44 yrs old and volunteering

[Guest Mark Bretherton]

My great grandfather William Bretherton was 44 yrs old in 1914 and as far as my research has gone it appears he served in the 9 Btn South Lancs Regiment and went to Salonika in 1915 and was discharged on medical grounds in October 1918. He was the father of 7 children, one of whom was born in 1915. So far as I know he had two sons who also served in the war (of which only one survived).

My question is, how could he have served at that age?

He could possibly have fought in the Boer War, could he have been on the reserve? Would he still have been called for service overseas at this age?

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

Yes he could,have had previous service ,or just have been keen enough to Volunteer,a search on site for "Oldest" will reveal men who served in the ranks,of 50 & above,I have the awards of a handful in my collection,including an E Lancs Sergeant who was born in 1858 & served in Afghanistan 1878,A RFA TF Gunner of 55,A holder of the Edward VII Vol.LSM[20 years service before 1908!];BWM;TFWM & SWB,discharged in 1917 due to "being physically worn out";A Suffolk Regiment TF Sergeant Bootmaker,who held the Vol.LSM{QV} & TEFM,as well as a Trio for service in Gallipoli;who was 56 @ War's end & a RGA RSM/Warrant Officer; MC winner, again,an Edward VII LSGC holder, over 50 in 1914 when recalled from the Reserve,& there are many similar such examples @ 44 your man was a "youngster"!

[Guest Mark Bretherton]

there are many similar such examples @ 44 your man was a "youngster"!

Sheesh, you're not kidding. Before the war his occupation is listed as Painter Decorator, so if he did serve it was not continuously. Thanks for the info, clearly age was not much of a barrier if you were eager enough.

[Pat Holscher]

Sheesh, you're not kidding. Before the war his occupation is listed as Painter Decorator, so if he did serve it was not continuously. Thanks for the info, clearly age was not much of a barrier if you were eager enough.

I've seen some examples of Canadian volunteers in their 50s. While we very often are inclined to think that all servicemen in wars are young, it turns out not to really be true.

[cockney tone]

Mark,

just out of interest the oldest recorded British Soldier to die during the Battle of the Somme is reputed to have been 68!!!!!!!

Regards,

Scottie.

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

Notwithstanding that many of the senior NCOs in 1914 would have been well middle aged;General Officers too were often near their "dotage";FM,Lord Roberts VC;was 100 when he died in 1914.

[Mark Hone]

Our Bury Virtual War Memorial project is turning up a surprising number (to me) of men in their 40's serving in the ranks. We have only reached 1916 so far and I suspect that the average age will drop significantly in the last two years of the war.

[Anthony Bagshaw]

There's a 63 year old Sapper buried in the local cemtery here in Mansfield:

CONNOLLY, ALEXANDER

Initials: A

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Sapper

Regiment: Royal Engineers

Age: 63

Date of Death: 15/01/1918

Service No: 116663

Additional information: Husband of Mary Ann Connolly, of 48, Bradder St., Mansfield.

Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead

Grave/Memorial Reference: B. 7327.

Cemetery: MANSFIELD (NOTTINGHAM ROAD) CEMETERY

I have in my collection a 1914-15 trio to a 16 year old. Makes you think

[Adam M]

There's a 63 year old Sapper buried in the local cemtery here in Mansfield:

CONNOLLY, ALEXANDER

Initials: A

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Sapper

Regiment: Royal Engineers

Age: 63

Date of Death: 15/01/1918

Service No: 116663

Additional information: Husband of Mary Ann Connolly, of 48, Bradder St., Mansfield.

Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead

Grave/Memorial Reference: B. 7327.

Cemetery: MANSFIELD (NOTTINGHAM ROAD) CEMETERY

I have in my collection a 1914-15 trio to a 16 year old. Makes you think

Very interesting thread - all too easy to immediately think just "young". Lost generations rather than generation?

[Guest Mark Bretherton]

Very interesting thread - all too easy to immediately think just "young". Lost generations rather than generation?

I'm not completely convinced about the 'lost generation' thing.

Britain's population in 1914 was approximately 45 million, so presume a 50:50 split male:female gives you approximately 22.5m males.

8.5 million served in all services throughout the war, which equates to about 37% of the entire British male population. Of that 37% 750,000 were killed - approx 9% of those who served.

In other words British killed equalled less than 2% of the entire population and around 3.5% of the entire male population.

Between the British Census of 1911 and of 1921 the British population actually grew from 43m to 48m and during that time the actual male population rose, less than in the census from 1901 to 1911 but at about the same rate as the census from 1921 to 1931.

I find these numbers at odds with the concept of a 'lost generation' which implies great and profoundly obvious gaps in the demographic of Britain's male population. From reading the census data you could be forgiven for thinking there was no major and catastrophic blood letting between 1914-18.

