11th BATTALION WORCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT

[Guest]

I am currently researching the 11^th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment & attempting to put a nominal roll together. To this end I would like to ask forum members if they have any information/names of those serving with this battalion excluding casualties & gallantry awardees.

Any help members can provide would be very much appreciated.

 

Adrian  

[AndrewSid]

Adrian,

Thats quite a big question.  A nominal roll of those not killed or receiving a gallantry award would likely  run into several thousand names.  Men would have been regularly  moving into and out of the battalion over the war period.  For the 11th this would have included many sick as well as wounded as they served mostly in the Salonica theatre.

Have you read the battalion war diary at Kew or contacted the regimental museum? 
 

[Guest]

Yes – A big question. I know it will never be complete it is just something I am interested in attempting. It is because they served in the Salonika campaign that I am interested. I am fortunate that I have a number of medals to the 11^th. I am looking at getting copies of the War Diary from the National Archives & I will be visiting the Worcestershire Regiment Museum to access their database.

Adrian

[PRC]

How detailed are the Victory Medal and British War Medal (VM & BWM) Rolls for the Worcestershire Regiment? They are in Ancestry, but I don't subscribe so can't check them out. They should in theory show all the unit served with in a theatre of war, although compliance varies widely.  It it is detailed then a scroll through that should gives you a substantial number of men who served at some point with the 11th Battalion. It won't be perfect but it will then give you something to build on.

For example it is likely that recruits to the newly formed 11th Battalion were issued with service numbers that followed on from the 10th Battalion, so it may be possibly to identify a range of approximately 1200 service numbers where there is a strong likelihood that those individuals were initially posted to the 11th Battalion. Not all of them will have deployed overseas with the 11th Battalion when it landed in France during the night of 21-22 September 1915, so you might initially find gaps in that range of service numbers as far as the medal roll is concerned. You may also find some individuals who went overseas with a different unit at a different time.

Some of those gaps may be accounted for by men who were discharged in the first 90 days as not likely to become efficient soldiers, (usually ill-heath or disciplinary issues), or subsequently became unfit for war service before the battalion deployed overseas.

If it's anything like the Norfolk Regiment Service Battalions that I'm used to then over the autumn, winter and spring of 1914/15 there was a regular too and fro between the various Service Battalions. Those who were a bit slow to pick up military skills might be shunted into a home service only Battalion to be given a bit more time. Others might have their training interupted by ill-health - a dire shortage of hutted accomodation saw many of these wartime service battalions spend the autumn and winter of 1914 under canvas, and contagious diseases would often run rampant. Men recovered but often in a weakened state and so were cycled out and later recuits brought in to bring the Battalion back up to strength.

What a check of the VM and BWM Rolls for the Worcestershire Regiment won't catch is those individuals who went on to serve with other units and so had their medals issued by that Regiment \ Corps. Tracking those in part is going to come down to how detailed the Medal Rolls for that Regiment \ Corps is.

There are many ways that it might be possible to flesh out your proposed nominal roll beyond the names identified from the VM & BWM Service Medal Roll, and it isn't necessarily the most elegant way of pulling such a roll together, but it would at least be likely to give you the bulk of the rank and file individuals who served with the Battalion.

Officers unfortunately are a diffferent issue - first they (or their next of kin if they didn't survive) had to apply for the service medals - rank and file had theirs issued automatically. Secondly there is seldom any detail on the Officers Service Medal Roll.

However should you want to include them then the British Army Monthly Lists can be checked on the National Library of Scotland website. These do go down to Battalion level, although they should always be verified from other sources where possible. They won't for example necessarily include officers attached from other regiments either on a short term or long term basis. https://digital.nls.uk/british-military-lists/archive/102697258

As a check you made want to use the War Diary entries for both officers and rank and file.

I'll stop there before I write war and peace.

Hope that helps,
Peter

[AndrewSid]

Adrian,

Peters words are spot on. I presume you have looked at the 246 11th Bn men who were killed and are listed with CWGC. These provide a solid reference point when looking at those that survived. 

