The Infantry: British Army Service Records 1760-1920

Unidentified troops aboard SS Malta, 1890s

I thought it might be a good idea to post links to regimental service records. Findmypast has by the most comprehensive collection of service and pension records currently, and all the links below will take to you to search results on Findmypast (although you will need a subscription or pay per view voucher to actually view the records).

I use the term "service record" lightly. The records below are all housed in WO series at the National Archives and include pension and service records - or in the case of officers' service records from the First World War (165,000 of them) - links to file information held at The National Archives.

Regiments below are organised in order of regimental precedence. (Just use the "Control F" to find the regiment you are looking for). Record counts, below, have been rounded down to the nearest thousand.

The Foot Guards

Grenadier Guards - 37,000 service records
Coldstream Guards - 32,000 service records
Scots Guards -  24,000 service records
Irish Guards - 7,000 service records
Welsh Guards - 3,000 service records

The Regular Infantry

Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) - 28,000 First World War service records
Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) - 11,000 pre-First World War service records
Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment) - 33,000 service records
The Buffs (East Kent Regiment) - 50,000 service records
King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) - 33,000 service records
Northumberland Fusiliers - 48,000 service records
Royal Warwickshire Regiment - 50,000 service records
Royal Fusiliers - 55,000 service records
King's (Liverpool Regiment) - 67,000 service records
Norfolk Regiment - 33,000 service records
Lincolnshire Regiment - 42,000 service records
Devonshire Regiment - 35,000 service records
Suffolk Regiment - 36,000 service records
Somerset Light Infantry - 20,000 service records
West Yorkshire Regiment - 64,000 service records
East Yorkshire Regiment - 35,000 service records
Bedfordshire Regiment - 35,000 service records
Leicestershire Regiment - 45,000 service records
Royal Irish Regiment - 19,000 service records
Yorkshire Regiment - 8,000 First World War records
Yorkshire Regiment - 28,000 pre-First World War records*
Lancashire Fusiliers - 48,000 service records

Pipe Major, Royal Scots Fusiliers

Royal Scots Fusiliers - 33,000 service records
Cheshire Regiment - 62,000 service records
Royal Welsh Fusiliers - 49,000 service records
South Wales Borderers - 28,000 service records
Kings Own Scottish Borderers - 29,000 service records
Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) - 28,000 service records
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers - 21,000 service records
Gloucestershire Regiment - 38,000 service records
Worcestershire Regiment - 43,000 service records
East Lancashire Regiment - 39,000 service records
East Surrey Regiment - 37,000 service records
Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry - 23,000 service records
Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Regiment) - 59,000 service records
Border Regiment - 32,000 service records

Royal Sussex Regt, circa 1902-1905

Royal Sussex Regiment - 32,000 service records
Hampshire Regiment - 33,000 service records
South Staffordshire Regiment - 40,000 service records
Dorsetshire Regiment - 28,000 service records
South Lancashire Regiment - 40,000 service records
Welsh Regiment - 43,000 service records
Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) - 28,000 service records
Ox & Bucks Light Infantry - 32,000 service records
Essex Regiment - 47,000 service records
Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Regiment) - 43,000 service records
Loyal North Lancashire Regiment - 44,000 service records
Northamptonshire Regiment - 34,000 service records
Royal Berkshire Regiment - 27,000 service records
Royal West Kent Regiment - 43,000 service records
King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry - 37,000 service records
King's Shropshire Light Infantry - 27,000 service records

Middlesex Regt c1902-1913

Middlesex Regiment - 74,000 service records
King's Royal Rifle Corps - 68,000 service records
Wiltshire Regiment - 18,000 service records
Manchester Regiment - 70,000 service records
North Staffordshire Regiment - 34,000 service records
York and Lancaster Regiment - 73,000 service records
Durham Light Infantry - 86,000 service records
Highland Light Infantry - 39,000 service records
Seaforth Highlanders - 26,000 service records
Gordon Highlanders - 30,000 service records
Cameron Highlanders - 30,000 service records
Royal Irish Rifles - 27,000 service records
Royal Irish Fusiliers - 26,000 service records
Connaught Rangers - 19,000 service records
Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders - 40,000 records
Leinster Regiment - 10,000 service records
Royal Munster Fusiliers - 13,000 service records
Royal Dublin Fusiliers - 24,000 service records
Rifle Brigade - 70,000 service records

*This link also returns records for the East Yorkshire Regt and West Yorkshire Regt

6th London Regt, Watford 1915

The Territorial Force Infantry

Honourable Artillery Company - 6,000 service records
Monmouthshire Regiment - 8,000 service records
Cambridgeshire Regiment - 3,000 service records
London Regiment - 140,000 service records
Hertfordshire Regiment - 4,000 service records
Northern Cyclist Battalion*  
Highland Cyclist Battalion * 
Kent Cyclist Battalion* 
Huntingdonshire Cyclist Battalion*  

* Less than 300 service records across all four cyclist battalions

I research soldiers! 

Contact me if you need help with your own military research project.

Lists, nominal rolls, transfers and fragments in WO 363

The great advantage that Findmypast has over Ancestry when it comes to First World War service records and pension records is that Findmypast has managed to index far more records. Take it from someone who knows, a huge amount of care was taken when indexing and whenever a list of names was found tucked away in a service record, the names on that list were captured.

That little exercise added many hundreds of thousands of indexed names to WO 363 (and it is WO 363 (the burnt documents) for the most part, where these apparently random lists appear). 

And make no mistake, there are some really cracking lists that are tucked away in these service records. I found nine pages of Lancashire Fusiliers' special reservists recently; lists that show which companies the men were posted to when they were mobilised in August 1914 and also when they were drafted overseas. Complete lists like this simply don't survive in general and this one would most likely have been lost had Findmypast not taken the trouble to capture the names of those men.

I was doing some research for a client the other day and found the man he was looking for on a single sheet detailing transfers from one Prisoner of War camp to another. I've posted that image at the top of this blog post. The information that this particular man was at Muncheberg before Sagan was news to me, and also information that was not included in PoW records.

Note that at the top of the page it indicates that this sheet is a continuation. Note too, the poor rendering of PoW details: Edgar Hoskins is Edgar Hoskius; Thetford is Thelford, and Le Cateau is Le Caleou. I am more interested though, to see if there is other information about this group of PoW transfers and to do this I need to go back to the original record in which these papers were concealed.

Whilst looking at this image, click on the "view transcription" lozenge at the top of the page. This will take you back to the transcription where we can see that this particular page appears within the service record for William Jackson Harrison.

 

Now, using the information above, we can edit the search to look for 21429 William Jackson Harrison and scroll through the images in his record until we get to the right frame.  We already know that Hoskins is mentioned on frame 202 and so we'd hope to find related information on frame 201 or 203.

 



In actual fact, as I found out, there are no other documents in this case.  However, I would recommend always going back to the originating record to see if there is contextual information that could help you understand more about these list entries.

If you need help researching British army records, drop me a line.  Remember too that you'll find much useful information on this blog and also on my Army Service Numbers blog.

Images on this post are, with the exception of the Findmypast screenshots, Crown Copyright, The National Archives.

Merchant Navy Seamen 1914-1920 - medal index cards

OK, I know, not army but it's my blog and I allow myself a little poetic licence at times.

Findmypast has just published an index of medal cards for 157,000 British Merchant Navy seamen who served during the First World War. This is an index only albeit with links through to images on the National Archives' page. This collection is a nice complement to the Merchant Navy service records also on Findmypast.