9% of those men of military age were killed, but we constantly find the meaning of military age shifting as we've seen. Effectively those aged 15-34 at the 1911 census would have formed the core group eligible to serve at some stage in '14-18 - but we're discovering here that even that age bracket may be too narrow, which again is at odds with the concept of a lost generation.

Now every number here is a personal tragedy and I don't want to gloss over that, but 9% is not the death of a generation. From a class of 30 boys leaving school they could expect 3 boys to be killed. That's painful and tragic, but it hardly wipes out a generation, and that's presuming all those killed came from the same generation, which they clearly did not.

Now of course the deaths themselves were not spread evenly and therein lies one of the tragedies of the war. Many units such as the Pals Bns were recruited locally, coming from the same towns and streets. If that unit was to suffer severe casualties (as so often could be the case) the local impact for that community would indeed be catastrophic, but at the same time some other communities would have waved all their boys out to war and welcomed the vast majority of them home.

In terms of the wider impacts of wounds, maiming and mental illness, the data I have relates to those on pensions and monetary awards following the war. In all 735,487 men received these payments. 308,622 were attributable to wounds, the remainder to disease.

5% (33,700) of these were for wounds involving amputation; 9% (67,000) for mental illness and 0.12% (923) for blindness.

However 38% were for wounds not involving amputation, another 4% were for rheumatism. These could be considered wounds that are not necessarily as debilitating as those above and not necessarily a reason why these men could not find employment, marry or raise a family.

In effect the total number of men with lasting effects that entitled them to a pension was about the same figure as those killed.

Now that's 1.5m lives either cut short or debilitated in some meaningful way by the war, but that's from a pre-war male population of 22.5m. Compared to the French, and I don't mean to sound glib, Britain got off lightly, for the French really did lose a generation and it took some time to recover.

If we start with the premise that all war is tragedy I see nothing in this war any more tragic than any other, the difference was that it was (for Britain at least) on a scale never experienced before or since - in that sense the tragedy is that it touched many more lives, making a more resounding cultural impact.

My immediate family lost one family member in each of the world wars, in terms of it's impact the tragedy for the family was of equal proportion, niether war was any more or less tragic than the other.

[Compo]

My grandfather travelled from Chile and volunteered when he was just over 40.His medical form pronouncing him fit for service asks does he "appear to be under 40".

He was turned down frequently in London but travelled to County Louth where a "family?" doctor signed off.

"Appearance of 40" almost smacks at official connivance but I think the key is that where there is a will there is a way.

Regds,

[Guest geoff501]

Our Bury Virtual War Memorial project is turning up a surprising number (to me) of men in their 40's serving in the ranks. We have only reached 1916 so far and I suspect that the average age will drop significantly in the last two years of the war.

That's an interesting question. Doing a bit of 'data mining' (don't worry no HE involved!) gives the following table of CWGC listed ( UK only) Commonwealth War Dead. It's supposed to be arranged in columns, but even using a fixed font it does not work on this forum (webmaster please note!) so you may have to paste this into a text editor to view it.

The first row is the number of these casualties found for the years 1914 - 1918 respectively. The second row is the number which have ages given - which is only in about 60% of cases. Next follows the distribution of deaths by these ages (rows) and year (columns) for ages 13 to 77.

You can see the peak age for death is 19 in 1915. This increases to age 21 in the following year and then back to 19 for the rest of the war. The table may look better if quoted as percentage, since the yearly totals vary - I'll try to do that but don't have much hope of forming nice columns. (who do I complain to?)

The very old deaths would be Staff Officers, some of the younger ones would be Navy or Mercantile Marine .

