Special Reserve/Special Reserve of Officers

[Guest]

If a man was a member of the Special Reserve or special reserve of officers in the pre-war era, would he have been demobbed and discharged in early 1919 with all the war service only men or would he have to continue to serve well into 1919 and 1920 or was it just a select few that were kept behind? for example i have found 2 officers one was Brigadier James Pendlebury a member of the officers reserve since 1912 and was mobilized in August 1914, sent overseas in September 1914 and were "released" in May 1920, The other is Arthur Anderson, a 2nd Lieutenant in the 2nd Bucks for 10 months whilst at Eton college in 1905. After service in the 2nd bucks he is listed as a Lieutenant in the special reserve of officers on 15th august 1914 and was released from service 1st April 1920 the day after the "Z reserve" was abolished.

[Keith_history_buff]

In answer to the question, you would need to compile lists of men who served in the Special Reserve, be it in the ranks, or as one of the 30,000 men of the Special Reserve of Officers.

Regarding Other Ranks, I have come across the following quirk with regard to record office clerks. For most men, there is the stamp on the B 200 statement of services, stating the individual transferred to Class Z. I have seen this annotated in ink, with Class Z struck through and Army Reserve written in its place, implying there was still unexpired time until the 6 year engagement was completed.

For officers, a list is required, along with the archive reference in WO 339 for those men whose records have survived, and a trawl undertaken at Kew of those non-digitised officer service records.

[Keith_history_buff]

Notes on schemes of demobilization of the Army and the Royal Air Force
(May 1920)
Section 1
Army

 

37. For the same reasons that it was considered necessary to form Class Z Reserve for the reception of men on Demobilization, it was decided that until the termination of the war, officers would not be gazetted out of the Service, but would be released from military duty without pay and allowances in accordance with Army Order 10 of 16th December, 1918... 

A supplementary Army Order was published on 26th March, 1919, detailing the method of procedure in the demobilization of officers and pointing out that officers holding commissions in the Special Reserve would be demobilized, while officers holding commissions in the Territorial Force would be disembodied. In each case notice should be given to the officers concerned as early as practicable.

Sourced from SMEBE
https://archive.org/details/statisticsofmili00grea/page/688/mode/2up?q=Special+Reserve

[Michelle Young]

You realise that Guest won’t see this I assume? 

[Keith_history_buff]

Given that I had come across a question yesterday, and found something pertinent today, I thought I would respond. 

The great thing about the forum is that if similar questions have been asked in the past, and the reader does diligent searches, the knowledge previously provided may well assist in getting a question answered.