Ive looked on Ancestory and some men are listed by battalion and others not on the medal rolls.  See below.  Many without Bn named do have date of entry into theatre especially on the star roll. Analysis of the dates they arrived in theatre and a deep understanding of the wider Worcestershire regiment movements would lead you to some conclusions about what unit men were in and with work you can probably identify the initial battalion of men that went to France without a vast amount of effort. As Peter says men who were transferred to other units will  be listed with that unit and not the Worcestershires.  Much variety per unit but this could circa 25% or more.

I’d say you need a Ancestry subscription and lots of time to build up a list. 

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-british-infantry-regiments-of-1914-1918/worcestershire-regiment/

[PRC]

1 hour ago, AndrewSid said:

I presume you have looked at the 246 11th Bn men who were killed and are listed with CWGC. These provide a solid reference point when looking at those that survived. 

That prompted me to take a look via Geoff's Search Engine for those men of the 11th Battalion who died in the first three months after deploying overseas - a period when they were least likely to have received replacements drafts and so the service numbers would be most likely to reflect those in use by the original members of the Battalion. Unfortunately for this purpose there were only two. Expanding it to the first six months ups the total to four but does give some idea of where the service number range is likely to be.

Image courtesy Geoff's Search Engine. http://www.hut-six.co.uk/cgi-bin/search1421.php

None of those four appear to have surviving service records but for example a near number search to :-;_

15828 W Price ted me that that 15830 Francis George Blockley, subsequently G/29230 Royal West Kents, has survivng service records
16159 C. Randle has a possible worth checking in 16162 Thomas Pearce who has surviving service records but doesn't appear to have served overseas, and 16157 Frank Moore who has surviving service records and a MiC showing he first landed in France on the 22nd September 1915.
17042 G. West has a near number match in 17043 Edward James Dight who has surviving service records and a MiC showing he first landed in France on the 22nd September 1915.
18113 P.J Stratford has a near number match in 18105 John Beighton, subsequently 691455 Labour Corps who has surviving service records but a MiC that shows he first landed in France on the 18th February 1915. Possibly he was someone with previous military experience or who volunteered for service with one of the three Battalions of the Regiment, all Regular Army, who were then serving there.

If you can get a "feel" for the early days of the 11th Battalion from those sample surviving service records, then it may help with your understanding when it comes to filling in the gaps where no other documentation survives.

BTW my quick search simply consisted of using whats available to non-subscribers on FindMyPast military records cross referencing where necessary to the Medal Index Card entry in the National Archive catalogue.  I can't see the documents so couldn't comment further on the actual contents. However as I was speeding through I noticed a number of the men who survived their involvement in the conflict also had entries in a Medical Admissions Register for the period 1916-1919 - so while they were fighting in Salonika and possibly the aftermath when British forces formed a small Army of occupation and then advanced to the north to deny areas to the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. amd maintain corridors through which supplies could reach the White Russian forces.

These Medical Admission Registers were maintained by all institutions in the medical evacuation chain, from the Field Ambulance right through to hospitals in the UK. Unfortunately only a 5% sample was retained for statistical analysis post-war, and these were subsequently passed on to the National Archive, who sold the image rights to FindMyPast. In my experience the further back a men went in the medical evacuation chain, the less likely he was to serve in the same unit again. Indeed as the war went on if he recovered sufficiently to be found fit for frontline service there was no guarantee he would even serve with another Battalion of his Regiment.

One caveat to that - for units serving outside France & Flanders by 1916 it was clear that barring major catastrophes, (for example Kut el-Amara in the Mesopotamian campaign, 2nd Gaza in the Egypt & Palestine Theatre of War), they were so far down the pecking order that they needed to hang on to as many men as possible as very few replacements were coming out from the UK.

