daily casualty lists

[callowbrack]

I have a soldier who was wounded in Mesopotamia 11 march 1916 and was sometime later evacuated to India

On The Genealogist site it states he was on the Daily List of 22nd. April 1916 with the publicatioon year of 1916

I am interested if anyone can tell me what this list was and where it was compiled and if it still in accessible?

Thank you

Michael McDonnell

[rksimpson]

Hi

As far as I know, the lists were published in newspapers of the time and can be viewed in them. Maybe the TImes in England and certainly The Scotsman in Scotland?

I don't know of the original lists.

regards

Robert

[johnboy]

Does his record show which hospitals he went to?

[Hywyn]

As of 7th August 1917 these Daily lists were published on a weekly basis in the War Office Weekly Casualty List.

So, the W O Weekly List published on 7th August was Weekly List number 1. The first Daily List in it was Daily List of July 30th and it's number was 5324.

If I remember correctly from my free trial of the Genealogist data their result is a combination of two databases.

1) Those from the WO Weekly List (but they only have them up to about Apr 1918 so far I believe) where they will produce an image of the actual WO List page.

2)The ones previous to the introduction of the W O list which were the ones published in the Times and they only provide a transcript for the particular sodier. They have called this result a Daily List date whereas in fact it is the Times publication date. I drew this conclusion from double checking quite a few against Times data I already had but I am happy to be corrected on it.

If you'd like to provide your mans name I'll happily check for him against the Times for that date.

[spof]

Hywyn

It is a little more "flexible" when it comes to the Times casualty lists. There was no official List but earlier in the war i.e. pre 1st July 1916 they were reported as the information came in from GHQ. For an example have a look at page 6 of the Times of 15 May 1916 and compare the Indian Forces in Column 2 and the other lists. It sounds like the WO posted a list outside its office and also sent a copy to the newspapers.

Michael

Your local or state library may have (often remote) access to the online Times archives. If not, the NLA offers remote access to it. Well worth it just to read the papers. Be aware though that it really is just a list of names and regimental numbers.

Glen

[Hywyn]

Glen

My saved paged for 15th May 1916 is page 13. I think you are quoting 15th May 1915? I'll log on and look for page 6 later.

I don't think I have actually seen any list in the Times with an 'official' Daily List number but I assumed they must have existed as the first on in the WO Weekly List was 5324. The Times for 15th May 1916 provides a list titled 'Losses in the ranks' and then provides further similar list refered to as Second List, Third List (up to 6th List). Given that the first Daily List in the W O List No 1 was numbered 5324 I'm assuming that there were lists numbered 1 to 5323. This 5324 number is obviously far too high for one per day from war outset and there being six for that particular Times publication date of 15th May (with two for the previous date 13th May, nil being published on a Sunday) supports more than one per day.

I'm doubting whether the Genealogist have come across a stand alone full batch of these lists pre WO Weekly. I think that if such an item existed, either in the N/A or any Library then given the depth of experience on this Forum there would have been some refrences to it/them. I was trying to convey that the Genealogist may be in error in refering to a Daily List number when they should be referring to Times publication date. They provide an image for the WO Weekly Lists but do not for the pre WO Weekly Lists ones suggesting that they have copyright for the former but not for the latter. Hence the transcript. Unfortunately I cannot bring up their description of these databases.

Hywyn

PS From my phocopies of selected pages from WO Weekly List from the British Library I seem to think that after Aug 1917 the Daily List were only issued one number per day (then split into parts). Aug 3rd is 5328. Nov 7th is 5410 with the 82 difference looking to be the right amount of days?

PPS Not sure how we got on to 16th May?

[spof]

Hywyn

I only referred to15th May 1915 as it was open on my PC at the time. Also in column 3 it states

"The following casualties in the Expeditionary Force are reported from the base under date April 28"

I have never seen consecutive numbers similar to the 5xxx in the WO lists in the papers. I belive that sometime after the Somme campaign in late 1916 or early 1917 the national papers reduced the reeporting of wounded etc. (possibly regarding hte sapping effect on national morale of the numbers) and then a bit after that the WO lists seem to appear. I have no experience od this change but haqve spoken to some forum members about this and they thought that the earlier lists weren't issued to the papers and the original ones weren't kept.

In England at least I think local papers continued to publish lists from the relevant county regiment e.g. Essex, Northants etc. They may have also done the Corps but again I haven't looked for that time period.

Oh, and the lists on the Genealogist are from microfilms (and paper records) held by the Britihs Library. THey don't have any earlier ones either so newspapers are the only real survivng records.

Glen