Shropshire Routes to Roots

2. Recruitment

Joining up

Shrewsbury Chronicle 4th September, 1914 Larger image, in a new window [37kb]

The Shrewsbury Chronicle of 4th September, 1914. An appeal from the Deputy Major of Shrewsbury for volunteers to join a "new battalion" of the KSLI, part of Kitchener's New Army.

You may know of the famous poster of Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum (Minister for War) imploring men of Great Britain to join his new volunteer army in 1914. Local appeals were also made.
The above document is from the Shrewsbury Chronicle, 4th September 1914. Read it and see if you can answer the following questions:

1. How many men of enlistable age do you think there were in Shropshire?
2. What was the average age of a recruit?
3. What do you think the response was?
4. Did anyone in your family enlist?

How many men of enlistable age?

The Shropshire County Council Special Committee Minute Book, County Recruiting Aid Committee [Shropshire Archives Reference: C65.8 v.f.] minutes tell us:

The clerk to the County Council stated that up to the present 24 county councillors had prepared returns of men in their divisions which showed that there were 5752 of enlistable age.

Sometimes several members of the same family or groups of friends joined up at the same time, although not necessarily with the same regiment. One such family was the Higley family, from Shrewsbury. We have several documents relating to the Higley family at Shropshire Archives. We'll see if we can answer the question - How can we find out about individual soldiers and family members during the First World War? - by looking at these documents.

Continue

Return to top of page