Index to be released of pre 1901 DoB service records still held by MoD

[Bryan Pready]

Very useful. I've found my grandfather, Jason Pready, born 1883 (it does help to have an uncommon name )

By the way, the rank shown on his medal card (Royal Engineers) is shown as "A. S. Sgt" Is this "Acting Staff Sergeant" of could it be another RE rank such as "Armourer Staff Sergeant"?

[ss002d6252]

Armourer Staff Sergeant"?

Armourers were part of the Army Ordnance Corps (although usually attached to other units).

Craig

[Justinth]

Hi everyone

I compared the sections on the 'Disposal of [soldiers] Documents' meaning service records in King's Regulations 1912 amended up to 1914, King's Regulations 1923 and King's Regulations 1940.

I looked at the post WW1 volumes as the instructions set out for the retention of records applied to WW1 service records up to the Arnside fire in 1940. Details showing how service records of those men still in service/deserters in addition to the retention of the first and second copies of attestations etc can be found by reading through the attached. My interest was in the submission of records by regiments/corps/regional offices to the War Office/Chelsea.

Aside from the records retained for pension purposes (submitted to the Royal Hospital Chelsea) after discharge due to sickness or wounding (this had long been in place before WW1) the main change I found was in the attitude to files of those servicemen who had been discharged with the end of their service. Whereas in 1914 such files were to be kept by the officer i/c records for an unspecified date (the full procedure is set out in A.F. B268, a transcript of the instruction page to officers i/c records is included at the end of the file King's Regulations 1912 Amended to 1914, attached), presumably residing during WW1 with one of the regional record offices by 1923 this had changed. Now all service records (barring those of soldiers who had died, presumably as a result of their duties, which were to be retained by the i/c records for 50 years after their deaths) were to be sent to Chelsea, with pensioners records to be retained indefinitely and non-pensioners' records to be disposed of 50 years after discharge. By 1940 there is a further change, with records of all soldiers (including those of deceased soldiers as mentioned earlier) to be forwarded to Chelsea with no mention of the length (or limit) of retention.

It is also interesting to see in the disposal of documents table for 1923 mention of the detail required (but no longer maintained after the 1920s) in the Attestation Books/Registers (A.B. 358). A link to the thread on the locations of surviving attestation books can be found here: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=214248.

Here are the links to the transcriptions:

King's Regulations 1912 as amended to 1914 and page 4 A.F. B268

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5txQl6Mp750UHBTZE5ZM29EbEE/view?usp=sharing

King's Regulations 1923

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5txQl6Mp750dmFfa1ZnTFY5RE0/view?usp=sharing

King's Regulations 1940

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5txQl6Mp750Z0g4dElsQmtLS0U/view?usp=sharing

Regards

Justin

P.S. The absence of item (ix) in the table from King's Regulations 1923 is an error in the original printed document, rather than in the transcript.

[Justinth]

Hi all

Just found a reference to some of the records at the Arnside Record Office being stored in huts in the Square (albeit Boer War records) but it may give a further clue as to the separation of the records before the fire in 1940. This information comes from information taken from theses on the Boer War and refers at the end of the piece to the information coming from the Transvaal Archives Department (now part of the National Archives of South Africa). Any South African experts out there that could look up the reference? Here is the link from Google Booksearch:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b8gKAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=war+office+arnside+street&source=bl&ots=OAZyLghvW5&sig=MEN45u1DkwrRADaYvpP_7IoitXs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=x9mZVNHJI8H-UKz6g6gL&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBDge#v=onepage&q=war%20office%20arnside%20street&f=false

A.Wessels (ed) (2010): A Century of Postgraduate Anglo Boer War Studies: Master's and Doctoral Studies Completed at Universities in South Africa, in English-speaking Countries and on the European Continent 1908-2008, South Africa: Bloemfontein pp. 28-29

The search terms I used within the book are Arnside Street Walworth.

A map closer to the time of the fire (1938) than the map on the LLT can be found here: http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=Historical_Selection&tooltip=Hist_tips

Then click on 1938, put Arnside Street into the search box and click on one of the address options that becomes available. You will then need to zoom back and you get a good view of Arnside Steet and what must be the square.

