I live in Kingston-on-Thames (Sopwith country) and remember seeing a photograph (or more than one) in a book showing rhomboid shaped tanks on display in Kingston. I wonder if any avid collectors know where to find these on the internet, or have them in their own collection that they would share with me. I believe there was more than one tank and one may have been put on temporary display at the 'Fairfields' area of the town, but if anyone can advise the dates and reason (fund raising, war bonds sort of thing) again I would be very grateful.
Just to check - is the photograph just part of your signature, and so irrelevant, or is the photo actually relevant to Kingston?
Also, hope you don't mind being asked, but are you 100% sure the original photo was taken in Kingston? Errors in captioning do happen, so can this be confirmed from the internal evidence in the photo itself? An admittedly quick check on Kingston on Thames + Tank in the Times database and in another newspaper archive throws up no mentions of either a tank bank or presentation tank, and Kingston is not mentioned (except in passing) in the Friends of the Lincoln Tank CD. However, those may just be the usual hiccups of electronic searches, and the Times in particular often didn't mention such things, so someone may know more.
Hull certainly had a presentation tank. Its story is on page 377 of The friends of The Lincoln Tank CD. It was a male MKIV and had been a training tank with the HSN of 138. It was displayed in East Park.
Hull also had a visit from the tank 130 Nelson as part of the war savings scheme. This was in 1918 but I am unsure of the exact dates. It was in the Central Square
I think Rob is right, there are photos around of Fray Bentos II in Germany after being captured at Cambrai - the photo you are using is one of them, and it is a MkIV male with the sponsons pushed in. Somewhere on the forum the serial numbers of these two tanks can be found: I think Fray Bentos had a serial starting with a '2' and Fray Bentos II had a serial starting "4". Will have a quick look.
EDIT: okay, memory didn't quite serve; Fray Bentos was serial 2329, but Fray Bentos II was 8019. See here.
-- Edited by TinCanTadpole on Wednesday 10th of April 2013 10:48:21 PM
Oops! How stupid of me not to have read the initial post correctly. Kingston (in Surrey that is) was not recorded on the silver bullet list as one of the places to have received a presentation tank. However there were several towns not on the list that did eventually receive one. I do have a note that a tank visited the Kingston Borough on Friday the 15th March 1918 for one day only. This is contained in the 11th March edition of the times. I believe the tank in question was 138 Iron Ration.
Many thanks for the replies, yes it was Kingston On Thames I was referring to. Having looked again at all my WW1 books and virtually every photograph I have concluded that I must have seen the photo in a pictorial history of Kingston, so I will have a look again at this possible avenue.
Re the tank in my 'signature' it is a captured British tank supposedly in Berlin and I originally thought it was my username 'Fray Bentos' F41 that was taken after it's heroic action in August 1917, however, on further research I understand that there were 2 F41's produced. Fray Bentos was a male MkIV with two 6 pounders and two Lewis MG's in the sponsons so the one in my photo looks like it is wrong, I will have to change it methinks!
If anyone can find photographic evidence of 'Iron Ration' in Kingston market in the meantime I would love to see it...