Army Form B.179a - Medical Report on a soldier...

This is a useful four-page document which not only gives crucial information about a soldier's age, regiment and enlistment date, but also gives us an insight into how Medical Boards arrived at their decisions on whether or not to make an award.

 

 

Page 1 (above) gives details of the soldier and a statement of the case dictated by the man but recorded by the Medical Officer in charge of the case.

 

 

The answers to these questions continued onto page 2.

 

 

Page 3 is where the Medical Board records its opinion.

 

 

This assessment carries over to page four. Arguably the most important part of this form is question 24 which assesses the level of disability.

 

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

 



Army Form B.221 - Descriptive return, extension of service

 

Army Form B.221 is one of those forms which someone in authority at the MoD, presumably, deemed should be weeded from men's files. I suppose one can understand the logic as information about extension of service is noted in the soldier's statement of services. Nevertheless, it is nice to see these forms where they do survive.

 

 All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

Army Form B.250 - Short Service Attestation 6&6

 

 

This particular attestation with the Royal Artillery dates to November 1908, although the form itself had been in circulation for a good deal longer.

 

 

 

The code at the top of the form shows that a print run of 40,000 of these forms was issued in April 1907 and that it was the second version of this form. I will try and dig out the version before this although the changes are probably minor.

 

H W V stands for Hazel Watson & Viney Ltd, the printers of this and many other British Army attestation papers . I have no idea what [No.13] or 8 58 17 refer to, does anybody else?

 

 

 

 

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

 



Army Form B.2512 - Short Service Attestation

 

 

Army Form B.2512 is the attestation form that was introduced in December 1915 in response to the creation of the Derby Scheme which it references in paragraph 11:

 

 

This form was to be used for wartime enlistments only with the most noticeable addition being the box, top right, in which the man's Derby Scheme group number was to be written. In this particular example the man fell into Group 33 and this number also appears on the top left of his form, presumably written there as a filing aid at the time of his attestation.

 

You can read more about the Derby Scheme on The Long, Long Trail website. All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.



Army Form B.121 - Squadron Troop, Battery & Company Conduct Sheet

Here's a fairly full conduct sheet completed for 4267 James Nugent of the Royal Irish Rifles. These forms are useful for today's historians because, as in this case, they can give a nice summary not only of misdemeanours during a man's army service but also his movements between battalions (and regiments), where he was located when the offences were committed, the names of witnesses and commanding officers, and also the award of Good Conduct Pay and Badges.

James Nugent's original form was destroyed and what we have here is a copy, dutifully recording various offences of drunkenness and disorderly behaviour over a 14 year period. Despite his brushes with the bottle, it should be noted that James Nugent nevertheless still managed to notch up three Good Conduct Badges.

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

Army Form B.268 - Proceedings on Discharge

 

This four-page form is commonly found in the WO 364 pension series and this particular version, illustrated above, dates to March 1915 and was issued in a print-run of 70,000. Furthermore, this was the 39th printing of this particular form.

 

The form is useful as it gives a physical description of the man as well as his intended place of residence and the reasons for discharge.

 

 

The papers above, which are Crown Copyright and reproduced with the permission of the National Archives, relate to the war service of Sydney Crowhurst of Chailey who was discharged as a result of an inflamed heart muscle, or myocarditis, a condition that would kill him before the war was over.

 

Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.



Army Form B.2056 - Transfer to Army Reserve

 

Army Form B.2056 gives a useful summary of a man's colour service prior to his transfer to the Army Reserve. In the case of Private Groves (above), his conduct and character is described as "Indifferent. Addicted to drink".

 

 

Brief service history details are given on the following pages, also a description of the man and his intended place of residence. It's a useful document and in my experience there are not too many that survive in WO 97. This appears to have been one form which the MoD decided could be weeded and disposed of, probably because the majority of the information included here is also noted on the attestation papers.

 

Pages 3 and 4 are reproduced below. All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

 

 



Army Form B.115 - Court of Inquiry inventory

 

This form, as is clearly stated on the form, was used by a Court of Enquiry to list the "Arms, Ammunition, Equipments, Instruments, Regimental Necessities or Clothing" of men who had absented themselves without leave. The interest for me - and I suspect other family and military historians - is in the minutiae of detail given - not to mention the cost of some of the items.

