Service record and pension record

[punjab612]

On looking for the records for the Gt Uncle of a friend of mine I was amazed to find both service records in the 'burnt' series and 'pension' records. How is this possible as I understood that the 'pension records' were service records which were away from normal storage locations whilst being used by the pension department and therefore could not exist in two places. The documents in each set are not the same.

Any theories to explain this one?

Peter

[johndavidswarbrick]

Judging by the records that I have looked at there were often [always?] duplicates of attestations and other records. I suspect that what was sent out from the "service" records to the Pensions department were a mixture of duplicated attestation papers and any other documents needed for whatever the Pensions people wanted the records for plus, of course, the records generated by the process itself. What would have been, had both sets of records survived intact, would be the man's service papers and a pension file which would have contained some duplicate material and additional records generated by whatever processes the Pensions department had generated.

Dave Swarbrick

[Terry_Reeves]

The pension records were copies made up from the man's original documents. They were sent to by the War Office at the request of the Ministry of Pensions when the question of his pension arose. The originals were then returned to the War Office , the turn around time being three days. The MoP did not copy all the documents in the file, just those that were pertinent to the pension case.

TR

[John_Hartley]

Judging by the records that I have looked at there were often [always?] duplicates of attestations and other records.

INdeed. It seems to be a very regular occurance that there are duplicates. Or, more precisely, a second non-duplicate set of some of the documents - with one set having a more complete service record than the other.

[Retlaw]

On looking for the records for the Gt Uncle of a friend of mine I was amazed to find both service records in the 'burnt' series and 'pension' records. How is this possible as I understood that the 'pension records' were service records which were away from normal storage locations whilst being used by the pension department and therefore could not exist in two places. The documents in each set are not the same.

Any theories to explain this one?

Peter

Every man had two sets of records, those kept at the main depot, (Fulwood) and those that travelled with the regiment. Some in the unburnt section are duplications, as are some of the papers in a mans file in the burnt records. A comparison between sets of papers reveal different handwriting and signatures, some are stamped DUPLICATE. Not many files in the unburnt records have a copy of a mans Z11.

Good job they didn't have photocopiers.

I've come across several files that are empty except for an extraction slip, which gives the date of extraction, who they were extracted by, and the pension office to which they were sent, some were dated well after ww2. So where did those end up ?.

Retlaw.

[punjab612]

Many thanks for your replies. I hadn't come across instances like this before.

Peter