Sorry again about the columns, I can't get it to format correctly

Total for year: 33735 124857 187499 225637 222434

Total with age: 18082 68862 101698 131084 134229

Age 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918

=======================

13 0 0 0 1 0

14 1 6 1 18 15

15 24 55 49 55 54

16 87 349 308 164 139

17 221 1317 1182 567 432

18 447 3362 3661 2078 6021

19 1042 6026 8708 11572 16735

20 984 5656 8926 10889 10642

21 1056 5950 9884 10631 9704

22 891 4799 7853 9129 8113

23 909 4481 7270 8758 7972

24 926 3901 6385 7900 7464

25 874 3635 5360 6812 6658

26 1000 3088 5341 6316 6300

27 1046 2801 4206 6193 5833

28 1113 2605 3965 5244 5578

29 1146 2364 3512 5134 5042

30 998 2064 2929 4562 4412

31 763 1690 2440 3943 3604

32 785 1813 2695 4135 4068

33 587 1588 2138 3688 3502

34 557 1424 2151 3272 3188

35 455 1445 1948 3147 2753

36 385 1189 1976 3041 2798

37 281 1018 1355 2747 2292

38 306 995 1434 2260 2305

39 227 869 1226 2014 1839

40 193 680 941 1477 1344

41 125 498 638 1116 1090

42 140 556 592 858 1031

43 71 375 379 443 550

44 72 301 346 381 430

45 63 365 325 371 363

46 55 265 292 280 301

47 50 221 198 258 249

48 45 198 173 218 261

49 31 151 169 190 201

50 23 162 133 169 142

51 19 85 76 122 110

52 16 88 106 141 107

53 13 63 80 120 93

54 7 69 59 102 93

55 8 47 41 83 70

56 7 48 59 94 67

57 9 36 31 69 39

58 3 36 23 52 40

59 2 32 34 54 28

60 3 26 25 39 34

61 3 14 14 31 16

62 2 12 14 38 23

63 0 15 9 25 17

64 3 8 5 17 10

65 1 11 8 25 11

66 1 2 6 13 10

67 2 2 4 4 12

68 0 0 3 10 9

69 0 1 4 4 6

70 2 1 1 6 3

71 0 1 0 1 0

72 1 0 2 1 2

73 0 2 0 0 1

74 0 0 0 0 0

75 0 0 0 1 1

76 0 1 1 1 1

77 0 0 0 0 1

[Guest geoff501]

Here is the same data as a percentage of the yearly totals...

14 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.01

15 0.13 0.08 0.05 0.04 0.04

16 0.48 0.51 0.30 0.13 0.10

17 1.22 1.91 1.16 0.43 0.32

18 2.47 4.88 3.60 1.59 4.49

19 5.76 8.75 8.56 8.83 12.47

20 5.44 8.21 8.78 8.31 7.93

21 5.84 8.64 9.72 8.11 7.23

22 4.93 6.97 7.72 6.96 6.04

23 5.03 6.51 7.15 6.68 5.94

24 5.12 5.66 6.28 6.03 5.56

25 4.83 5.28 5.27 5.20 4.96

26 5.53 4.48 5.25 4.82 4.69

27 5.78 4.07 4.14 4.72 4.35

28 6.16 3.78 3.90 4.00 4.16

29 6.34 3.43 3.45 3.92 3.76

30 5.52 3.00 2.88 3.48 3.29

31 4.22 2.45 2.40 3.01 2.68

32 4.34 2.63 2.65 3.15 3.03

33 3.25 2.31 2.10 2.81 2.61

34 3.08 2.07 2.12 2.50 2.38

35 2.52 2.10 1.92 2.40 2.05

36 2.13 1.73 1.94 2.32 2.08

37 1.55 1.48 1.33 2.10 1.71

38 1.69 1.44 1.41 1.72 1.72

39 1.26 1.26 1.21 1.54 1.37

40 1.07 0.99 0.93 1.13 1.00

41 0.69 0.72 0.63 0.85 0.81

42 0.77 0.81 0.58 0.65 0.77

43 0.39 0.54 0.37 0.34 0.41

44 0.40 0.44 0.34 0.29 0.32

45 0.35 0.53 0.32 0.28 0.27

46 0.30 0.38 0.29 0.21 0.22

47 0.28 0.32 0.19 0.20 0.19

48 0.25 0.29 0.17 0.17 0.19

49 0.17 0.22 0.17 0.14 0.15

50 0.13 0.24 0.13 0.13 0.11

51 0.11 0.12 0.07 0.09 0.08

52 0.09 0.13 0.10 0.11 0.08

53 0.07 0.09 0.08 0.09 0.07

54 0.04 0.10 0.06 0.08 0.07

55 0.04 0.07 0.04 0.06 0.05

56 0.04 0.07 0.06 0.07 0.05

57 0.05 0.05 0.03 0.05 0.03

58 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.04 0.03

59 0.01 0.05 0.03 0.04 0.02

60 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.03 0.03

61 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01

62 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.03 0.02

63 0.00 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01

64 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.01

65 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01

66 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.01

67 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01

68 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.01

[Barry Hayter]

I have my GGF as 45 when he rejoined the Army in 1914, he'd already served 1888 - 1910, appears the need for experienced men was an invaluable requirement when it came to training and raising the various Battalions etc.

[Guest Mark Bretherton]

Doing a bit of 'data mining' (don't worry no HE involved!) gives the following table of CWGC listed ( UK only) Commonwealth War Dead. It's supposed to be arranged in columns, but even using a fixed font it does not work on this forum (webmaster please note!) so you may have to paste this into a text editor to view it.

Geoff, this is very useful information - any chance you have it as an Excel spreadsheet - that would make it easier to work those numbers and generate some useful stats?

Taking 1918 deaths it looks like about 65% came from the 17-27 age bracket. The fact that the majority of the deaths came from this bracket is not surprising, but the fact that 35% did not is also very interesting.