 

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

Army Form W.3195 - Mobilisation of Derby Scheme men

 

Form W.3195, as can be seen in the example below, was sent to men who had attested under the Derby Scheme and who were now being mobilised. It's a very useful form for family historians as it gives the man's home address and group number. In this particular case, the man's group is noted as 28 which tells us that at the time of his attestation he was a married man who had been born in 1893. There is also a stamp on the form which tells the recruit to bring his marriage certificate and children's birth certificate/s with him when he presents himself.

 

 

This man is being fifteen days notice to attend the Central London Recruiting Centre at Scotland Yard and the small print warns him that he if fails to attend he will be considered a deserter.

 

Despite the good intentions of the Derby Scheme which encouraged a further 2.4m men to join up (amongst these, my grandfather and at least two of his brothers), the scheme was ultimately adjudged a failure with 38 per cent of eligible single men and 54 per cent of married men still declining to serve King and Country. It was inevitable therefore that conscription would follow and this was introduced by The Military Service Act of January 1916 which came into force on 2nd March 1916.

 

There is much useful information on the Derby Scheme on The Long, Long Trail website.  The image of Army Form W.3195 is Crown Copyright The National Archives and is used with permission. The Military Service Act poster is used with the permission of Wikipedia.

 

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

Army Form D.459 - Section D Army Reserve, attestation

Alfred Saunders had originally joined the  Royal Field Artillery in 1899. He was discharged in June 1911 and almost immediately decided to attest for a further four years. This document dates to 1st August 1911.  

 
Pages 2 and 3 give an enormous amount of detail: physical description, dates of service at home and abroad, medal entitlement, next of kin, full statement of services and so on.

 

Attesting for four years in August 1911 meant of course that Alfred would have been called up in August 1914 and he would have been obliged to serve an extra "bounty year". This from the Army Book for the British Empire (1893):

 

“In time of war or great emergency all soldiers can be detained for 12 months beyond their engagement.  In case of imminent national danger or great emergency, the men in the reserve are called up by “proclamation” to rejoin the colours, and must, together with all those who are serving, continue in the ranks as long as the war or emergency lasts, provided always that they are not detained beyond the term of their original enlistment, that is, for 12 years, and the 12 months above referred to.”

 

So this would have extended Alfred's obligation until August 1916, by which time conscription had been introduced. This is noted on the third image, above:

 

 

 

Alfred's four-year term of service therefore extended until June 1918 when he was discharged - as  a result of shellshock - as being physically unfit for further service. By the time of his discharge he had served a total of 19 years and 16 days in the British Army: 12 years (colours service and army reserve) and seven years and 16 days In Section D, Army Reserve.

 

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

 

 

 

Unlimited Service - 1846

John Armstead enlisted with the 56th Regiment of Foot at Bury in Lancashire on the 2nd July 1846 at eleven o'clock in the morning.  He received a bounty of four pounds. The 56th (West Essex) Regiment of Foot was surely not a natural choice for a Lancastrian.

 

 

John was just under five feet, six and a half inches tall and apparently in good health.

He served over 14 years in the army.  (Discharge papers, not shown here, reveal that he served four years and seven months in Gibraltar, three years and 10 months in Bermuda, one year in the Crimea, and two years and ten months in the east Indies). He was discharged at Calcutta on the 1st October 1860 with two good conduct badges, the Crimean Medal with "Sebastopol" clasp, and the Turkish Crimea medal.

 

 

John Armstead's record survives in the very wonderful WO 131 series (soldiers awarded deferred pensions) at the National Archives which has just been published by Findmypast.  Images shown here are Crown Copyright.

 



Recruiting sergeants

Here are some nice images of recruiting sergeants in the nineteenth century. I only discovered recently, that three twisted ribbons worn on the sergeant's hat or cap denotes the appointment as a recruiting sergeant. The image above is taken from the Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment website and shows a recruiting sergeant circa 1810.