Regards

Justin

[Justinth]

Hi All

A handy list I found from a 1918 book 'War Pensions and Allowances' by J.M. Hogge, M.P. and T.H. Garside (Hodder and Stoughton) showing the Army Regional Record Offices in 1918 and the groups of regiments which they served (the description does not include the No given to particular offices). I have extracted the relevant pages which can be downloaded here: - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5txQl6Mp750dE0ySHk0TS0yQTg/view?usp=sharing

The full book can be found here: https://archive.org/details/thewarpensionsallow00hoggric

In relation to the Arnside Fire it is possible that the service records would have been grouped/stored according to which record office they had been received from. Although the service records were obviously grouped by regiment (with also separation by date, otherwise the damage to service records would not have been concentrated with WW1 records), it seems entirely possible that the records would have been received in batches from the record office involved. Therefore it also seems possible that the storage may have clustered the different regiments covered by individual record offices close together.

One way to test this idea would be to use the Paul Nixon formula http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/2014/christmas-despatches-from-paul-nixon/ for calculating the damage done to individual regiments to compare and calculate the damage done to the service records of a cluster of regiments served by different record offices. It may be that the records were stored in huts (see previous post) or arranged in some other way (we do not have a plan or detailed account of the Arnside office) that would nullify the effect of receiving the records in the way described from record offices.

Regards

Justin

[spof]

Justin

Thank you for some more great work.

This old post by themonsstar is a good resource for working out where each unit had its record office. As the campaign medal rolls were prepared (or at least stored) in order of Army precedence I wonder if they were prepared in that precedence by the ROs and thus the regiments were kept in that order. Who would fancy moving around the entire paper records for a GW regiment without any real need?

Another aspect to consider is how the ROs drew up the rolls. Some I know like the Essex Regt and Rifle Brigade sorted them by service number while others like hte Royal Warwicks did theirs alphabeticcaly by surname. Again assuming htey weren't shuffled around prior to, or arriving at, Arnsdie Street, that could explain why we've had problems before trying to use surviving records to work out how they were stored.

A full inventory of what was lost in the fire is here. Looking at that it is hard to belive that the site was not much more than a WO archive of items thay did not need regularly but could not or did not want to destroy. As they didn't have the large pre-fab steel constructions seen on idustrial estates these days and it was "low value" records, I suspect it was a creaking old disused Victorian factory or similar and the reason it was so full was the state of the UK economy after the GW and Depression meant that they couldn't afford to get people in to sort it out. Having said that, they also held "2 tin boxes containing documents relating 1st Echelon France 1939/40." so it was still receiving records that would not be likely to be needed again with a recall time of under a day.

Glen

[Justinth]

Hi Glen

Thank you for your comments.

I agree with you about the Record Office at Arnside being fairly low on the list of priorities. The material I found with a search on the British Newspaper Archive, simply referred to a store for retrieving old service records and for looking up entitlement to join the Old Contemptibles Association http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=221706&p=2197538. As the work above based on the King's Regulations shows the value of retaining all service documents was only a recent innovation. With a belief from the early 1930s that 'the bomber would always get through' (also see the 1936 film "Things To Come') and the need to evacuate children (including whole schools - I have worked in both a school which hosted another school during WW2/plus one originally established as a result of the fear of bombing in 1940) from the cities, plus the mass of problems faced by Britain in 1940, the low priority given to many paper records in general is not surprising. In contrast the attitude to objects and records regarded as being of cultural value was understandably to project them from the likely effects of bombing by moving them out of the cities into historic houses, deep stores and other sites.

The administrative need for such records would have seemed small in comparison. A question that then occurs is what evidence of previous service would an old serviceman have required to join the Home Guard in 1940? Relevant as it throws another light on the official attitude to the value of these records.

Glen, your link to the monsstar's post did not come through on the post, but I would be interested to see how it adds to the extract from the 1918 book (link in my post above) which does the work of linking the different regiments/corps to their record offices. Perhaps it breaks it down into sub-offices?

