Recruiting out-of-county

[Guest tonia]

Hi.

Under what circumstances would a soldier have been recruited from somewhere other than a regiment's home county?

I have a ww2 casualty who was from Barnstaple, Devon, yet when he died, was fighting with the 1st Bn Ox and Bucks.

I know ww2 is off-topic, but I'm hoping the query is general enough to be relevant here, too!

Thanks,

Tonia

[Desmond7]

All the time - and especially in WW2.

In WW1 - post 1916 'area divisions' had reinforcements piled into them from all overthe place. For e.g. Ulster Division got loads of west countrymen immediately before and after Cambrai 1917!

[Guest tonia]

Thanks, Desmond.

It seemed a bit strange to me, if it was a force elsewhere in the Westcountry, I'd have put it down to a simple boundary crossover, but to have travelled so far away to enlist sounds peculiar.

Would they have perhaps signed on locally, then be allocated a regiment?

[Desmond7]

In the case of the Ulster Div. remember there never was conscription in Ireland for political reasons. Therefore the original Irish divs. were all volunteers. Given the scale of casualties and understandable fall of of recruitment from back home, they had to be reinforced from all over the place.

In mainland UK, men who were conscripted into the army were trained up in reserve battalions and then posted to wherever needs were most. I don't know about late war volunteers in mainland UK, I assume they could still 'choose their regiment'?

That's the way of total war .. which is what it had become.

The early war years were famed for the Kitchener 'New Army' where men took great pride in enlisting in units which became 'service' battalions of the regiments already connected to their local areas.

Therefore you could have loads of Glasgow BB members forming their own battalion but it would become a service battalion of an established Scottish Regt.

Any other forum members who can set me or Tonia straight on this please jump in! I will not be offended ... more like relieved!

[Guest tonia]

Thanks once again for helping me understand the system.

It's all a bit complicated to a simpleton like me!

All the best,

Tonia.

[Annette Burgoyne]

Hi Tonia

The pre war British Army let men enter which ever Regiment they wished to enter. The 1st & 2nd Battalions of the Shropshires contained men from all over the shop, there were lots of Londoners, and lots from Lancs.

Annette

[ajsmith]

I seem to remember that in one of Lyn Mcdonald's books (1915?) she writes of two Nottingham lads who decided to travel up the North East to join the Northumberland Fusiliers because a) they'd never been further than 10 miles from their home city and they supported Newcastle United! This must have been in 1914 when the 'big adventure' idea still held sway.

Tony Smith

[tintin1689]

It was possible to ask for any unit at a Recruiting Office, but you had to be tough to resist the pressure to join the unit the Recruiting Staff were from

You could also enlist "General Service" or I believe "General Service - Infantry" and let the fates lead you.

In the fifties many people from Grimsby and Lincolnshire asked to join the RNF because it was stationed there in the war and had a very good relationship with the local people. In the 1890s/1880s a Regiment being publicised in the press could lead to applications from all over.

A friend of mine was from the Old Kent Road and did n't like it there, he asked for the English Regiment furthest away in recruitment area. He ended up with a load of Notts miners in the Sherwood Foresters (and no happier til he escaped to the RMP)

The almost indiscriminate posting of infantry caused great unhappiness in WW2 and regional groups in the fifties were formed to minimise the "foreigness" of cross postings