Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy (25 page)

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1873–82: WO 97/1722–2171
The records for soldiers are organized into cavalry, artillery, infantry and miscellaneous troops and then by surname.

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1883–1900: WO 97/2172–4231
The documents are arranged by surname only.

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1901–13: WO 97/4232–6322
As above, a simple surname arrangement.

If you are still unable to find a record relating to your ancestor, even though you suspect he was awarded a pension, there are other options worth trying:

•  WO 121: 1787–1813
A similar collection to WO 97, containing papers for those discharged and awarded a Chelsea out-pension. This series can also be searched by name online in The National Archives catalogue.

Records from WO 121/239–257 relate to soldiers discharged without pension from 1884 to 1887.

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WO 400: 1799–1920
These contain the soldiers’ documents for the Household Cavalry.

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WO 116: 1715–1913
The series contains pension books for those discharged due to medical reasons or disability.

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WO 117: 1823–1913
Similar to WO 116 but this series contains pension books for those discharged after completing a period of ‘long service’.

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WO 120: 1715–1857
A series of the Chelsea regimental registers of pensioners. These mainly concern soldiers already in receipt of pension who may be required to serve again.

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WO 69: 1803–63
This series contains service records for soldiers of the Royal Horse Artillery. They are arranged by service number, which can be ascertained from the indexes found in WO 69/779–782, 801–839.

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Kilmainham Hospital pension registers
This hospital was the forerunner to the Chelsea Hospital, being opened in 1679 just outside Dublin to administer pensions to Irish soldiers. The records for this hospital are kept separately in WO 118 (1704–1922) and WO 119 (1783–1822). The records are arranged by date of admission to pension.

There are also two series for mis-filed documents and they should be checked if you are unable to find any record in the main series. They are also organized by discharge date, by surname only:

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1843–99: WO 97/6355–6383

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1900–1913: WO 97/6323–6354

The War Office created other sets of records apart from pension records that can also be used to trace a soldier. These can be useful as you may be able to find a soldier regardless of whether or not he received a pension.

Description Books

As suggested by the title, these books give the physical attributes of the soldier concerned. They also provide details as to his age, parish of birth and occupation. They form two main series:

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WO 25/266–688 (1778–1878)
These are the description books for the regiments, with the majority only surviving for the early nineteenth century.

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WO 67 (1768–1913)
This series is for the regimental depot description books. However, books only survive for a few regiments (as detailed in the online catalogue).

This is the main set of records to search for your ancestor if you are unable to find any service history. Each regiment compiled on a monthly or quarterly basis the names of each and every serving officer and soldier in that month or quarter and where they were stationed at that particular time. Additionally, they list when a soldier first enlisted and when he was discharged. They may also contain birthplace details of soldiers. From 1868 to 1883 the Musters would also have a marriage roll listing wives and children of serving soldiers. It is therefore possible to trace the career of any individual soldier, his start date, any promotions, where he served and his final discharge date. However, this can only be done if you know the regiment your ancestor served in and an approximate time period.

The first muster rolls and pay lists date from approximately 1730, although not every regiment kept a muster this far back. They are in a number of series arranged by regiment and chronologically:

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WO 12: 1732–1878
This is the main series containing Musters for most regiments.

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WO 10, WO 69, WO 54: 1708–1878
These series contain the Musters for the Royal Artillery.

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WO 11, WO 54: 1816–78
The Musters are separate for Royal Corps of Sappers and Miners until their merger in 1856.

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WO 13, WO 68: 1780–1878
This series includes Musters for Militia and Volunteer forces.

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WO 16: 1878–98
After 1878 the majority of Musters can be found in this series. Bear in mind that the Army was reorganized (thanks to the Cardwell Reforms) in 1881, when many regiments changed names or were amalgamated. Your ancestor’s regiment may be known under a different name after 1881 and would have been filed under that name (this can be researched using the Army Lists). The last records are for 1898 as the War Office did not keep Musters after that time.

The start of the First World War had a large impact on the organization of the Army. It involved an enormous increase in numbers serving for both officer and other ranks, and almost every resident of the country was involved, in either a civilian or a military capacity. The demand for manpower was such that conscription had to be introduced in March 1916, after the early enthusiasm for volunteering gave way to the reality of the horrors of modern warfare. In total approximately 7 million soldiers served in the British Army during the conflict and approximately half of these numbers were conscripts. Most men served until 1919, as the armistice of 11 November 1918 was originally a truce and not an official end to the conflict. Hence soldiers did not begin to be discharged until 1919, when it was guaranteed that there would not be a resumption of hostilities.

Unfortunately, there is no certainty that you will find the service record for your ancestor. A large proportion of service records were destroyed during bombing by the Germans in 1940, during the Second World War. The survival rate depends on whether you are searching for an officer’s service record or that of an other rank. It is estimated that approximately 65 per cent of records for the latter were destroyed in the bombing. Additionally, some of the documentation that does
survive has been subjected to fire and water damage and may be difficult to read. This will be described in more detail below.

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You can trace individual officers through the Army Lists
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During the start of the conflict officers still came from the privileged and gentlemen classes. However, as the war progressed, the large numbers of casualties led to a shortfall in the numbers of officers. Thus promotion from the other ranks became more commonplace and members of the lower middle classes and even some working-class men joined the officer classes.

