Doncaster Times Issue 1 - June 2016

Did He ‘Go’ or
Was He ‘Sent’?
Conscription in the Great
War and its relevance to
family historians today
Many family historians will have spent hours
in front of a microfilm reader searching for
a name in the long lists published in local
newspapers headed ‘Killed’, ‘Missing’, ‘Wounded’
or ‘Prisoner of War’. Focusing solely on those lists,
most researchers probably fail to notice column
after column from 1916 onwards entitled ‘At the
Local Tribunal’ or ‘At the Appeals Tribunal’. These
reports detailed the proceedings of military service
tribunals, which were established under the Military
Service Act to determine cases for exemption from
conscription. Although the general perception is that
the appeals system was primarily concerned with
those few men who held conscientious objections,
claims were actually lodged by a vast number of
individuals, who came from all walks of British
life, and had a highly diverse set of motivations
for claiming exemption from military service. By
studying the surviving records of tribunals’ hearings,
family historians can gain an insight into the
domestic and occupational circumstances of their
ancestors, and an understanding of why they were
sent to the Front or allowed to remain at home.
The outbreak of the First World War unleashed
a wave of patriotic fervour. Men in every locality
besieged recruiting offices and queued for medical
examinations, all desperate to join the colours and
‘thrash ‘the Hun’’, not wishing to miss out on the big
adventure that they all thought would be over by
Christmas. The newspapers of late summer 1914
were full of stories of heroic battles as both sides
rushed for a strategic advantage. With enlistments
averaging 116,000 per week in September, it
seemed that the British ethos of volunteering
would supply the necessary men without recourse
to the ‘Prussian’ method of conscription. 1
This heady atmosphere was quickly overtaken
by a more sober assessment. By the end of
1914, fighting on the Western Front had reached
stalemate and a line of trenches was thrown up
from the English Channel to the Swiss border.
Battles such as Second Ypres and Loos resulted in
unprecedented slaughter. Long lists of casualties
became a feature of local newspapers, and word
reached home of the deplorable conditions in the
trenches. Men now became less willing to enlist,
with the rate falling to around 100,000 per month
by the middle of 1915. 2 Furthermore, volunteering
was fast becoming a by-word for inefficiency, as it
was leading to crippling losses of skilled workers
from essential industries. Conscription seemed to
offer a means of both getting more soldiers, and
ensuring a more systematic allocation of manpower.
Although the Government increasingly recognised
the benefits of compulsory service, fears that it
would lead to unrest amongst the working-classes
prompted the decision to give volunteering one
final opportunity. 3 Under what became known
as the ‘Derby Scheme’, every male of military
age was canvassed in an effort to persuade
them to attest their willingness to serve. The
attestees were then placed into age ‘groups’ to be
summoned in order. Upon a man being called up,
both he and his employer could lodge an appeal.
Postponement to a later group could be claimed
on hardship grounds, or it could be argued that
the reservist’s occupation meant he should have
been protected from service. To adjudicate on
these appeals, each Local Registration Authority
(the urban and rural district councils, and the
borough councils) was required to establish a
tribunal, largely made up of local councillors, with
more complex cases being referred to a central
tribunal in London. Attached to each appeal body
was a military representative, who appeared at
hearings with the power to object to claims. 4
The Derby Scheme failed to adequately stimulate
recruiting. Only around 2.1 million of the 5 million
eligible attested, a figure that was further limited
by removing the unfit and those employed in
essential occupations to produce a result that
was far below what the army believed necessary. 5
This last failure of volunteering made the
introduction of conscription inevitable. On 27
January 1916, the Military Service Act rendered
every unmarried British male aged between
18 and 41 on 15 August 1915 eligible for call-up.
The exemption system under conscription retained
many features of that under the Derby Scheme, but
also made some modifications. In addition to the
previous grounds of occupation and domestic or
business hardship, each reservist could now appeal
on the basis that he suffered from ‘ill-health or
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