'Army recruiting pass' ?

[CarylW]

If someone has been given an "Army recruiting pass" does this mean that they have attested, signed up and are officially admitted into a regiment ?

Without revealing too much, I've come across an article about a "well dressed man" found drowned with an apparent suicide note on his person and a "recruiting pass" with a name on it in his pocket. (article states that he had just joined the Liverpool Scottish)

I'm looking into it because I can't find his name on CWGC and have found a death registered in that name for the time and location but I still need to send off for the death certificate (this is no problem since I have the reference) look further through archives to see if any inquest appeared, then if all points to a non-commemoration I could pass it on to the In From the Cold Project for consideration - or rejection

(found a smilar sort of case at one time but it was a no go because although reported as a "soldier" in the paper, he hadn't actually joined up)

Just need to know about the recruiting pass for now if anyone can help please

Caryl

[CarylW]

No takers? Hasn't anyone come across this term before? Is it a newspaper editorial invention? I can't remember ever coming across the term

What were soldiers given as proof after they attested?

Caryl

[Chris_Baker]

It would depend on when it was. Was this in the period of a few months after 15 October 1915, by any chance?

[CarylW]

Chris, it was 1914

[centurion]

No takers? Hasn't anyone come across this term before? Is it a newspaper editorial invention? I can't remember ever coming across the term

What were soldiers given as proof after they attested?

Caryl

It's a railway/travel ticket given to recruits volunteering away from the unit's barracks.

"This Pass must be given to each Recruit as he takes his seat in the train, or embarks , with instructions to be careful to deliver it , on arrival at his destination to the Serjeant who meets him; if from the distance to be travelled he receives subsistence beyond the date of starting, it should be stated".

Problem is I'm not sure if it was intended to get men actually enlisted to the barracks or for men intending to enlist when they got to the barracks. I'd tend to opt for the former.

[centurion]

It's a railway/travel ticket given to recruits volunteering away from the unit's barracks.

"This Pass must be given to each Recruit as he takes his seat in the train, or embarks , with instructions to be careful to deliver it , on arrival at his destination to the Serjeant who meets him; if from the distance to be travelled he receives subsistence beyond the date of starting, it should be stated".

Problem is I'm not sure if it was intended to get men actually enlisted to the barracks or for men intending to enlist when they got to the barracks. I'd tend to opt for the former.

Update - I tended wrong and find from an example that the pass was issued to allow the man to get to barracks and enlist. They were issued by the recruiting officer and would contain wording such as "recruit John Doe will be proceeding by IoS Railway from Erewany to Loamcester to enlist". So your man had started the process but was not yet enlisted.

It also seems that various low life were not beyond forging these (they only needed to cast a rubber stamp) to get free travel.

There is an oddity in the story - the instructions were that the recruit was not given the pass until he got on the train and he had to hand it over to the NCO who met him off the train. To have it in his pocket when he drowned he'd have to have detrained at an intermediate stop (or it was a forged pass that was found).

Edit - unless he jumped off the train or ferry en route

[Magnumbellum]

I agree with Centurion's analysis, but it seems a cumbersome way of proceeding. If the logic, quite reasonably, was that a volunteer should travel at military expense to the place of enlistment, the most expeditious system, I would have thought, would be to give him a travel pass either directly valid for the journey, or to be exchanged at the ticket off ice for a valid ticket.

By the system as cited by Centurion the man must first have been given some authority to get him through the ticket barrier and on to the train, and then given the pass as mentioned. Possibly the system was that such men were escorted by the military through the barrier and on to the train, possibly in order to inhibit them from having the kind of second thoughts that the man in question apparently had.

[CarylW]

Thanks for this. I'll see if the inquest was reported and what facts emerged before doing anything else. I did photo subsequent issues but must have missed it - if indeed it was reported.

Caryl

[centurion]

I agree with Centurion's analysis, but it seems a cumbersome way of proceeding. If the logic, quite reasonably, was that a volunteer should travel at military expense to the place of enlistment, the most expeditious system, I would have thought, would be to give him a travel pass either directly valid for the journey, or to be exchanged at the ticket off ice for a valid ticket.

By the system as cited by Centurion the man must first have been given some authority to get him through the ticket barrier and on to the train, and then given the pass as mentioned. Possibly the system was that such men were escorted by the military through the barrier and on to the train, possibly in order to inhibit them from having the kind of second thoughts that the man in question apparently had.

Give it some thought and, given the paper and eyeball systems of the day, its the only way they could do it. Don't forget there was no easy way of verifying anybody's identity. A travel pass could be sold so any chancer wanting to make a bit of dosh could wander into the recruitment office, volunteer for a regiment a long long way away, give a false name, and get a travel pass that could be sold for less than its face value. Escorting recruits to the train (or boat) ensured their bona fides and made sure they couldn't sell the pass.

BTW it wasn't so much an analysis as the facts of a man who volunteered in late December 1914 and , although the did so in the same county and was issued with rations and a recruitment pass in December does not show in his service record as entering the Army until the very beginning of 1915 some 3 days later.