WEEKLY RECRUITING NUMBERS, JANUARY 1915

[Guest]

  I know some members know this statistical series well-but I do not, nor where to look. Hence, my laziness in asking.

    Could anyone provide the weekly army recruiting figures for Jan 1915 . I suspect there might be an upward blip as I have several local casualties whose enlistment dates, when tracked down a bit more rigorously (Silver War Badge dates, for example) suggest that they only volunteered after a last Christmas at home. Of course, some other obligations may have expired with the year end and Christmas is a quarter day. But I wonder if a blip will show up.....

[ss002d6252]

Monthly is best I have

Craig

[Guest]

 I'll just have to slum it then. Thanks Craig-  Quite a blip.  

[clive_hughes]

GUEST,

Not published, but the Ministry of National Service papers at the National Archives Kew include under NATS 1/84 and NATS 1/85 the various Recruiting Area statistics during the voluntary period.  The Areas were numbered : eg 23rd Recruiting Area covered the six counties of North Wales, based on Wrexham.  Not all men were enlisted in Wrexham by any means, but for this exercise "Wrexham" covers the area in question.  

 

One of those documents includes the monthly stats, divided into "Regular" (i.e. Regular, Special Reserve, and New Army) and "Territorlal".  The other has them on a daily basis, but only for the first few months of the war.  I can't recall whether January 1915 is included.  The online catalogues may help you discover more.

 

Clive

[Guest]

On 24/07/2017 at 22:53, clive_hughes said:

GUEST,

Not published, but the Ministry of National Service papers at the National Archives Kew include under NATS 1/84 and NATS 1/85 the various Recruiting Area statistics during the voluntary period.  The Areas were numbered : eg 23rd Recruiting Area covered the six counties of North Wales, based on Wrexham.  Not all men were enlisted in Wrexham by any means, but for this exercise "Wrexham" covers the area in question.  

 

One of those documents includes the monthly stats, divided into "Regular" (i.e. Regular, Special Reserve, and New Army) and "Territorlal".  The other has them on a daily basis, but only for the first few months of the war.  I can't recall whether January 1915 is included.  The online catalogues may help you discover more.

 

Clive

 

     Clive- Thanks for the heads-up on this source-which I did not know. It's only a small thing but I have been narrowing enlistment dates for some of my local casualties- it being assumed for some of them that with "pre-war" numbers (continued) or 4 or 5 figure numbers that they were all part of the Kitchener rush. But a few are turning up as Jan 1915-not important of itself but a little tweak on lives pretty well unrecorded.

[clive_hughes]

Recruitment was subject to fluctuations, especially during the voluntary period.  September 1914 was the boom month, with October suffering a drop owing to complaints of lack of allowances and poor camp conditions plus tighter height and medical standards.  Some of these were remedied/reversed by November, and figures rose again.  The Householders' Return scheme was then implemented and ran until January 1915, the aim being to get a list of men willing to be called up (not overly successful, but became a dry run for Derby Scheme and Conscription).  

 

I know that in Wales there was a decline in recruitment in December, but January perked up, but figures declined again in February.  March saw a transient recovery, before a slow decline set in again until May.   National Registration was being set in motion by June.  However, figures for your area may show a different pattern.  Spikes could be caused by reaction to war news (Lusitania, Cavell, gas etc.) or local recruiting drives - the latter reported in the local press.  

 

Clive