether there is a high, medium or low desertion rate from the forces of the military that have been, over time, developed.
During the periods mentioned above the desertion rates in the ranks of the United States military were compared to those of the British military. It was discovered that through a number of the decades observed that England had a much lower desertion rate than did the United States of American. One of the areas regarding desertion that was examined were or was the types of punishments meted out for deserters who were apprehended.
Essentially the difference in the punishments of Great Britain and the United States of America, is that the latter is extremely tough on the deserter with very heavy penalties. The UK on the other hand has variable punishments and even in certain cases allows reenlistment back into the armed services of the country.
Weather the deserter was caught or not, one of the punishments is to strip the deserter of rank, pay and awards such as medals that were previously earned and awarded. In genealogy, the researcher might be devastated if one of his immediate family is found to have been a deserter.
The approach one takes and the reason for desertion and whether or not the deserter is ever seen or heard from again by the family, may vary greatly. A treasure hunt is possible, however, to gain further insight into the desertion. Occasionally, the search can be relatively easy, but often it will be very difficult with information difficult to come by.
If one has the patience and the time (sometimes the means) and the interest, a search of records and blogs of relatives on search engines of and for genealogy sites can reveal facts about the relative, that one initially thought would be impossible to find out. That is because of the power of digitized records as well as the power of relatives in close as well as oblique family lines possibly finding out just the information the relative or researcher would like to know.
Think it all over. Find out if the disappearance of years in your relative's life has an explanation. Be prepared, though. It can be surprising, shocking and upsetting. Just be prepared ahead of time.
AF
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