I find your idea that the records may have been sent in from Record Offices in the same order as the listing in the medal rolls one which sounds very plausible. The reply to my FOI from the Grenadier Guards on their organisation of their records would be one way to test this http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=222029&p=2199189 although I was unable to find out how long this arrangement had been in place. I am awaiting responses from the other Guards regiments to the same FOI request. It will be interesting to see if they vary in their arrangements. It also occurs to me that it would be possible to do the same with the Horse Guards records http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C15822 as it says in the National Archives description that the Museum retains the original records books (the indexes of the records). For the other regional offices I would think that their equivalent index books were passed along with the records to Arnside, which would suggest that it was entirely possible that the records were not re-indexed at Arnside but may well have just been accessed by first checking the passed on regimental indexes and then going to the relevant location in the building/or hut (see above) and then finding the record within the order that it had been passed from the record office.

So I think that there are two of avenues of investigation here using existing evidence (other than continuing searches for unused or new evidence):

1) Calculation of the destruction rates of service records via regiment/corps (using the Nixon formula) and then comparison by record office to potentially reveal whether there was a grouping of records by Record Office at Arnside. The hard work will be in doing the regimental searches and calculations.

2) Using the Guards Records as a control to see if the theory about records being arranged in similar order to the medal rolls applies in this case.

Pretty exciting for an area that seemed likely to be a matter purely for conjecture until recently. It would also be a good project for the Forum.

Best wishes

Justin

[spof]

Justin,

Apologies for themonsstar link not being there but here is an edited version

f-Cork.
Royal Irish Regt.
Connaught Rangers.
Munster Fusiliers.
Leinster Regt.


B-Dublin.
Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
Royal Irish Fusiliers.
Royal Irish Rifle.


C-Exeter.
Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI).
Wiltshire Regt.
Hampshire Regt.
Dorset Regt.
Somerset Light Infantry (SLI).
Devon Regt.

D-Hamilton.
Royal Scots.
Royal Scots Fusiliers.
Scottish Rifles.
Highland Light Infantry (HLI).
Kings Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB).

E-Hounslow.
Queens Regt.
Middlesex Regt.
East Surrey Regt.
Royal Sussex Regt.
East Kent Regt.
Royal West Kent Regt.
Cyclist Corps.
Kent Cyclist Battalion.

F-Lichfield.
South Staffordshire Regt.
Leicester Regt.
Notts & Derby Regt.
North Staffordshire Regt.
Lincolnshire Regt.

G-Perth.
Gordon Highlanders.
Black Watch.
Cameron Highlanders.
Seaforth Highlanders.
Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.
Highland Cyclist Battalion.

H-Preston.
Lancashire Fusiliers.
East Lancashire Regt.
Border Regt.
Manchester Regt.
Loyal North Lancashire Regt.
Liverpool Regt (Kings).
Royal Lancashire Regt.

J-Shrewsbury.
South Wales Borderers (SWB).
Kings Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI).
South Lancashire Regt.
Welsh Regt.
Cheshire Regt.
Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
Monmouth Regt.

K-Warley.
Northamptonshire Regt.
Norfolk Regt.
Suffolk Regt.
Cambridge Regt.
Hereford Regt.
Essex Regt.
Bedford Regt.
Huntingdon Cyclists.
Non-Combatatant Corps.

L-Warwick.
Gloucestershire Regt.
Worcestershire Regt.
Royal Warwickshire Regt.
Berkshire Regt.
Oxfordshires & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (O&BLI).

M-Winchester.
King's Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC).
Rifle Brigade.

O-York.
Yorkshire Regt.
East Yorkshire Regt.
Durham Light Infantry (DLI).
Northern Cyclist Battalion.
Northumberland Fusiliers.
West Riding Regt.
Yorkshire & Lancashire Regt (York & Lanc)
King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI).
West Yorkshire Regt.

TP-London.
London Regt.
Royal Defence Corps.
Honourable Articllery Company (HAC).
Royal Fusiliers.



Other Record Office codes.

C.G. Coldstream Guards.
G.G. Grenadier Guards.
S.G. Scots Guards.
W.G. Welsh Guards.
I.G. Irish Guards.
G.M.G.R. Guards Machine Gun Regt.

H.C. Household Cavalry.