[Guest geoff501]

Geoff, this is very useful information - any chance you have it as an Excel spreadsheet - that would make it easier to work those numbers and generate some useful stats?

Mark, What is Excel ;-)

I could redo it comma delimited - save you some typing. Just realised I forgot to exclude alias records,

which are about 1300 in number, but this should not change the overall pattern much - only 60% are here anyway but that is a good sample.

cheers,

[Guest Mark Bretherton]

Mark, What is Excel ;-)

Microsoft Excel is spreadsheet (accounting software) that comes standard with most PCs these days as part of the Microsoft package of software. It allows you to give each number it's own 'cell' - what this means is you can sort and organise the data in numerous ways (it also arranges them neatly in columns etc) but also allows you to sort the information (ie in order of highest number first, or look for an average or convert to percentages).

I will consider putting into Excel if you don't have it, it just means entering each number again - a chore but worth it for the flexibility it will offer.

[Guest geoff501]

Microsoft Excel is spreadsheet (accounting software) that comes standard with most PCs these days as part of the Microsoft package of software.

Mark I was joking! - I'm not a bit bill gates fan! I will do a comma delimited and you can import this in,

sorry got side-tracked onto another job yesterday.

Geoff

[Guest geoff501]

Geoff, this is very useful information - any chance you have it as an Excel spreadsheet - that would make it easier to work those numbers and generate some useful stats?

Mark,

Here we go. Please remember this is only around 57% of casualties and is UK only for all services for all deaths for the years 1914 - 1918. Alias data is removed so the totals are slightly less than the previous set. Just loaded into OpenOfficeCalc, looks interesting.

Please let me know if you do anything interesting with this data. Probably would be better split into Infantry, etc. Suppose you want ANZAC?

Geoff

Age, 1914,1915,1916,1917,1918

13,0,0,0,1,0

14,1,6,1,18,15

15,24,54,49,55,53

16,87,348,306,162,139

17,221,1317,1176,562,429

18,445,3354,3649,2073,6017

19,1042,6019,8684,11560,16713

20,983,5650,8902,10878,10630

21,1054,5946,9857,10612,9688

22,891,4791,7821,9115,8098

23,907,4475,7246,8742,7950

24,922,3886,6357,7882,7455

25,872,3628,5338,6791,6649

26,997,3081,5320,6302,6289

27,1044,2789,4195,6174,5822

28,1109,2600,3946,5222,5566

29,1143,2357,3498,5115,5024

30,991,2059,2913,4543,4403

31,761,1683,2421,3931,3597

32,779,1807,2675,4122,4056

33,585,1582,2130,3675,3492

34,552,1416,2141,3259,3175

35,447,1444,1940,3135,2745

36,383,1184,1960,3027,2795

37,279,1011,1350,2741,2285

38,304,988,1419,2252,2296

39,224,867,1216,2007,1836

40,190,679,933,1467,1342

41,124,495,634,1115,1087

42,138,552,590,856,1026

43,70,372,377,442,547

44,72,298,343,379,429

45,63,364,324,371,359

46,55,261,291,278,299

47,50,217,198,258,248

48,45,198,173,217,260

49,31,151,167,190,201

50,23,162,132,169,142

51,19,85,75,121,109

52,16,88,106,141,106

53,13,63,80,120,92

54,7,69,59,102,93

55,8,47,40,83,70

56,7,48,59,93,67

57,9,36,31,68,39

58,3,36,23,52,40

59,2,32,34,54,28

60,3,26,25,39,34

61,3,14,14,31,16

62,2,12,14,37,23

63,0,15,9,25,17

64,3,8,5,17,10

65,1,11,8,25,11

66,1,2,6,13,10

67,2,2,4,4,12

68,0,0,3,10,9

69,0,1,4,4,6

70,2,1,1,6,3

71,0,1,0,1,0

72,1,0,2,1,2

73,0,2,0,0,1

74,0,0,0,0,0

75,0,0,0,1,1

76,0,1,1,1,1

77,0,0,0,0,1

78,0,0,1,0,0

79,0,0,1,0,0

80,0,0,0,0,0

81,0,0,0,0,0

82,1,0,0,0,0

83,0,0,0,0,0

84,0,0,1,0,0

85,0,0,1,0,0

[Guest geoff501]

Mark,

Forgot to add the yearly totals, but I suppose Excel will work them out:

18011,68691,101279,130747,133958

[Guest Mark Bretherton]

Mark I was joking!

Ahem, he says sheepishly, I should have seen that one coming!

Thanks, imported nicely into Excel.

Not looking for the ANZAC figures as I'm the first generation from my family to live in Australia, so all my WW1 relatives served in British units. Although this is only 57% it does give a good indication of general trends.

Although I don't want to lighten the impact of the casualties, it is useful in understanding how much substances there is to the 'death of a generation' perception of the war.