Hope that's of interest,
Peter

 

Edited 7 July , 2022 by PRC
Typo's

[Guest]

Peter - Please accept my sincere thanks for your guidance it is very much appreciated. I was unaware of Geoff’s search engine. I have an ancestry subscription & I am beginning to search the medal cards & medal rolls. I will also be looking at the WFA pension records. 

Andrew - My sincere thanks to you as well.

Looks like my evenings will be taken up for the next few years.

 

Adrian

[Acknown]

Bits n' Pieces. There are two photos of Lt Col William Barker, who commanded 11/Worcesters in Salonika, on the IWM Collections website: 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205291495

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205290096

You could also check these items generated as a search for 'Worcestershire' to see if any concern the 11th: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query="worcestershire"&pageSize=30&media-records=records-with-media&style=list&filters[periodString][First+World+War]=on

Acknown

Addition: This item may be of interest, but you'll probably have to pay for a copy: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030012552.

Edited 7 July , 2022 by Acknown

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Sorry if I haven't  got the jist of your request, but I found the unconventinal font you used in your earlier posts very difficult to scan. I'm glad you've abandoned it.

Have you looked at the Absent Voters' Lists? There are lists for 1918 and/or 1919 available for Worcester, Evesham, Stourbridge, Bewdley, Kidderminster and  Worcestershire.

There are also surviving lists for Herefordshire and Cheltenham, both lists have a sporting chance of having 11th Worcs. men

I haven't   seen them, but if they are of the same quality as the Welsh ones I have seen, then for 95% of the men (and women) they will give Name, Address , Rank, Regiment and Battalion. I suspect most infantrymen from Worcestershire would be in the Worcestershire Regiment, and the vast majority of those named in 1918 (Spring) would go on to survive the war.

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/soldiers/how-to-research-a-soldier/finding-soldiers-through-the-1918-absent-voters-lists/

Edited 7 July , 2022 by Dai Bach y Sowldiwr

[AndrewSid]

Adrian,

You may find the second link below of use as a rough guide to the battalions.  It’s appears they were the only regiment to serve in Salonica. So apart from the initial Bn who went to France briefly first, all drafts showing an entry into that theatre (see link 1) should be to the 11th.  Salonica was rife with Malaria so many would have suffered accordingly. As Peter said draft replacements were not as frequent as those to France. 
 

Equally many of the casualty reports lists in the times newspaper often had lists from the different theatres.  So whilst the casualty lists did not say what battalion wounded men came from, those from that theatre should be traceable as 11 Bn men.  Note the Times only listed casualties up to April 1917 before it was taken on by HMSO.  Times list should be available free online with a library card.  It’s also a challenging search experience!

The  battalion and brigade war diary should be an important priority noting they are at Kew.

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/soldiers/how-to-research-a-soldier/campaign-medal-records/how-to-interpret-a-campaign-medal-index-card/medal-roll-theatre-codes/

https://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/british_regiment/worcestershire.htm

Edited 7 July , 2022 by AndrewSid

[Promenade]

Adrian,

I should probably show my hand as I am a volunteer at the Worcs Regt Archive and the compiler and custodian of their WW1 database (> 65,000 entries) which I have been working on for about 25 years with the aim of creating a 'one-stop, searchable, resource.

Firstly impressed that you should be prepared to undertake such a large undertaking.

I should also let you know that all the excellent suggestions above (and more) have already been worked on over the years (and indeed continue to be worked on daily), not only for the 11th Bn, but for the whole regiment and collated together in the database in searchable format. I say this, not to put you off, but really just to make you aware.

With the permission of our curator I would be more than happy to host you at the archive one Wednesday when I am there - let me know if you are interested.

Promenade

[Guest]

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to my request & I appreciate the time taken by you all. In retrospect I should have contacted the regimental museum first as it would appear that I am duplicating work that has been already done. PROMENADE - Thank you for your kind offer I will message you.

If the administrators could lock this thread it would be appreciated. I do not wish to waste members valuable time on something that has already & is being worked on.

Adrian