GREATWAR-L Archives

From: "John Wilson" <>
Subject: [WW1] Registration, The Derbyites and Conscription:
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 01:31:36 +1300
References: <002101c16231$8d2953e0$5597883e@user>

Registration, The Derbyites and Conscription:

Britain started with a small regular Army and a part-time Territorial Army -
totalling about 700,000. Initially the Army relied on volunteers, but
British conscription started in January 1916 and the British Army by 1918
was largely a conscript army. Between August 1914 and December 1915 there
were 2,466,719 men who volunteered. From January 1916 2,504,183 men were
conscripted, or just over half of those recruited in the war. The other
European powers - France, Germany, Russia (and Austria?) started in 1914
with conscript armies of millions.

This is according to "Conscripts: Lost Legions of the Great War"
by Ilana R. Bet-El (1999, Sutton).

A National Register was established under the National Registration Act of
15 July 1915. In August-September 1915 all males & females between 15 & 65
were registered; and a certificate issued to those registered, who were
supposed to notify new addresses to the local authority within 28 days. The
Register excluded men discharged from the military or navy.

When completed in October 1915 the Register for England & Wales had
21,627,596 names. Administered by the Registrar-General (the last census was
in 1911), but separately in Scotland. There were 46 occupation categories.
Including Scottish returns there were 5,158,211 men of military age, but
with
1,519,432 in reserved occupations in industry or agriculture and reducing by
the accepted 25% for medical rejection left a military manpower pool of
circa 2,700,000 (pages 9-11).

In September Lord Derby was appointed Director of Recruiting, to get
sufficient troops for the Army under the voluntary system; preferably men
young & single not older & married. All British men between 18 & 41 were
asked to attest their willingness to serve in the Army. But the total number
produced by the Derby Scheme who were medically fit and in an unstarred
occupation was only 318,533 single and 403,921 married men. By Christmas
1915 conscription was seen as unavoidable.

The first Military Service Act of January 1916 applied to men 18-41, but
only to single men and widowers without children or dependents, hence was
known as the "Bachelors' Bill". Numbers were inadequate, many called up did
not appear and many men moved and were not traced. In May 1916 universal
conscription came with a bill applying to all men regardless of marital
status between 18 and 41 years. Later in 1916 & 1917 various amendments were
made to reserved occupations, and it was extended to Allied citizens in
Britain and British citizens abroad. Ireland was excluded from these
schemes; but the new Military Service Act of February 1918 raised the age to
50 years, with provision for extension to Ireland and up to 56 years "if the
need arose".

Before January 1916 the medical examiner said either "fit" or "unfit"
for military service, but the War Office created an A, B, C system:
A - fit for general service
B - fit for service abroad in a support capacity
C - fit for service at home only
Each category was then graded in a scale of 1 to 3 (3 weakest). But
standards were dropped as the war progressed. In March 1918 after the German
breakthrough a soldier found himself in France in a Battalion of 18
year-olds. They were known as A4 boys as those under 19 were meant to be
kept for home defence "as far as possible"
according to the Act. And men were upgraded from C3 to A1!

While Lord Roberts and the National Service League (founded 1902) supported
compulsory military service, apparently Kitchener & Haig opposed
conscription (page 6,16)

The author comments (p 203f) that the BBC 1964 "Great War" seris
specifically asked in its main adverts for recollections of veterans who
served "up to the end of 1915" , and the Imperial War Museum had a part of
their WWI exhibition "Recruiting in Britain 1914-1915" but nothing for
1916-18. Hence even the post-1915 recollections of the war concentrated on
the volunteers not the conscripts. Most war memoirs were by middle and upper
class officers, and there were only five published memoirs by Derbyites and
conscripts. Her sources include many letters and accounts in the Imperial
War Museum and in the BBC "Great War" seris collection, but no mention is
made of any parts of the Registers surviving - nationally or locally.

Yours, John Wilson (Wellington, New Zealand)

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• [WW1] Registration, The Derbyites and Conscription: by "John Wilson" <>