1911 Census Demographics - Regular Battalions

[guyholmes]

Thanks Keith.   I knew that during war time, you'd get drafted into whichever unit needed new recruits.  I am surprised that outside of wartime, there were so many Londoners joining the SWB.  Perhaps they were all trying to hide and run away!

 

Thanks for the info

[Keith_history_buff]

1st Battalion, South Wales Borderers, located at Chatham at the time of the 1911 census.

787 other ranks were identified from the census, and were broken down by place of birth thus:
 

	Region
	England	516
	Wales	248
	Ireland	11
	India	4
	Scotland	3
	South Africa	2
	Channel Islands	1
	West Indies	1
	Not Known	1
	Total Result	787

Of the 11 Irish, 8 could be considered as sons of Erin, the other 3 (James Daniel Hawker, Reginald Kemp, Rupert Williams) were sons of soldiers quartered in Ireland. Similarly, the man born in the Caribbean, Talbot Ralph Kay, was the son of a soldier. It it likely to be the same for the men born in India & South Africa.

On the subject of Ireland, I had seen it mentioned in an old book about the British Army that in the Victorian era, many a county regiment's muster rolls contained Irish surnames.† (I cannot recall the name of the book, published at the start of the 1970s, which had no inline citations, in any case.) That was no longer the case in 1911, and Martin Gillott has looked into this in a number of threads on the GWF.

A quick and dirty map plot produces the following



Table for Wales

Once more, Glamorgan born men are found in abundance, and the number of men from Cardiganshire is low, perhaps reflecting the low density of its population. The three counties in the recruiting district have been marked with a light green background.

 

	Region	County
	Wales	Monmouthshire	104
		Glamorganshire	89
		Brecknockshire	22
		Montgomeryshire	20
		Carmarthenshire	6
		Cardiganshire	2
		Radnorshire	2
		Caernarvonshire	1
		Merionethshire	1
		Pembrokeshire	1
		Anglesey	0
		Flintshire	0
		Denbighshire	0
	Total Result		248

Table for England

Of the 30 Essex men, 22 were born on the London frontier in the West Ham registration district. Of the 15 men from Hampshire, 8 were born in Aldershot, 2 in Hartney Wintney and he remaining 5 were from Portsmouth. 
 

	Region	County
	England	London	207
		Gloucestershire	48
		Essex	30
		Middlesex	23
		Somerset	23
		Hampshire	15
		Lancashire	15
		Herefordshire	14
		Warwickshire	14
		Surrey	12
		Sussex	12
		West Riding	12
		Kent	9
		Staffordshire	9
		Worcestershire	8
		Berkshire	7
		Devon	7
		Shropshire	6
		Northamptonshire	5
		Oxfordshire	5
		Wiltshire	5
		Hertfordshire	4
		Buckinghamshire	3
		Dorset	3
		Lincolnshire	3
		Cheshire	2
		Cornwall	2
		County Durham	2
		East Riding	2
		Bedfordshire	1
		Cambridgeshire	1
		Channel Isles	1
		Cumberland	1
		Derbyshire	1
		Leicestershire	1
		North Riding	1
		Northumberland	1
		Huntingdonshire	1
		Norfolk	0
		Nottinghamshire	0
		Rutland	0
		Suffolk	0
		Westmorland	0
	Total Result		516

 

Edited 29 August , 2023 by Keith_history_buff
Edited 6 June 2023, restoration of image corrupted by software upgrade Then edited 29 Aug 2023, † source is pg 11 of "Discovering Military Traditions" (1972) by Arthur Taylor

[Keith_history_buff]

2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers, located in South Africa at the time of the 1911 census. The bulk of the battalion were at Pretoria, with 100+ mounted infantry at Harrismith. The Harrismith men have their service number recorded on the census, as do their peers in the DCLI similarly at Harrismith.