This detail above is taken from a painting by John Mulcaster Carrick and dates to 1862.

This painting, artist unknown, probably dates to later than the Carrick painting and again, the sergeant's ribbons are clearly visible.

Finally, the photograph above was published by Coldstream on the Gentleman's Military Interest Club forum in 2010 and depicts a recruiting sergeant from the Coldstream Guards and possibly the civilian recruiting agent standing by his side.

Military Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Ancestry and Findmypast. Both companies offer FREE 14-day trials.

Army Form B.265

Army Form B.265 was introduced in October 1880 with an initial print-run of 25,000 copies.  It was a short service attestation form, the recruit being asked:

"Are you willing to serve for the term of twelve Years, provided her majesty should so long require your services, the first six years in army service, and the six remaining years in the 1st Class of the Reserve?"

William Barrow answered "Yes" to this question when he joined the Rifle Brigade on the 10th May 1881 although had he but known it, the form he was signing up on had already been superceded by a second version which was published in a short print run of 2000 in March 1881.  In fact, there would be many versions of this attestation form over the coming years and B.265 was an enduring attestation form which would be used  - in various iterations - certainly into the First World War.

The version above is the 22nd iteration of Army Form B.65 amd dates to March 1889 and a print run of 120,000.

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Findmypast which offers a FREE 14-day trial.

Army Form B.111 - 1900 Attestation

Army Form B111 was introduced - probably in a hurry - in December 1899 with an initial print run of 80,000 forms. It was aimed at members of the Volunteer Force and specifically for the war in South Africa.

Volunteers were to enlist for "a term of one year, unless the war in South Africa lasts longer than one year, in which case you may be detained until the War is over."

Those volunteers who did enlist were formed into Volunteer Service Companies, each company to be composed of one captain, two subalterns, one serjeant-instructor as pay serjeant, four serjeants, two buglers, five corporals, 99 privates and two stretcher-bearers, or 116 of all ranks. I have written more about the Volunteer Service Companies and Volunteer Service Company numbering on my Army Service Numbers blog.

The man I have featured on this blog post - Hugh Amass Bothwell - had formerly served with the 1st Volunteer Battalion, Suffolk Regiment and was attested into the regular army, using the newly introduced AF B.111 on the 17th January 1900.

It is interesting to note that Hugh was 20 years old when he attested and yet had already served as an apprentice for seven years.

Hugh's attestation was approved by Captain E P Prest of the 1st Volunteer Battalion, Suffolk Regiment.

Hugh was discharged at his own request after just eight months' service.

Hugh's service in South Africa was recognised by the award of the Queen's South Africa Medal and three clasps: Cape Colony, Orange Free State and Transvaal.

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Findmypast which offers a FREE 14-day trial.

WO Form 497 - A Rorke's Drift survivor

Robert Tongue, a framework knitter by trade, attested with the 25th Infantry Brigade at Nottingham on the 1st March 1877.  He was 19 years old and indicated that he previously served with the Nottinghamshire militia; indeed it was Colour Sergeant William England of the Notts Militia who had enlisted him.

Overseas service in the Cape of Good Hope (1st Feb 1878 to 11th Feb 1880), Gibraltar (12th Feb 1880 to 10th Aug 1880) and India (from 11th Aug 1880) is indicated on this side of Robert's attestation paper.  It was whilst serving overseas in the Cape that 1315 Pte Robert Tongue of B Company, the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, was one of the heroic defenders of Rorke's Drift.

 

Robert Tongue was transferred to the army reserve on the 21st June 1883 and discharged from the army on 28th February 1889.  He had married in 1884 and the couple had nine children, the first five of these children, all girls, dying in childhood.  The eldest of the couple's two boys, John George Tongue, would later die of wounds (29th March 1918) whilst serving with the 16th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. By then, his father, had also died.  Robert Tongue died on the 29th January 1918 and was buried in a pauper's grave in the Shaw Street Cemetery in Ruddington.  Coincidentally, two other Rorke's Drift men, Caleb Wood and James Marshall, are also buried there.

 

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Pension records can be searched and downloaded from Findmypast which offers a FREE 14-day trial.