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.195 - Certificate of Trade Proficiency

The example illustrated on this post dates to March 1907 and in this soldier's case was completed in June 1909.

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.178 - Medical History

This commonly seen Army Form started life as War Office Form 1143. The example above and below is the third iteration of this particular document and dates to April 1881 and a print run of 50,000. It was a simple two-sided form at this stage of its evolution and in the absence of other papers - and particularly if the soldier had been in and out of hospital - can be hugely useful in pinpointing a man's locations. The soldier below was stationed at Leeds, Ballicollig, Curragh and Newbridge and a check against his regiment's movements and locations would almost certainly tie in with where he was.

The later version of this form, below, is the version that is more commonly seen in files of the First World War. Anybody who has looked at more than a handful of First World War service records will be very familiar with this form and will appreciate how useful it can be.

For me, on occasions, this form has been a life-saver, in particular the section towards the bottom of the front page which gives details of when the man attested/enlisted and then details of his regiment, number and subsequent transfers. Some forms I have come across also give the dates of transfer but the majority do not.

These forms survive in both WO 363 and WO 364 although in my experience they're more commonly found in the pension files in WO 364.

Pages two and three (above and below) are used to record details of admission to hospital or to the sick list in the case of warrant officers treated in quarters.

The final page of this four page document can give a good summary of medical treatment. In this case we see that the seasonally named Joseph Christmas was classified B1 in June 1916 when he was diagnosed with flat feet and requiring dental treatment. By the time he was discharged in September 1918 he was classified as B2 and had been seen by at least three Travelling Medical Boards (TMB).

All document images reproduced on this post are Crown Copyright, The National Archives. Service and Pension records can be searched and downloaded from  Findmypast. 

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.