derby scheme

[Guest neddie62]

i would be grateful if anybody could tell me what the derby scheme was as i believe my grandfather herbert mathison was classed as a derby scheme enlister

ned

[Chris_Baker]

Have a read of this: http://www.1914-1918.net/derbyscheme.html

[Tony Lund]

In Holmfirth:

The 15th August 1915 was National Registration Day, which was intended to register every adult in the country, aged between fifteen and sixty-five years of age, and establish what skills and dependants they had.

Later in the year all the men who had registered and who were considered to be eligible for military service were invited to attest their willingness to be called to serve in the army if required, or volunteer to be conscripted according to some opponents of the scheme. The attested men were placed in groups, depending on whether a man was single or married, and his age, each group to be called in turn, single men first. There was no legal compulsion to attest, and although most men were visited at home and subjected to persuasion, many did not attest and some did not even register. This was known as Lord Derby’s scheme after its originator. The doorstep canvassers were instructed to be polite at all times and to attempt to get men to attest by persuasion. Not everybody made them welcome. Holmfirth lay within an area that had strong political and religious groups some of which were seriously opposed to conscription in any form. One man who was imprisoned as a wartime conscientious objector was later appointed Mayor of Huddersfield.

In the last week in November only ten men applied to enlist at Holmfirth and only two of them passed the medical, it was suggested that men who knew they were medically unfit for service were coming forward, knowing they would be rejected, just to publicly get the issue of whether or not they should try to enlist out of the way. The door to door canvassing under Lord Derby’s scheme was almost complete in the Holmfirth district, not always with the desired result, one married man with seven children refused to attest saying that he thought he was doing his share at home. Cards containing the details of the attested men were forwarded to Penistone for processing, those who were considered essential war workers had a star placed next to their names; the rest were placed in their groups to be called upon as necessary.

In 1916 Lieutenant Colonel R. B. Mellor was appointed by the General Officer Commanding Northern Command to act as the head of the Holmfirth Military Tribunal, in connection with Lord Derby’s recruitment scheme. The basic idea was to allow men who had attested their willingness to enlist when called upon to do so, to appeal for a delay in reporting for duty if some special reason made it unusually difficult for them to enlist at that time. Almost immediately these tribunals also found themselves hearing appeals for exemption from service under the new conscription laws, introduced early in 1916. The tribunal headquarters was established at the Holmfirth Drill Hall on Huddersfield Road.

On the 20th January 1916 the first batch of men recruited under Lord Derby’s scheme gathered at Holmfirth Railway Station and began the journey to the Duke of Wellington Regiment’s barracks at Halifax. This first stage in their army career passed quietly with none of the parades and crowds that had attended the departure of the Holmfirth Territorial Company in August 1914.

The details may well be different in other places but the essentials will be similar.

Tony.