C.C. Cavalry Records (Canterbury).
Dragoons & Dragoon Guards.
King Edward's Horse.
Lancers.
Bedfordshire Yeomany.
Berkshire Yeo.
City of London Yeo.
County of London 2nd.
Derbyshire Yeo.
Duke of Lancashire Own Yeo.
East Riding of Yorkshire Yeo.
Essex Yeo.
Fife & Forfar Yeo.
Glamorgan Yeo.
Hampshire Yeo.
Hertshire Yeo.
Lanarkshire Yeo.
Lincolnshire Yeo.
Lothian & Border Horse.
Lovat's Scouts.
Montgomeryshire Yeo.
Norfolk Yeo.
Northampton Yeo.
Queen's Own Glasgow Regt.
Scottish Horse.
Shropshire Yeo.
North Somerset Yeo.
Surrey Yeo.
Sussex Yeo.
Yorkshire Dragoons.

C.Y. Cavalry Records (York).
Ayrshire Yeo.
Buckinghamshire Yeo.
County of London 1st.
County of London 3rd.
Cheshire Yeo.
Camel Corps.
Denbigshire Yeo.
Devon Royal 1st.
Devon Royal North.
Dorset Yeo.
Gloucester Yeo.
Hussars.
Irish Horse North.
Irish Horse South.
Kent Royal East.
Kent West Yeo.
Lancashire Hussars.
Leicester Yeo.
Northumberland Yeo.
Nottinghamshire Yeo.
Notts Hussars South.
Oxfordshire Yeo.
Pembroke Yeo.
Somerset Yeo West.
Staffordshire Yeo.
Suffolk Yeo.
Warwick Yeo.
Westmorland & Cumberland.
Wiltshire Yeo Royal.
Worcestershire Yeo.
Yorkshire Hussars.

The Corps & Others

R.A.P.C. Royal Army Pay Corps.
R.A.V.C. Royal Army Veterinary Corps.
B.R.X. British Red Cross.
C.M.G. Machine Gun Corps Cavalry.
H.A.C. Honourable Artillery Company.
L.C. Labour Corps.
M.F.P. Military Foot Police.
M.M.G. Motor Machine Gun Service.
R.A.O.C. Royal Army Ordnance Corps.
R.A.S.C. Royal Army Service Corps.
R.A.F. Royal Air Force.( there are about 4 pages in the file)
R.A.M.C. Royal Army Medical Corps.
R.A.V.C. Royal Army Veterinary Corps.
R.D.C. Royal Defence Corps.
R.E. Royal Engineers.
R.F.A. Royal Field Artillery.
R.F.C. Royal Flying Corps.
R.G.A. Royal Garrison Artillery.
R.G.L.I. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry.
R.H.A. Royal Horse Artillery.
S.of.M. School of Musketry.
T.C. Tank Corps.
M.P.S.C. The Military Provost Staff Corps.
Q.A.I.M.N.S. Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.
V.A.D. Voluntary Aid Detachment.
W.A.A.C. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.
Miscellaneous units

[Justinth]

Thanks Glen, just looked through the above, really useful as adds in some of the more unusual Corp plus division of regiments (such as the Camel Corp) and the letter abbreviation for the record office concerned.

As I said earlier we now have much of the material needed to help possibly answer the questions raised in my last post http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=221706&p=2204502 (although more material needed on the Guards records) which would provide a proper analysis of the damage caused by the fire.

The questions are (reasoning and background info above):

1) Calculation of the destruction rates of service records via regiment/corps (using the Nixon formula) and then comparison by record office to potentially reveal whether there was a grouping of records by Record Office at Arnside. The hard work will be in doing the regimental searches and calculations.

2) Using the Guards Records as a control to see if the theory about records being arranged in similar order to the medal rolls applies in this case.

It would be a great project for Forum members.

Best wishes

Justin

[spof]

Justin

Good luck with using the Guards records. They are for people who ended their service with the Guards and not anyone who served with them but was later downgraded to e.g. the ASC or Labour Corps.

[Justinth]

Glen

You are mistaken, they represent a more general range than that (although some records were lost to a V1 in 1944). For example I have my wife's great uncle's records who was a Sergeant in the Irish Guards. He did not end his service in either the ASC or Labour Corps.

On reflection I think you must mean the records for which the index has just been released by the MoD (service records with a pre-1901 Date of Birth still held by MoD) which started this thread which does include some transfers from the Guards (see an earlier post in the thread by Coldstreamer). As I am sure you know the Guards retained their service records rather than transferring them to MoD, with some lost in the 1944 V1 attack on the Guard's Chapel. Hence the information coming from the various Guards' archives on the organisation of their records.