884 other ranks were identified from the census, and were broken down by place of birth thus:

	Region
	England	651
	Wales	212
	Ireland	8
	India	4
	Scotland	3
	Australia	2
	Not known	2
	Egypt	1
	New Zealand	1
	Total Result	884

Of the 8 men born in Ireland, 4 were the sons of soldiers. 

For England & Wales, I was able to create a point distribution map, in addition to the county choropleth map.






Table for Wales

	Region	County
	Wales	Monmouthshire	118
		Glamorganshire	57
		Brecknockshire	15
		Montgomeryshire	7
		Anglesey	3
		Cardiganshire	3
		Carmarthenshire	3
		Pembrokeshire	2
		Caernarvonshire	1
		Flintshire	1
		Glamorgan	1
		Radnorshire	1
		Denbighshire	0
		Merionethshire	0
	Total Result		212

Table for England

Once more, it appears that many of the men are from urban areas. Of the 20 men from Hampshire, 9 were from Aldershot.

 

	Region	County
	England	London	280
		Gloucestershire	53
		Essex	38
		Middlesex	35
		Somerset	22
		Kent	21
		Hampshire	20
		Herefordshire	20
		Lancashire	20
		Surrey	18
		Warwickshire	16
		Worcestershire	16
		Shropshire	11
		West Riding	11
		Devon	7
		Staffordshire	7
		Sussex	7
		Norfolk	6
		Suffolk	6
		Berkshire	4
		Bedfordshire	3
		Buckinghamshire	3
		Cambridgeshire	3
		Cheshire	3
		Hertfordshire	3
		Northamptonshire	3
		Wiltshire	3
		County Durham	2
		Leicestershire	2
		Lincolnshire	2
		Cornwall	1
		Dorset	1
		East Riding	1
		Oxfordshire	1
		Rutland	1
		Westmorland	1
		Cumberland	0
		Derbyshire	0
		Huntingdonshire	0
		North Riding	0
		Northumberland	0
		Nottinghamshire	0
	Total Result		651

Edited 6 June , 2023 by Keith_history_buff
restoration of image corrupted by software upgrade

[Keith_history_buff]

I have made an effort to reconcile those men on the census with the medal rolls, and to determine where they were in 1914. For some who were "elsewhere" I have been made aware they have service records in WO 363 and in WO 97. A handful do not appear to have these, but have their prior service in the militia documented in WO 96 files.

In 1914, 310 men of the 1st Battalion were to serve with the BEF in France & Flanders, and appear on the medal roll for the Mons star. 221 men were in China with the 2nd Battalion, and 53 other men were with the depot and are on medal rolls. This leaves a balance of 203 men from the 1911 census who are "elsewhere".

 

 

Edited 6 June , 2023 by Keith_history_buff
restoration of image corrupted by software upgrade

[Keith_history_buff]

In 1914, 448 men were in China with the 2nd Battalion. 189 men in the 1st Battalion were to serve with the BEF in France & Flanders, and appear on the medal roll for the Mons star. 25 other men were with the depot and are on medal rolls. This leaves a balance of 222 men from the 1911 census who are "elsewhere".

 

 

Edited 6 June , 2023 by Keith_history_buff
restoration of image corrupted by software upgrade

[Keith_history_buff]

1st Battalion on 1911 census
By identifying 681 out of 787 who had service numbers, an analysis of time served can be deduced from their service numbers. This is done on the a priori basis that each soldier started their military career with this regiment. It is not the case, and some men will have transferred in, but this prudent approach does record the minimum that has been served.

 

 

Edited 6 June , 2023 by Keith_history_buff
restoration of image corrupted by software upgrade

[Keith_history_buff]

2nd Battalion on 1911 census
Exactly the same approach as before, where 753 out of 884 have had their service numbers positively identified.

 

 

 

Edited 6 June , 2023 by Keith_history_buff
restoration of image corrupted by software upgrade

[guyholmes]

Thanks for all this work Keith.   From your Distribution Map, it is very clear that London was quite a common centre for the SWB.