The surviving records for officers serving in this period are at The National Archives. Of course it is still possible to trace individual officers through the Army Lists, although for security reasons the Lists were less detailed than in peacetime. Additionally, the rapid promotions given to some soldiers would not always be recorded in the Army Lists. Unfortunately, the main service records were also destroyed by bombing in 1940 and only the supplementary series is now available. The supplementary series was made up from the ‘correspondence’ file, which each officer had in addition to their service record. These files vary in length depending upon the length of service for each officer. In total The National Archives holds over 217,000 records and the majority can be found in two separate series:

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WO 339
This series is for officers who were serving in the Regular Army prior to the onset of the conflict. It also contains the files for those who were given a temporary commission during the war, along with those commissioned into the Special Reserve of officers. As such it contains the majority of records, approximately 140,000 officer files.

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WO 374
The smaller of the two series, it contains files for those commissioned into the Territorial Army and contains approximately 77,000 individual files.

A far smaller series, WO 138, holds the files of the most famous and notable officers of the First World War, such as Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, and the famous poet Wilfred Owen.

These series have been indexed and can be searched online in The National Archives catalogue. However, the indexes only give the surname, first initial and rank and, unless the surname is very uncommon, you are likely to have numerous entries for the surname. Hence, you will have to use WO 338 to identify the correct entry. WO 338 is an index to the records held in WO 339, but is not available online and will have to be consulted onsite.

Service records for other ranks are also to be found in two series held at The National Archives:

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WO 363
This is the main series of records. The records were the ones that were subject to enemy bombing in 1940 and, therefore, are sometimes referred to as the ‘burnt documents’. They originally contained records for all soldiers who served between 1914 and 1920 and were either killed in action or were demobilized after the end of the conflict. Due to the bombing in 1940 only a small percentage of the original records survive (approximately 20–25 per cent in total). The amount of damage done to each file varies, some pages being only slightly affected whereas other pages are almost illegible.

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WO 364
These records are known as the ‘unburnt documents’ and represent a sample of pension records awarded to soldiers after discharge (either for length of service for those soldiers signing up before 1914, or for those injured during the conflict and awarded a disability pension). They represent only about a 10 per cent sample of all such awards, and consequently the collection is significantly smaller than WO 363.

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WO 400
The series for service records for the Household Cavalry including for the First World War. Service records for Foot Guards are also amongst this series but are not currently at The National Archives.

The length of each individual service file varies considerably depending on how much they were damaged or the amount of correspondence each file generated. WO 363 and WO 364 have been microfilmed and it is not possible to view the original records. Each series is arranged in strict alphabetical order and not by regiment. However, depending on how much information you know about the soldier you are interested in, you may need the service number and regiment to identify the correct file. These can be found using the Medal Index Cards (see below). Additionally, to find out the activities of the regiment during the conflict you will need to consult the relevant war diary (see below).

Ian Hislop’s family is steeped in military history, and he has always taken a keen interest in the subject, ever since he produced a project at school on the Boer War.

Both Ian’s grandfathers served in the First World War. Having asked around the family, Ian discovered that his paternal grandfather, David Murdoch Hislop, served in the 9th Battalion, Highland Light Infantry, and was posted to the front line in 1918. On 29 September he saw action at the battle of Targelle Ravine, with many of his fellow soldiers losing their lives as his regiment suffered heavy losses on one single morning of fighting. After two weeks they finally broke through the German front line, hastening the enemy retreat which finally brought about the Armstice on 11 November. Ian was able to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps by locating the unit war diary for the regiment at the National Archives in record series WO 95, and then looking at trench maps in series WO 297 that showed precisely where they were stationed on given days of the campaign. Sadly, though, David Hislop’s service record did not survive.

Of perhaps greater interest was Ian’s maternal grandfather, William Beddows, an army sergeant during the First World War who, being in his forties, trained new recruits for front-line action rather than serve himself. Nevertheless, he had a distinguished career and saw plenty of action. Beddows enlisted into the army in 1895, and within a few years was caught up in the Boer War, fighting five major campaigns including the notorious battle of Spion Kop, when 1,300 British soldiers were killed advancing towards Boer positions under heavy shell-fire. Much of this information was known to Ian’s mother, but Ian was able to research in more detail about the campaign. Although Beddows did not keep a diary, records from other soldiers, located at institutions such as the Imperial War Museum and National Army Museum, reveal in vivid detail the horror of the battle, when Beddows and his comrades were forced to use the bodies of their fallen friends as shelter from the Boer snipers.

Yet the strangest coincidence lay within his paternal family tree. Further genealogical research linked Ian with a distant relative named Murdoch Matheson, who was born on the island of Uig. Some of his medals were found within Ian’s family, which gave crucial information about his regiment and some of the campaigns he served in from the clasps. On checking The National Archives online catalogue, his military service record was located. This confirmed that he enlisted in the 78th Foot Regiment in 1794; in turn, this information led to an examination of Muster Lists in record series WO 12, which revealed that Matheson also travelled to South Africa, landing at Cape Town nearly a century before Ian’s grandfather went there to fight the Boers. The same Muster Lists and associated pay books proved that as part of a long career in the army Matheson travelled the world before coming back to Uig to settle down and raise a family. His discharge to pension survives in series WO 97, where his discharge papers reveal that he finally left the army in 1813 when he was 45 years of age – important biographical information to enable a search for parish records and other family material in Scotland.