Regards

Justin

[David_Underdown]

I think you've misunderstood what Glen was saying. If a man began his service with the Guards, and subsequently transferred to another regiment or corps, his records would have been transferred with him (ie to the relevant new record office). Only if he finished his service still with the Guards would the record still be at RHQ.

So far as Home Guard goes, the forms merely asked if you had previous service, and for a brief description of the service. There was no sign that there was any consistent attempt to actually cross-reference that against the records. From the records in WO 409 (County Durham Home Guard that I've looked at, the details are pretty brief. Though I did manage to track down a seaman's record covering WWI from the details given in one. The bloke who finished his service as an RSM in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers I didn't manage to cross-reference, largely since the dates given suggested his service continued after 1920. I don't recall that previous service number was requested for example, though it's not impossible that some would have put it down. The "service number" for Home Guard was merely the National Registration number (which also became NHS number in 1948).

[Justinth]

Glen

Apologies for misconstruing your comment, I simply could not see the objection in terms of the ability of the Guards records to help answer the question I had posed and therefore posted an answer which was really a summary of why the Guard records can help here (and was an answer to a completely different objection). It shows the value of a forum like this to debate the issues, sometimes get things wrong but at the end come closer to the real History.

What I am interested in is the idea of comparing the organisation of the Guards service records on a regimental level to the medal rolls (building on an earlier comment you made). It doesn't require the comparison of every record (which is the only way that your comment on the Guards records would be relevant to my proposal), but simply to see whether the organisation of the rolls follows a similar scheme to the way that the records are organised at the record offices. The only extant record offices still in possession of WW1 records we have are the Guards Offices (plus possibly the residual indexes mentioned for the Horse Guards).

David

As you will see from the same post made above that 'this thread which does include some transfers from the Guards (see an earlier post in the thread by Coldstreamer)' the transfer of records between regiments and corps (together with issues such as the creation of completely new service files following gaps in service) has already been mentioned and covered much earlier in the thread, for example: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=221706&p=2197784 and the posts before it.

Thank you for your very helpful reply on the Home Guard records which helps confirm the idea of the relative lack of importance to the authorities of the WW1 service and other records by 1940. It shows how even in WW2 with National Registration and wartime security the need to confirm individual life histories for organisations such as the Home Guard was nowhere near the level experienced in many jobs today, presumably based on the need to involve so many individuals in the war effort quickly/the local nature of organisations like the Home Guard (plus a more trusting/hierarchical society). It is also a useful insight into the relative importance of Home Guard records as a source for information on WW1.

Which leads back to the two ideas (other than the discovery of new records/sources for the Arnside Fire and its pre-fire organisation) for the forum:

1) Calculation of the destruction rates of service records via regiment/corps (using the Nixon formula) and then comparison by record office to potentially reveal whether there was a grouping of records by Record Office at Arnside. The hard work will be in doing the regimental searches and calculations.

2) Using the Guards Records as a control to see if the theory about records being arranged in similar order to the medal rolls applies in this case (I will post the rest of the FOI request information on the Guards' records as soon as I have it).

Regards

Justin

[Justinth]

To get the ball rolling, I have just looked at the BWM & Victory Medal Registers for the Grenadier Guards online at Ancestry, they are arranged as follows:

They have been picked by first letter of the surname and then indexed within the relevant records by service number.

This compares to a current arrangement of the Grenadier (other ranks) service records (in response to an Freedom of Information request) by:

'3. Records are indexed on a card index by name, initials, number. They are then held in boxes numbered chronologically…All Service Records are held in individual files designated by number, name and initial. Boxes are numbered 1,2,3 etc and also identified by Regimental Army numbers – approximately 30 per box – on spine.'

Retrieval of the records from the register by clerks using a card index such as that described (I could not get information on the age of this system) could easily allow the production of registers such as the above. Similarly boxes arranged chronologically by year would also produce a run reflecting the attestation and issue of service numbers, but without a card index system would involve a major task of then sorting the files alphabetically to produce the registers that we can see for the Grenadier Guards. However chronological storage is simple, with the boxes simply filling up as time goes and easy to access as the clerk simply goes to the numbered box.

