Why did Regulars join non-local regiments?

[Pat Atkins]

That's interesting, I wonder if a family connection was the reason behind his enlistment after all then? Having said that, was the 2nd Bn S Lancs Somerset-linked, or just the 1st Bn? Might not make a difference anyway by 1908, of course, both battalions might've been associated in local (Somerset) people's minds with the 40th Foot.

[bill24chev]

Using my case as an example perhaps a cousin remained in Somerset, joined up there, found himself moved to Warrington and told his now far-flung relations that it was a good regiment to join. I doubt this would be an isolated occurrence.

Still supposition, I know, but it may be useful to look at the history of the regiment as well as the individual.

The 40th (2nd Somersetshire) was overseas at the time of the1881 reforms but would have had their Depot at Warrington, shared with the 82nd (Prince of Wales) Regt. from a few years before 1881. It seems a long time from 1881 for there to still be a family connection with the regiment.

A number of Regiments that were 2nd or East/west etc Blankshires moved their recruiting base from rural areas such as Somerset, Cambridgeshire(30th foot) or East Devon (20th Foot) to the now industrial and growing population areas. of Lancashire. Pre WW1 a potential recruit could more or less choose which Regiment or Corps they joined. But the recruiting Serjeants may have been given an agenda to get enlistments into Regiments or Corps that were under strength. If their were shortages in the South Lancs I can well see a willey recruiter finding a tenuous link in a potetential recruit'sold links to that Regiments previous affiliation to Somerset.

[clinxx]

The Enlistment page of The Long Long Trail http://www.1914-1918.net/recruitment.htm says 'He would join at the Regimental Depot or at one of its normal recruiting offices. The man had a choice over the regiment he was assigned to.' That answers the main part of our question. There must have been a list of regiments with vacancies, so a recruit could end up with any regiment, subject to any 'guidance' offered by the sergeant!

For my Kentish grandfather joining 'in London' that only leaves the location of the recruiting office as a question and I guess he jumped on that tram to Woolwich.

There is almost certainly more information on the recruitment process in a book: The Edwardian Army. Bowman & Connelly. Oxford University Press. 2012. It's a 252 page hardback and at about £45 I won't be reading it anytime soon. (I see it's available as an ebook but I can't find where.)

[Pat Atkins]

Aha - so once again, the LLT has the answer. I had previously read that as meaning a recruit had a choice of regimental depots/recruiting offices to join up at, but you're right - it could also mean that he would turn up at a location and select (or be gently directed towards) a particular regiment. Makes sense in both our grandfathers' cases, really.

Although I still quite like the idea of an over-friendly, hail-fellow-well-met Lancashire recruiting sergeant tramping around the London pubs with his medals burnished and moustaches waxed, buying gullible labourers a pint and niftily dropping the King's Shilling into the glass...

Cheers, Pat

[Scalyback]

Plus getting away from any local bother with unwanted patter of tiny feet. You could hide in the army but not with the local regiment where you are known to others!

[Graham Stewart]

The reality is the British Army even before 1881 and the reforms which created the 'county' regimental system, had as often as not, no affiliation to the counties to which they were eventually associated. Foot Regiments were raised and disbanded, often by landed gentry, as and when they were required and in many cases, especially when conflict's occurred it was the Militia which were used to bolster them. Again these Militia units and their members, may not have had any association with the Foot Regiment that was trying to entice them for 'regular' service.

After 1881 and the Cardwell Reforms, in which the Foot numbers disappeared and regiments were affiliated to Counties, the problems still arose regarding recruitment and this was especially so with those Regiments, which were assigned Rural counties. The biggest providers of recruits were the over populated cities and generally, when recruits were hard to find in certain counties, the 'Recruiters' in these cities would be tasked to 'recruit' men to fill out regiments which were lagging in numbers.

Some Regiments proved very popular without their recruiting boundaries, an example being the Northumberland Fusiliers, who had strong connections with London and the Home Counties - so much so that it became 'family' orientated from those regions and so the authorities often banned the Northumberland's from recruiting in those areas.

[Petroc]

Graham's above point (post 31) is highly relevant, and hits home at the root of the issue. As Richard Holmes and David French have observed, despite the county affiliations formalised by the Cardwell and Childers reforms, there was no way that individual county or (in the case of Irish, Scottish and Welsh infantry regiments) could ever hope to achieve a full compliment of recruits drawn from their nominal recruiting districts; Holmes asserted that, in the twenty or-so years following 1880-3, fewer than 20 British line regiments could claim that the majority or recruits came from their own designated regimental district. Much depended on the 'rural/urban' factor, since a battalion was meant to be the same strength whether it marched from Cornwall, Wiltshire or Leeds and Birmingham, and therefore the 'excess' of newly-enlisted men from the larger towns and cities would be drafted for training and service in units which, without this influx, would have been hard-pressed to fill their own ranks; much the same, in fact, as happened during the formation of the New Armies during the Great War. Witness the number of pre-war 'Brummies' and West Midlanders in the RWF, for example. I have little doubt that individual recruiting sergeants before the War would have been well-aware of this situation, and Holmes provides the example of an Irish recruit, his heart set on the cavalry, who was informed by the recruiting sergeant on enlistment that most cavalry regiments were full, but that he might like to join the East Lancers.....having agreed to this hitherto-unknown unit, said recruit duly crossed the Irish Sea and found himself in the East Lancashire Regiment!!

Andy