Officers service papers at the PRO- my opinion

On 2nd February the service papers for officers were released to the PRO amongst much trumpeting etc of famous officers, ie Sassoon and T.E.Lawrence. But to the researcher and enthusiast what was there and how good were there. I popped along there on the 10th Feb to take a look, apart from the flock and flocks of family historians who were milling around getting in everyones way and generally pissing me off, I was able to form an opinion.

Whats There ?

 Well from my look quite a few people will be dissappointed I feel. The papers have been weeded several times, I don't know what has been ditched. Whats left in the folder is the original signing on sheet. If the man was promoted from the ranks, the original enlistment documents will be there. Sometimes the invalueble B103 form out lining movements etc, but not always. In the case of a casualty, there is details of a will, correspondence relating to that, and the details of kit shipped home by Cox brothers who seemed to be onto a good thing!. If the man was missing you will find details of the enquiry including witness statements from other ranks who last saw him. If your man was wounded or invalided in any way you will find details of the medical boards etc. What I often found was personal correspondence from relatives relating to a casualty in the usual balck edged paper, also correspondence relating to injury by the officer himself. So there is something to get your teeth into.

Success rate:

Not every officers papers were there, I found that 25% of those I was looking for were not there, also if your man was serving in 1920 then they won't be there. I did however find Royal Marine officers papers to my suprise. These were men who joined the RM through officer cadet units, therefore had papers on that strength.

How easy is it:

Ok for someone experienced like me, the PRO laid on a lot of bodies to help but were overwhelmed by the amount of basically clueless people there. The moral of the story is to go prepared with as much info as possible, it's no use pitching up with half the story, go with al the info you have. The papers are split into two groups with there own way of looking them up:

WO374

 These are the papers for the Terratorial army officers ( note commissioned into, many officers got a terratorial commission but served with a regular/ service  unit). These are indexed in a book. You get the book out and look up the name, they are listed alphabetically, and it will give you a surname followed by initials and rank and years served. So you need to know those details, no regiment is listed , so if you are looking for 2nd Lt J.Smith then you are stuffed. You find your man and look to the number in the margin, this is the reference ie 4534, then you order your document as WO373/4534 and it will come up with that officers papers in it's own folder.

WO339

These are the papers of those men with a regular commission/short service commission or a temporary commission. These are indexed on microfilm reels in class WO338. The medical officers are listed on one seperate reel WO338/23, the rest are alphabetically by surname and spread over WO338/1 to WO338/22. You find the folder onto of the filing rack and see which reel your desired surname is on. You then pick up the reel and use a microfilm reader. Go to the surname you want, then it's listed by christian name, the regiment is also listed but in the old foot number ie with the Buffs it was 3, sometimes the Battalion is added to this number, ie with the 6th Buffs it was 6/3. You find your man and on the right hand margin there is a long number, you write this down, ie 132431. You then go to a set of books and look up that number which is on the right hand side margin. When you found that number you will see next to itthe mans name, and to the left of that another number, this is the document reference number which you had to add after WO339 when ordering. These documents come up as one individual folder.

Conclusion.

On the whole some good info , but also a lot of unhelpful financial info, any info that comes out now is good, you need to go armed with good info and be prepared for some reverses, but for someone with experience will have no problem.

One word of warning, if you ask a researcher to look papers up of an officer, please be specific about what you want photocopied as there is much repetition and non useful info, tell them exactly what you are after.

I no longer undertake looking for lost relatives, I can't deal with the vast number of enquiries but I know a researcher who does and is very reasonable below is an e mail link to Jon Collins who researches regualrly at the PRO and would be able to undertake any enquiry.

E.mail Jonathan Collins Researcher

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