The value of a card system sorted by name for any kind of personnel system is obvious. Initials and then numbers can then help to identify the specific individual. I assume whatever the earlier equivalent of the later AB358 Enlistment Books would have allowed a search to easily be made by service nos if necessary, but I presume that the surname route and then narrowing down by initials/service nos would be far more common.

We will see if there are any differences between the Guards indexing system when the rest of the FOI response comes in. It is interesting to see looking at the Irish Guards, Welsh and Coldstream Guards that their BWM registers are indexed by service number, whilst the Scots Guards follow the pattern seen in the Coldstream Guards registers.

For a control a very brief look at the various components of the Royal Artillery shows completion of the BWM books in service number order and for the Northamptonshire Regiment completion in strictly alphabetical surname order. Both could suggest either that the files were stored in this order or that they were simply pulled via an indexing system in that order.

Regards

Justin

[Justinth]

Following on from Paul Nixon's observation when discussing the Arnside Fire and the use of his search formula to determine the damage:

'My perception, when I was building my own database of regimental numbers, was that the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (13 battalions by 1918) had fared particularly badly in the 1940 bombing. Testing that theory for the first time now I see that the regiment (*Corn* Li*) returns just 12,455 results which, if nothing else, at least proves that my fears were well-founded.'

One thing that needs to be remembered when using this search pattern and the Findmypast British Army Service Records Collection 1914-1920 is that the numbers are slightly inflated by the names that Find My Past transcribed from casualty and transfer lists found within service files (so that a small unquantified percentage) of the number returned are not fragments of a particular individuals regimental service file. Paul didn't mention this in his post http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/2014/christmas-despatches-from-paul-nixon/, instead writing about the number of surviving documents. Plus there is also the inclusion of records from WO 364.

I compared the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry to the other infantry regiments covered by the Exeter Army Record Office using Paul's search formula on Findmypast (numbers of battalions can be found on the LLT etc):

Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry 12,455 results

Wiltshire Regiment 9,377

Hampshire Regiment 20,628

Dorset Regiment 14,605

Somerset Light Infantry 12,944

Devonshire Regiment 24,847

I then compared the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry records against the two regiments either side of it on the Army Order of Precedence for WW1 (taken from the LLT http://www.1914-1918.net/regiments.htm)

East Lancashire Regiment 27,066

East Surrey Regiment 25,164

Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry 12,455
Duke of Wellingtons West Riding Regiment 47,516

Border Regiment 20,563

Overall the results for the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry appear much more in line with the losses experienced by its Regimental Record Office stablemates but it can also be seen that the West Riding Regiment is as atypical of the set order of precedence set by its high number as is the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry for its low number.

What the above confirms (please feel free to try the searches yourself, the use of * in the search card is vital, plus on Ancestry) is that there is with this small sample some possible evidence pointing towards storage by Record Office order. It remains a distinct possibility that the records were stored in different parts of the Arnside facility unrelated to record office or order of precedence and then stored by regiment. I presume that most call for the records would be for individual files and therefore order of precedence in particular would be irrelevant in terms of the administration of the records. The main appeal of thinking about record office order is that files could easily be assigned to a planned and particular part of the Arnside facility on receipt from the record offices (particularly if this took place in the case of WW1 files in very large quantities). However administratively it is being able to go to a regiment and then retrieve an individual file that matters (with record office order also irrelevant here). The question of order within regiment is a separate question considered above and elsewhere within the thread.

What would determine whether the latter is more likely or the Record Office option remains possible is would be to produce another set of results (perhaps by comparing the regiments listed in the order of precedence sample against their stablemates in their respective record offices).

