Territorial Service c 1912

[thrush]

I would appreciate your advice please there are several soldiers in my family that served prior to the War in the RAMC. I am lucky that I have found one skimpy pension papers and I think this represents them all.

One paper indicates the soldier was training in the First Aid and Nursing 4th ? C.P. Chevron Red and Blue verified M 2 18. He was part of the East Lancs Field Ambulance. His cousin with no papers Gordon Highlanders, and another one Northumberland Fus. also with no papers.

My question is were the men of the RAMC trained in the TF collectively to serve as part of other regiments and attested? as opposed to one group of RAMC to be trained and transferred later? The men all come from the same areas of Manchester. Two of them in 1912 are just teenagers but old enough to serve in 1915 in France.

I originally thought one soldier could not be mine as he had no Scottish heritage, Irish actually, and I was wondering if anyone on the Forum knows how these young men were selected and trained for the RAMC in the bigger cities like the Manchester areas to be used in the likelihood of war as medical support for other regiments with probably a lesser population to draw from?

I hope this is not too garbled I find it hard to understant military logic in the mangement of their resources all I know is that huge amounts of men were in the RAMC in the areas of Manchester and this to me appears logical that they had prior training to give the nursing care of the men. I do not think this is a skill that a man could pick up as he went along so to speak.

Any advice would be so much appreciated,

Thank you

Bird

[BJanman]

Hi Bird

The RAMC TF units evolved from the RAMC Volunteer Companies which were formed to provide medical support to the Volunteer forces, they were therefore part of them. There was a belief, I think, by the Duke of Wellington that Great Britian could be invadid around that time. The 1st East Lancahire Field Ambulance RAMC was formed from the Manchester Companies RAMC [Volunteers] and the Manchester Infantry Brigade Bearer Company.

Research into other TF Field Ambulances reveals that training consisted of evening drills and lectures at the Drill Hall, Saturday afternoon parades, and annual training in camp. It was at the annual training camp that the unit met up with the regiments of the Brigade they were attached to.

I am a little unsure about your question on how men were selected. Are you refering to before the war or after it started and into regular RAMC units? Though doing my RAMC database I know that men from Manchester also enlisted into the West Lancashire TF Field Ambulance, but I am not sure yet if it was specific parts of Manchester that went to the different units or if they just volunteered to go where they wanted or were sent were they were needed.

Barbara

[thrush]

Thank you Barbara that is very helpful.

Four of my relly's were in the RAMC one obtained his training with the Regular Army was a Cpl. Unit unknown and as far I know the others through the Territorial Force but all were attested into different Regiments and that is really what puzzles me as I could not see what they had in common with the likes of the Gordon Highlanders and the Northumberland Fusiliers. Anyway I am sure your reply helps me. I hope they did a bit more training in Nursing than square bashing though otherwise it does not make sense not to have some preparation for the awful scenes that they had to face?. The only one I have partial papers for is Frederick. He worked with the GPO so there was no nursing training there and he was just a teenager when he joined in 1912 the TF. Another was a garment cutter yet another a clerk. It makes sense that they met up with their Units during the camps but would they go to say Scotland to do this or Northumberland?

To me it is confused all I know is nursing is such a special skill and I hope the men were better prepared than what you outline.

Fred's papers shows Qualifications:" Nursing 4th R? C. P. 5 Chevron 1 Red 3 blue Verified M2 18?"

Thank you again Barbara very much I know about your terrific data base from the Forum and I really appreciate the time you have taken to reply to me. When I have all my available facts verified I will contact you again to ask you to include them in your data base, in the meantime I will try and learn more about the RAMC and my soldiers contributions, and drive everyone mad trying to make sense of it!

Kindest regards

Pat