National archives 'Conscription Appeals' project

[MichaelBully]

Noticed this from the NA website.

First World War

Military Service Tribunals

About the records

The MH 47 series contains 11,000 case papers from the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal which, between 1916 and 1918, heard appeals from men who had previously applied to a local tribunal for exemption from compulsory military service. The reasons provided by applicants are varied, with applications made on moral grounds (conscientious objectors), on medical grounds (disability), on family grounds (looking after dependents) and on economic grounds (preserving a business). The vast majority of cases relate to the impact of war on a man’s family or their business interests, and the papers reveal some fascinating and tragic stories.

The case papers within MH 47 provide a unique insight into the tensions created between Government and society during the First World War, which saw casualties and fatalities reach previously unimaginable levels.

This project, jointly funded by the Friends of The National Archives and Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) will digitise these papers and make them name searchable online, making them much more accessible to our readers.

The MH 47 project team will be examining case studies from the papers as the work progresses, so keep an eye on The National Archives’ blog.

http://www.nationala...iption-appeals/

[Magnumbellum]

This is an important and very welcome project, which will be of great benefit to future researchers, eliminating the necessity to travel to Kew to read a relevant file. A few comments may be appropriate.

The 'MH' in the file reference, MH 47, relates to the Ministry of Health, which on 24 June 1919 succeeded the Local Government Board, the government department overseeing the working of the whole Military Service Tribunal system in the latter half of the Great War. In 1921 the Ministry issued a circular requiring the destruction of all Tribunal records, except those of the Middlesex County Appeal Tribunal (necessarily including much Local Tribunal - within Middlesex - documentation), which were to be transferred to the then Public Record Office (now National Archives) as a sample of the system in operation. Similar provision was made in the case of the Lothian and Peebles Tribunal, whose case papers were transferred to the Scottish National Archives.

I differ from the NA in this present statement that the destruction was due to "sensitivie issues surrounding compulsory military service". There is nothing to support that in contemporary references to the destruction, and, if that were really the case, the question arises as to why any exception would have been made. Moreover, no sanction has ever been exercised in the few cases other than Middlesex and Lothian where papers escaped destruction. The much more likely reason was that it was assumed that the only people wanting to look at such papers would be researchers into the administrative and policy aspects of the system, for which one broad and comprehensive sample would suffice - otherwise the massed boxes of thousands and thousands of cases would gather dust, in the days when detailed family history was an exceedingly rare pastime.

[MichaelBully]

Thanks for your insight MB. I know nothing more about the project than is stated as above, But feel that this is a step in the right direction so to speak. I have wondered how Military Service Tribunals research fits into the family history genre. Regards, Michael Bully

EDIT - I was wondering if there had been any cases of people tracing ancestors who served in the Great War starting research, and discovering that said relative had initially tried to get an exemption

[David_Underdown]

The papers are now online via Discovery. As this project was grant funded they are free to download. Today's blog post from The National Archives describes various ways of searching them by place, occupation etc. See Commemorating Conscription

[DrElaine]

I can see from the National Archives blog on this topic that the most common grounds for appeal was Code E - on grounds of ill-health or infirmity.  As far as I can judge and as one would expect, most appellants felt that they had been judged fit to serve when in fact they had some health problem or impairment.  Was there scope to appeal the other way around so to speak, in other words if the man felt that he was in fact fit to serve but had been deemed unfit.  I ask because of an ancestor whose medical examination in January 1916 deemed him 'totally unfit for any form of military service' was apparently very upset by this decision and apparently attempted to attest again about a year later, only to be rejected again.  Could he have appealed?

[Phil Wood]

I have seen cases where the appellant was more than a little peeved at finding themselves receiving their papers - having previously failed a medical. 

[Magnumbellum]

On 22/10/2017 at 14:46, DrElaine said:

I can see from the National Archives blog on this topic that the most common grounds for appeal was Code E - on grounds of ill-health or infirmity.  As far as I can judge and as one would expect, most appellants felt that they had been judged fit to serve when in fact they had some health problem or impairment.  Was there scope to appeal the other way around so to speak, in other words if the man felt that he was in fact fit to serve but had been deemed unfit.  I ask because of an ancestor whose medical examination in January 1916 deemed him 'totally unfit for any form of military service' was apparently very upset by this decision and apparently attempted to attest again about a year later, only to be rejected again.  Could he have appealed?

 

If a man was rejected medically in January 1916, this could only have been in the course of an attempt at voluntary enlistment (possibly spurred by the imminence of conscription), as the Military Service Act was not yet in force. This would be regarded by the Army as an objective assessment, on which there was no discretion to be exercised, and certanly there was no provision for appeal against such assessment.

 

If a man was so desperately keen, there was plenty of war work outside the Army for which he could volunteer.

[rolt968]

I am a little confused.

Whether a man was fit to serve or not was not the business of a Military Service Tribunal. It was a confusion which certainly existed in the early months of conscription and in some cases later. I have seen reports of cases where men appearing before Tribunals who were distressed when their cases were rejected immediately if the only case for exemption being unfit.

RM

[DrElaine]

By coincidence, my man was from Willesden, so in the area covered by the surviving Middlesex records.  His initial attempt to enlist was in January 1916, presumably under the Derby scheme, at which point he was deemed medically unfit for any form of military service (from other sources, I know that he had a deformed leg).  He tried again in late 1916/early 1917, a few months after his 19th birthday, stating his occupation as motor driver, but was again turned down.  There is no evidence in the MH47 archives of him appealing.  However, in 1918, he enrolled with the American YMCA, attached to the AEF, as a driver mechanic and was posted to France, driving American troops to recreational facilities and acting a personal chauffeur to the YMCA's Director of Education there.