The Inkerman Daniels

My full name is Michael Inkerman Daniels. The middle name "Inkerman" is shared by my brother John, my father Sidney and his father, also called Sidney.

With prior military experience as a Lance Corporal in the Duke of Edinburgh's 1st Wiltshire Regiment, Sidney senior (known familiarly as "Inker") re-enlisted in the Regiment at the outbreak of World War I. Barely three months into the War, Lance Corporal Sidney Inkerman Daniells was killed in action at the Battle of La Bassée, Neuve Chapelle, France, on Sunday 25th October 1914, aged 28, just three weeks before Sidney, his only child, was born.

A story, which I heard from my grandmother as a child, is that the Inkerman name was originally given because a Daniels ancestor had won the Victoria Cross at the Battle of Inkerman in the Crimean War. Unfortunately my father had died when I was very young, and I was therefore unable to confirm this with him. No other family members were able to throw any light on the matter. Interest in Edward St John Daniel was sparked during my teens when I discovered that, if the story about my ancestor were true, that ancestor would have to be Edward St John Daniel, who had indeed won the Victoria Cross for action during the Battle of Inkerman. Significantly, Edward St. John Daniel’s family came from Bristol, and my family lived in Bath, only twelve miles away.

However, extensive research into my own Daniels family history and that of Edward St John Daniel has failed to establish any connection whatsoever between the two families. My Daniels ancestors (although named Daniel prior to 1800) turned out to be humble agricultural labourers living in the small isolated (now evacuated and abandoned) village of Imber, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. In contrast, Edward St John’s own Daniel ancestors were well-heeled Bristol attorneys, although the family originally came from neighbouring Somerset.

It remains possible that there is a distant connection between the two families, but this would not seem to explain why in 1886 (thirty years after the Crimean War) my great grandfather Henry Daniels, a simple shepherd of Imber, should have given his second son Sidney the middle name "Inkerman".

A search of the 1881 British Census (30 million people) shows just 98 individuals with a forename "Inkerman" or "Inkermann," and over half of these were born in the three years immediately following the Battle of Inkerman (1854). None are shown as born prior to 1853 and only 14 were born after 1870. A further six people share the family name "Inkerman," with two of the three men born in 1855 and 1856.

I have so far been unable to discover any direct Crimean War connection in any branch of my family, even though this seems to be the inspiration for our Inkerman name (in 1881, Henry Daniels had christened his first child, a daughter, "Alma," which is the first Battle of the Crimean War). Several of the other "Inkerman" shown in the 1881 Census had a sister named "Alma". In one family, there were children named "Inkerman," "Alma," "Sebastepool," and "Balaclave"! It is also interesting that, in 1901, Henry Daniels and his family lived at Alma Cottage, Church Street, Imber.

In our family, the precise origins of the "Inkerman" name remain a mystery, although the most likely explanation seems to be that my great grandfather Henry wished to acknowledge and preserve some personal association with the Crimean War. It is, perhaps, significant that he was born in February 1855, when the War was at its height.

My brother and I each have two children, but we have chosen not to pass on the "Inkerman" name.