Women on the strength

[drummer]

I have been reading a small book about the Victorian Army and there was a chapter on soldier’s wives and how some were kept on the strength of a battalion to perform laundry and other domestic chores. Was this still the case by 1914? If not, would anyone know when the practice was abolished?

Where did those NCOs and their families live during home service? Was there what we in the US call Base Housing or did they live in the towns ?

Thanks in advance,

Drummer

[Sue Light]

Drummer

I have some documents about military hospitals which include strength of stations during 1902/1903, so very near your period. Many of the barracks, even the small ones, had married accommodation, although it sounds as though in some places it was fairly primitive - a soldier, his wife and perhaps four or five children living in a couple of rooms with shared use of bathroom and kitchen. But the following few examples show that it was rather more than a few women being on strength to do the laundry:

Exeter: 18 officers 675 men 78 women 120 children

Ashton-under-Lyne: 11 officers 161 men 55 women 101 children

Lichfield: 53 officers 1411 men 157 women 315 children

Brighton: 461 men 51 women 94 children

And so on - they are all very similar. So assuming nothing much changed over the next decade or so, all these families would have been in married quarters at the outbreak of war. I have no idea what happened to them - presumably if husbands were posted overseas, then some would have gone home to relatives, but I can't see that it would have been possible to suddenly re-home thousands of women and children throughout the country. In the post-war period accommodation in barracks continued in married quarters, and I know that for Brighton [named above] the married quarters were still there when the barracks closed, which I think was the 1980s.

Of course, married quarters changed as social standards improved - how many people on the forum remember the joys of not being able to 'march out' of your quarter because you couldn't account for a missing bristle broom...

Sue

[drummer]

SueL..Thanks for the fast reply. I must assume then that the situation was unchanged by 1914. The book I was reading mentioned that there would be some sort of lottery to determine those wives and families that would accompany the soldiers on the troopships. I well imagine that the war changed all that.

Thanks again,

Drummer

[royalredcross]

There are two very good accounts of the position of wives of both officers and other ranks. The first is JUDY O'GRADY AND THE COLONEL'S LADY by Noel St. John Williams published Brassey in 1988 and the other ON THE STRENGTH by Mina Trustram.

The ballots held to see which wife got a "to go" ticket was more appropriate to the 18th and 19th century situation when those who were unlucky were simply thrown out of the barracks when their men departed.

Norman