 

Do full records exist for the unit?   If I have my Gt Grandfathers Service number (well two of them) would I be able to track where he likely served?   How much of his individual Service Record is likely to exist, or at least for the unit as a whole?   I do not think his service record has survived sadly

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

A couple of points Keith:

1) Although lots of men might have been English born, without complete attestation records, I don't suppose it's possible to say what their civilian addresses had been before joining up. The last decades of the 19th Century saw massive population migrations to the coal mining areas of South Wales from counties in England and Wales. It was extremely common to see families with young children  move en masse, so it's not unexpected that those young children, although English born, were by 1914 'naturalized' Welsh.

2) Breconshire itself is one of those coalfield counties and not just a rural agricultural county. The extreme south west corner  around Ystradgynlais/Cwm Twrch and Abercrave was a coal mining area, so was prone to the same demographic changes.

3) It's not surprising that there are so many attestations in Breconshire of Monmouth and Glamorgan born men. Towns like Crickhowell and Brecon really aren't far beyond the county line.

 

I'm interested in your mapping software, which seems to have distorted the appearance of county boundaries as they were pre 1973.

Does it perhaps depict amalgamations of registration districts rather than actual county boundaries? The actual shapes of Radnorshire, Breconshire & Herefordshire never looked like that. Anglesey was a single island county, but on the map has a boundary splitting it in two. The old Anglesey Registration district matches the large north western portion depicted, and the smaller south east portion sort of fits with the parts of Bangor Reg. Dist. And Caernarfon Reg. Dist.

[Keith_history_buff]

I would say that the analysis ties in with what the late Martin Gillott had found for other regiments, that recruits were primarily from urban areas. The only question that I initially had is why so few men from Cardiganshire were in the regiment, but that is probably related to it being a less populated county than others.

I was able to get a 1971 map of Wales from the ONS website. I was able to get a 1911 county map of England & Wales from the Vision of Britain website, a mapping project in association with the University of Portsmouth. Although it was a lot of hassle, getting a point distribution map did seem to be more informative to the mark one eyeball than the raw county choropleth maps.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Here I have overlayed your map (dark boundaries)  with a map of the historical counties (white boundaries).

It shows up quite nicely the lack of co-terminosity affecting areas in all counties:

I'm not sure how to label the map, but something like "Map of Historic Counties of Wales, where all sub-districts are shown to be in the registration county of  the main registration sub district".

 

[Keith_history_buff]

What you have plotted seems more in step with the county outlines on the 1971 map on the seventh page of this thread, than with the 1911 E&W map that was utilised. If you do find out where a 1911 England & Wales county map file can be sourced, in either *.kml or *.kmz format, please do let me know.

With regard to your comment on whether the English born person had been living in Wales at the time they attested, it is a given the census clearly does not capture this, which is why I analysed the fatalities on the seventh page of this thread, getting most of the data from SDGW and the equivalent info for officers commissioned from the ranks from their service files at Kew. The regiment appears no different to others where Martin did the analysis insofar as 

 

Quote

In 1914 the British Army was heavily dependent on the urban Metropolitan recruiting areas.

 
London for the SWB, as opposed to Birmingham for the RWF, does seem to be the "county" of birth that provides the lion's share of the intake.

The previously mentioned 17% of persons in Wales on the census of English birth would fit in with 20-25% of the fatalities being English by birth yet having attested in Wales, in industrial areas containing economic migrants "not of this parish" or even county, be that Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Montgomeryshire or Glamorganshire. (County names used are those defined by the GRO at the time of the census.)

The lack of a complete set of attestation records does prevent further analysis of economic migration for this regiment in particular. That said, there are the description books for the Royal Warwickshire Regiment that cover 1890 to 1908, so their 1911 census could be better analysed by an individual with the time, inclination, and proximity to Kew. There are similar records for the SWB from 1881 to 1897, but both battalions were overseas in 1901 so it reduces the population somewhat to a handful of men in Brecon and Aldershot. Similar records for the Durham Light Infantry cover the period 1885 to 1906, albeit with a hole for 1887-1901 so it would appear.