Regards

Justin

[Justinth]

Further work on Yorkshire Record Office Infantry Regiments:

York Record Office

Princess of Wales Own Yorkshire Regt. 9 (!) under ‘*own* york* regiment and 219 under Green Howards. Am I missing something in the search or were their records totally devastated?
East Yorkshire Regt. 22,290
Durham Light Infantry (DLI).71,402
Northern Cyclist Battalion. 50! Either total devastation or needs checking.
Northumberland Fusiliers. 35,734
West Riding Regt. 47,516
Yorkshire & Lancashire Regt (York & Lanc) 6,503
King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI). 26,590
West Yorkshire Regt. 54,801

No particular pattern suggested here . The pattern of fire damage to records reflects the use of incendiary bombs (as referred to in the South African document) referenced above, rather than the 'singular' incendiary bomb you often see written about (with multiple fires causing different levels of damage in parts of the Arnside storage, obviously the fires must have been most intense where the greatest losses took place). Whilst we are far from having a full estimation of the number of surviving documents by Regiment here (see my caveats above on the Find My Past data i.e. individual references extracted from other soldier's service files plus the inclusion of WO 364 unburnt documents) it appears to me a reasonable hypothesis that no particular organisational pattern has so far presented itself in this data (neither regiments grouped by record office or in regimental order of precedence, see earlier posts) and that it will not present itself. However it may be with a full list of surviving records against record office or in regimental order of precedence that one might still present itself via a run of particularly intense losses to a particular grouping of regiments using one of these systems.

What would be very useful is a proper report on the fire (rather than just the damage to the records).

Regards

Justin

[Justinth]

Dear All

I have found the entry in the War Office Directory for 1939 for the Records Section based at Arnside Street for 1939. That the section (subdivision) office, not just the store was based there can be found from:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=221706&p=2197538

Together with the entries regarding the keeping and disposal of records which show the changes in policy between 1923-1940 that led to the service records being in Arnside:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=221706&p=2202416

And with the file in the National Archive which describes the losses from Arnside in 1940 wo/32/21769 (the original can be downloaded from the National Archives, but a free transcription is here) the obvious value to understanding Arnside of a description of its active functions is clear.

My full transcription can be found here (including the personnel, including two clerks with M.C.s: F.J. Trezona*, M.C. and A.W. Allison, M.C.): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5txQl6Mp750NFRYckxHMHB6Q1U/view?usp=sharing

It also shows that by 1939 (and presumably 1940) the Arnside Store was not dealing with service files beyond 1920, even if the King's Regulations had by 1940 specified that all service files were to be sent to Chelsea, past 1920 they had not yet arrived at Arnside. The likely level of activity can be gauged from the staffing and functions.

Here is the main part of the entry explaining the duties of Records Section in February 1939 (compare closely against the list of losses above):

'Duties

Custody of the historical records (including War Diaries) and various other records of units and formations of the British Army at home and abroad in the Great War, and all enquiries relating to or arising out of such records.

Custody of the records of, and all enquiries relating to:-

South African Irregular Forces.

Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps; Women’s Forage Corps; Almeric Paget Massage Corps; Labour Corps; Machine Gun Corps; Corps of Military Accountants; British West Indies Regiment; West India Regiment; Anglo-Indian Force (Infantry); Slavo-British Legion.

Various War-time Offices, such as the Prisoners of War Information Bureau and War Office Casualties Sections. †

General Headquarters, Irish Command; General Headquarters, British Forces in Turkey; and General Headquarters, British Army of the Rhine.

Custody of original Army Forms B 199A (Record of Service of Officers) of non-effective officers, and of Confidential Reports of such officers.

Enquiries relating to all retired officers and ex-officers, to officers of the Regular Army Reserve and Territorial Army Reserve, to non-effective Nurses, and to V.A.D. Nursing Members who served during the Great War. (Enquiries relating to serving officers are dealt with by the M.S. Branch concerned.)

Applications for addresses of non-effective officers and nurses.

Custody of the documents of soldiers who became non-effective prior to the introduction of Army Numbers (8^th August, 1920) and all enquiries relating to such soldiers.

Enquiries regarding dates of marriage and birth of children of any soldiers or ex-soldiers.

Custody of the records of former civilian employees.

Questions regarding the disposal of War Office documents, except registered files.

Miscellaneous historical researches (e.g. concerning the service of officers in past centuries, old maps and plans, location of units, casualties, formation and disbandment of regiments), including reference to the Public Record Office when necessary.

* Established

† Enquiries relating to casualties to officers which occurred on or after 11^th November, 1920, are dealt with by A.G. 4 © (see page 117); enquiries relating to casualties which occurred on or after 8^th August, 1920, are dealt with by Record Offices.'

