The Administrative Process of Death in the Great War

[Fujdog]

I've been looking at my ancestor's War Office file and I'd like to learn more about communication between bereaved families and the War Office - from the dreaded telegram through to settling of affairs and effects. Does anyone know of any books that look into this in detail?

 

Many thanks

 

Jill

[ss002d6252]

12 minutes ago, Fujdog said:

I've been looking at my ancestor's War Office file and I'd like to learn more about communication between bereaved families and the War Office - from the dreaded telegram through to settling of affairs and effects. Does anyone know of any books that look into this in detail?

 

Many thanks

 

Jill

None that I'm aware of.

Part of the book I'm working on at the moment cover the 'soldiers effects' - that is the monies from the estate - but trying to piece together the process isn't easy.

With regards to the monies the soldiers effects branch primarily relied on information passed through from the regimental paymasters - the amount due for payment and the details of relatives etc - but where a man had been discharged before 09 December 1918 he could lodge a claim using form W5063, the same form could be used by relatives of deceased men who had died after discharge (the effects branch dealt with deceased and insane claims)
 

Unfortunately the 'soldiers effects' records which survive are only those used by the effects branch of the war office, the regimental paymasters equivalent records are long since lost (presumed destroyed - but there's always hope they'll be rediscovered in a corner somewhere...).

Craig

[Fujdog]

Thanks Craig - I look forward to your book!

 

It strikes me as a really interesting area for study, especially in the cases of men whose bodies were never found. It must have been a tortuous process for the families struggling to understand the legal consequences. The size of the administrative effort needed to deal with the millions of deaths must have been immense, not to mention the humanity and patience needed to deal with all the grieving relatives. 

 

Jill

[ss002d6252]

31 minutes ago, Fujdog said:

Thanks Craig - I look forward to your book!

 

It strikes me as a really interesting area for study, especially in the cases of men whose bodies were never found. It must have been a tortuous process for the families struggling to understand the legal consequences. The size of the administrative effort needed to deal with the millions of deaths must have been immense, not to mention the humanity and patience needed to deal with all the grieving relatives. 

 

Jill

It'll not be a best seller (and might be quite dry for some !)

In respect of the soldiers effects for deceased men:

The original calculation for roughly 700,00 men was undertaken by the paymasters and sent to the effects branch to be recorded and issued (along with any back and forward paperwork).

Later on they introduced the war gratuity which meant that, for the vast majority of men, the effects branch had to go back through the registers and issue a new form to the regimental paymaster. The paymaster then had to complete the form and return it to the effects branch. The effects branch then had to record the transaction and then issue the gratuity.

 

All in all there were probably something in the region of 2 million individual book entries that had to be made + any correspondence to be dealt with.

This was just the work of the effects branch - the regimental paymasters had various entries to make as did the records offices.

I 'think' I've pieced together a lot of the process but it's far from 100%.

Craig

Edited 15 May , 2017 by ss002d6252

[Fujdog]

One person's dry is another person's fine Chardonnay

 

I guess some of the interest comes in the human details when they occur - I found a slightly tetchy comment on my ancestor's file in response to a clerk who clearly had gone into autopilot: " We can hardly send a Presumption Letter without giving some idea of the date the officer is presumed to have died". 

 

Whoever wrote it (it's signed by a Percy Taylor) thought better of the tone of his remark by amending it with a scribbled "We think" in front of it.  

 

Jill

[Phil Wood]

You can get an idea of how the system worked for dead officers through their service files at Kew (WO 339) - these are not really service files at all, they are almost all about what happened after they died.

[JeremyGS]

My book 'Photographing the Fallen:  A War Graves Photographer on the Western Front' deals with this to some extent (to be released 30 Sept 2017). It's about my gg uncle Ivan Bawtree and his work with Graves Registration Units to provide bereaved relatives with photographs of grave markers.

Richard Van Emden's 'The Quick and the Dead: Fallen Soldiers and their Families' is the best book I've read that covers the administrative process as well as the grieving process. It is very detailed - and moving. 

[Fujdog]

Thank you Phil and Jeremy - I've read the van Emden one and look forward to "Photographing the Fallen".

 

Jill