ppcli info please

[gary thomson]

have only joined the forum today but am allready posting my second question. i am researching a relative of mine l/cpl william harvey 51190 princess patricias canadian light infantry who was kia on 4/5/1915 at bellewaerde ridge.i am a member of the canadian great war forum to help me with his research.william was born in dundee scotland in 1881 served in the south african campain then emigrated to canada sometime before 1914. joined up in winnipeg 25/10/1914 27th city of winnipeg batt then transfered to the ppcli jan 1915. in france/belgium feb 1915.whist researchimg him i posted a question about obtaining his service records and was informed that as he was serving with the ppcli they were part of the bef at that time and would have british army service records as well as canadian army sevice records. i have obtained his canadian service records but i would like to obtain his british records if they exist.would this be the case that there would be 2sets of records ?. and if so how would i go about obtaining a copy of these ?.(the info about british and canadian dual records came from someone on the canadian forum who had obtained both sets for their relative). anyone out there able to help please.

[sotonmate]

Gary

Do you know which regiment he served in on the South Africa campaign ? There are Kew records for pre-war soldiers in WO97,but you need the regiment and it is all eyeball work at Kew as the boxes haven't yet been computerised. This record will only be for pre-War service.

If you'd like to post the Regiment maybe we can do a bit more for you.

Best wishes

Sotonmate

PS Just looked and I am again mixing up the data with Militias ! The name W.Harvey falls within piece numbers WO97/3004 for the period 1883 to 1900,and WO97/5068 for the period 1900 to 1913 !

[gary thomson]

thank you for that sotonmate. according to his canadian attestation papers it says that it was the gordon highlanders.is this what you are looking for?.

his attestation paper also states that he was serving with the 79th cameron highlanders malitia in winnipeg prior to enlisting in 1914.

[sotonmate]

Gary

See my amendment. Your target is WO97/5068. From looking at the National Archives Catalogue and it's Digital Express service you may be able to quote the soldier's details and ask them to find it in the box and to provide it to you for a fee. From memory there would be no more than 8 pages of the record so I wouldn't thinkit would cost much.

Sotonmate

[Keith_history_buff]

  

2 hours ago, mjc1 said:

The man who I researching, served prewar, emigrated to Canada, rejoined [and reenlisted with] the Canadian CRHA (after lying about his age again!), he was wounded and then after recovering he was badly gassed. Invalided back to Canada.

He was not the only one.

  

On 03/09/2003 at 19:42, mordac said:

The PPCLI are a unique battalion in Canadian history. They are the only military unit that was initially privately raised and funded. When the war began in 1914, Canada only had one active regiment in her standing army, the Royal Canadian Regiment. It was believed the war would be over before Canada could send a trained force to the front. So, it was decided to raise a battalion of men with previous military experience to shorten the time required to train the unit.

On August 11, 1914, A. Hamilton Gault started a poster and newspaper recruitment campaign. One of the key points of recruitment stated "Preference will be given to ex-regulars of the Canadian or Imperial Forces; or men who saw service in South Africa." Volume I of the PPCLI's official history also states "Under the conditions of enlistment it was inevitable that nearly all should have been men born in the Old Country: less than 10 per cent of the "Originals" were of Canadian origin; almost 65 per cent were Englishmen, roughly 15 per cent Scots, and 10 per cent Irish." Of course, the figures drastically changed by the end of the war. It's interesting to note, from their official history, that the PPCLI always considered themselves a Canadian, not an Imperial, battalion throughout the war.

Here's another set of numbers you might find interesting. From 1914 - 1919, 228,174 (or 36%) of men in the CEF were British born. Using Canada's WWI mortality rate of 9.28% would mean 206,999 British born men survived the war. When the war ended 22,318 men decided to remain in the UK and not return to Canada. If we can for the sake of argument consider all these men British born, it would mean roughly 11% of these men decided they were British and remained in the UK and 89% decided they were Canadian and returned home to Canada.

  

On 13/06/2017 at 22:12, Guest said:

  Thank you for your excellent comments on your work.  2 small speculations that you may have details of already:

 

1) "Disappearing" reservists... I have mentioned it once before- that in Canada at least, those who were still technically British Army reservists still enlisted in Canadian units  1914-There must have been some sort of agreement somewhere that  this was allowed- to denude Dominion forces of a backbone of ex-Regulars of the British Army would seem rather daft.

 

2)  One small factor ...

 

1. I have the returns for Army Reservists given permission to serve out their obligations overseas* -  An Army Reservist needed could not emigrate without permission, so the numbers will be recorded somewhere.... The numbers run into the low thousands (less than 8,000 and 5.5% of the Army Reserve - roughly one in twenty), with Canada at the top of the pile.. I have posted the page with the data on GWF before. I will add it here when I relocate it (Edit: see below). I think it will only explain part of the process. The pay for an Army Reservist was valuable income for next to no commitment in terms of training. Paid quarterly (I think) it would add a slug of income to men who were not necessarily in work. There is data on the number of Reservists accepting Poor Relief through the years, suggesting not all Reservists could make it in Civvy Street.   I have not crunched the data, but my sense is that while emigration will explain part, it does not explain all of the discrepancy. I suspect being poor and without work in southern Ireland in 1907-1913 was harder in Ireland than in England, simply du to the employment opportunities and the consistency in available work.

[snip] 

The PPCLI was formed from British Reservists based in Canada. It has always been unclear to me whether they were Amy reservists still on the hook, or ex-Army Reservists; effectively 1,000 re-enlisted men. It would be interested to understand the logistic plans for the overseas based Army Reservists - were they expected to make their way back to their Depots or was there a plan to consolidate and integrate them into the domestic troops of the various countries forming the Empire. 

[snip]

MG

[Keith_history_buff]

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