Genealogy Chat

Is it possible to find out about someone who was in the first world war I have a name and I was told what reg he was in.
Many thanks

what sort of thing do you want to find out?

Hello Ann
I would like to find out maybe when he joined what he did when he left where he was stationed in the war, all the things that would of happened to him, maybe I am asking too much.
There is a card for Fred Hare on Ancestry but I am not sure if it is his.

His name was Fred Hare born 1880 in Horncastle Lincolnshire he was in Lincolnshire regiment.

Did he survive the war?

Maybe not. From the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.

Name: HARE, FRED
Initials: F
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Lance Corporal
Regiment/Service: Lincolnshire Regiment
Unit Text: 1st Bn.
Date of Death: 01/11/1914
Service No: 7401
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 21.
Memorial: YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL


He also has a medal card.

It looks like he may have died in the 1st Battle of Ypres.

I'm very noddy on history, but Fred would have been 33 when he died very early in the war. I thought they conscripted youngsters first and 33 was considered quite old. I'm sure someone will tell me I am talking rubbish as I probably am.

Margaret

Conscription was introduced in Jan 1916 by the Military Service Act (1916). Before that it was considered an all volunteer force. Since your Fred was a junior NCO (i.e., Lance Corporal), it's quite likely he had some prior military service. He's old enough to have served in the Boer war. Alternatively, he might have been in the territorials. It was only the growing casualty lists and the falling off in volunteers that forced the introduction of conscription.

I think your intuition abt how conscription worked is accurate: people were grouped into classes by age and fitness, and callups were based on those classes. However, by the time conscription was introduced, a whole raft of ages needed to be called up, and 33 wouldn't have been ovarage.

In the latter stages of WW2 the situation for Germany was pretty desperate, and there one notes that one of the regiments defending the Normandy beaches was called the "stomach regiment" as it was filled with A-2 fitness class soldiers who had ulcers. Also they were forced into calling up 15 y's old and younger, as well as 50+ y olds.
.

Getting back to your original query: I think you should try and get hold of the "War Diaries" of the 1st bn Lincolnshires. I don't know if they're at a local archive, or at Kew, or a regimental museum. Bit of googling there.

Each unit in the field was required to keep a WD where they noted incoming orders, weather, movements and the unit's dispositions, and casualties - but not by name for "other ranks" like Fred, just counts for ORs.
(It's really more akin to a ship's log book than a diary as I think of one.)