Regards

Justin

Note: RSM 19th London Frederick John Trezona 617256 '5012 Coy. S./M. (Actg. R.S.M.) Frederick John Trezona, Midd'x R. (attd. Lond. R.). For conspicuous 'courage and devotion to duty. He has repeatedly under fire distinguished himself by his courageous energy.' https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/29713/supplement/8239 Publication date 18th August 1916

[TEW]

The P numbers are usually seen on officers' records - if you look at the indexes to the officers' "Long Number" records (WO 338), these are the sort of numbers you see annotated where an officer continued serving after 1922 and the records are still held by MOD. I think that without the P these numebrs may be the same thing that you see being used in gazette entries and the like from around the beginning of the Second World War.

A few observations, no questions.

Just downloaded all 8 sheets, merged them into one .xlsx file and having a general browse through trying to see how things may link up to other online sources and noticed the first 2 officers I picked with 'P' prefixes and unusual surnames - P144939 Jack William Viola and P7345 Geoffrey Vipan have this number marked on their MICs.

I realise MICs have notations into the 1980s. Also just noticed that Jack William Viola (same age) has a WO364 record on ancestry for his 31 days service as a private in Rifle Brigade before being 'Discharged, Free, WO Letter.' which I presume relates to his commission.

TEW

[Charles Fair]

Justin - thanks for posting this. Also thanks for flagging RSM Trezona MC who appears briefly in my book. I had no idea that his postwar career included service in the Records section.

Charles

[Justinth]

Justin - thanks for posting this. Also thanks for flagging RSM Trezona MC who appears briefly in my book. I had no idea that his postwar career included service in the Records section.

Charles

Charles - I just had a look at your book on Amazon which looks excellent, I know the area of the Chilterns in the book pretty well (I spent several years driving up and down the Leighton Buzzard road). To have concentrated in a family/social network so many letters surviving from the Great War (or any period in time) is amazing. Your book is a real achievement.

Best

Justin

[Charles Fair]

Thanks for kind words Justin. FYI Trezona was a pre-war regular with the Middlesex Regt who had served in South Africa. A good long career if he was still serving in 1939!

[generalist]

A few observations, no questions.

Just downloaded all 8 sheets, merged them into one .xlsx file and having a general browse through trying to see how things may link up to other online sources and noticed the first 2 officers I picked with 'P' prefixes and unusual surnames - P144939 Jack William Viola and P7345 Geoffrey Vipan have this number marked on their MICs.

I realise MICs have notations into the 1980s. Also just noticed that Jack William Viola (same age) has a WO364 record on ancestry for his 31 days service as a private in Rifle Brigade before being 'Discharged, Free, WO Letter.' which I presume relates to his commission.

TEW

I've done the same thing - merged them into a single file - and will try and post it somewhere as plaintext. There are 313716 men, assuming all duplicates were filtered out, of whom 5217 were called SMITH (787 of SMITH J alone!) and 2163 BROWN. There's a tiny cache of names probably from India which would be very interesting to look into - two GURING, eight SINGH.

54593 were born 1900, 36289 born 1899, 30016 born 1898, 25683 born 1897... right back to 162 born 1864. Presumably 55 was the effective dismissal date for ORs in 1919?

Andrew.

[generalist]

Huh. Interesting detail - there's a pretty normal distribution of DOB, except for 1896/97 - more reenlisted men were born in 1896 than in 1897. I wonder if this is a distant echo of young men giving false DoBs in 1914/15 to enlist...

Edit: I've put up a blog post (with a graph by DoB year) and a couple of provisional thoughts on what this tells us. I;m not sure about the 1896/7 data, but there's also a clear blip in 1890 which probably reflects the pre-war regulars.

Andrew.

[Justinth]

Hi Andrew

A really interesting use of the data set to look at the age structure of WW1 Army veterans who were still in the Army or re-enlisted in the British Army post the 1920 change in service numbers. I have tweeted the link to your blog post http://tinyurl.com/maazurh.

Best

Justin

[generalist]

I've done a little more work with this data - I've not been able to find any indication of false enlistment dates around 1896/7, but it does turn out to demonstrate some very strange things about what men thought their birthdays were. A disproportionate number reported a "significant day" - Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, Martinmas, etc.

http://www.generalist.org.uk/blog/2015/when-do-you-think-you-were-born/

Andrew.