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Military Recruiting and the British Labour Force during the First World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. E. Dewey
P. E. Dewey
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway College, University of London
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Extract

During the First World War, Britain was obliged for the first time for over a century to raise a mass army. Initially, this seemed to raise no insuperable problem; by the end of 1914, slightly over one million men had enlisted. Thereafter, however, civilian enthusiasm waned, and the government had to employ other means to stimulate the flow of recruits – alteration of the military service age limits and, later, the introduction of compulsory military service. Taken together, voluntary recruiting and conscription permitted the raising and maintenance of a mass army. By the time of the armistice on 11 November t 1918, almost five million men had entered the army, and a further half million had entered the two other services.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 199 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 War Office, Statistics of the military effort of the British empire during the Great War 1914–20 (1922), p. 363Google Scholar.

2 Wolfe, E.g. H., Labour supply and regulation (Oxford, 1923)Google Scholar.

3 Wolfe, Labour supply, p. 12.

4 Barnett, C., Britain and her army 1509–1970; a military, political and social survey (1970), p. 377Google Scholar.

5 Barnett, Britain and her army, p. 379.

6 A fact admitted by Derby, Lord (Director-General of recruiting) à propos of agriculture (Parl. debates, house of lords, 5th series, XXIV, 325–6, 28 02 1917)Google Scholar.

7 Board of Trade, Report on the state of employment in the United Kingdom in… (various dates). This is the main series, of which the first three reports were issued as parliamentary papers (Cd. 7703; Cd. 7755; Cd. 7850). The methodology of these surveys is discussed in Appendix 1.

8 Thus, eg., Wolfe, Labour supply, p. 12; Pollard, S., The development of the British economy 1914–1950 (London, 1962), p. 78Google Scholar; Taylor, A. J. P., English history 1914–1945 (London, 1965), p. 38Google Scholar. It should be said in fairness to these authors that they are all following authorities who had made the same assumption. The source of this error seems to have been Kirkaldy, A. W., in his Industry and finance (1917; and 2nd edn 1920)Google Scholar. The second edition contains a large tabulation of wartime employment in various industries (pp. 96–7), which seems to have been drawn directly from the Board of Trade surveys, and does not mention that the basis of the figures was a sample survey.

9 Fifteen millions is in fact an excessive estimate. The 1911 census of population recorded 12.9 million occupied and 2.5 unoccupied males in Britain – Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., Abstract of British historical statistics (Cambridge, 1971), p. 60Google Scholar. However, the ‘unoccupied’ group seems to have included some occupied persons. The total labour force was thus between 12.9 and 15.4 millions. In so far as the true figure was nearer to 12.9, the scope of the board's surveys becomes even more impressive.

10 Board of Trade, Report on the state of employment…on November 11th 1918 and January 31st 1919; War Office, Statistics, p. 363.

11 Board of Trade, Report on the state of employment (1914–18). In order to obtain a clearer picture of trends in enlistment during the war, July figures only have been used here.

12 See Appendix 1.

13 Although conscription, in the form of the Military Service Act, passed into law on 27 January 1916, it only came into effect from 2 March, and then only by stages. Full conscription did not appear until the second M.S.A. of 1916, which did not take effect until 24 June – Dearie, N. B., An economic chronicle of the Great War for Great Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 1929)Google Scholar, entries for 27 Jan.–25 May 1916.

14 Board of Trade, Report on the state of employment…January 1916.

15 Separation allowances were first paid by the army from 1 October 1914; for the families of corporals and privates they ranged from 12S. 6d. for a childless wife to 22S. for one with four children; these figures include the deduction from pay made by the army. These rates were raised from 1 March 1915 to a range of between 12s. 6d. and 25s.; Allowances and pensions in respect of seamen, marines and soldiers and their wives, widows and dependants (P.P. 1914–16, XL, Cd. 7662); War Office, Regulations for the issue of army separation allowance allotments of pay and family allowances during the present war (1916), 5–6Google Scholar. These rates may be compared with the earnings figures on p. 208 below.

16 Barnett, Britain and her army, caption to plate facing p. 428.

17 Bowley, A. L., Prices and wages in the United Kingdom, 1914–1920 (Oxford, 1921), 113, 127, 149, 159, 163, 172, 179, 183Google Scholar.

18 Ibid. p. 105.

19 See below, p. 217.

20 Mitchell and Deane, Abstract, p. 239.

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22 See Appendix II.

23 P.R.O., RECO 1/832, Board of Trade, Enlistment from the industrial classes and the state of employment on government and other work in mid-February 1916, pp. 8–9.

24 Ministry of national service, Report upon the physical examination of men of military age by national service medical boards from November 1st, 1917–October 31st, 1918 (P.P. 1919, XXVI, Cmd. 504).

25 In spite of the deficiencies of the above report, it probably provides a better guide to the relationship between work and military fitness than earlier records; the medical examinations in the first few months of the war were chaotic, and allowed thousands to pass into the army ‘without any medical examination worth the name’. P.R.O., NATS 1/14/20, Report upon the medical department of the ministry of national service, p. 13.

26 Ministry of national service, Report upon the physical examination, p. 147.

27 Ibid. pp. 71, 107, 148.

28 Ibid. pp. 117, 120, 149.

29 Pratt, E. A., British railways and the Great War (2 vols., London, 1921), 1, 349Google Scholar.

30 Wolfe, Labour supply, pp. 19–28.

31 Ibid. p. 40.

32 Ibid. p. 38.

33 Ibid. p. 40.

34 Ibid. pp. 29–33; Dearle, , An economic chronicle, entry for 27 01 1916Google Scholar.

35 P.R.O., NATS 1/53, List of certified occupations of 4 April 1916 (R. 74); 7 July 1916 (R. 94); 20 Nov. 1916 (R. 105).

36 Ibid.; the coal mining industry had its own system of tribunals, the colliery recruiting courts, which were established shortly before the passage of the first Military Service Act – Cole, G. D. H., Labour in the coal-mining industry (1914–1921) (Oxford, 1923), p. 39Google Scholar.

37 P.R.O., NATS 1/53, memorandum dated 25 October 1916 addressed to the War Committee. However, only 1,050,000 of these were of military age.

38 General annual reports of the British army (including the territorial force from the date of embodiment) for the period from 1st October 1913 to 30th September 1919, prepared by command of the Army Council (P.P. 1921, XX, Cmd. 1193), pp. 10–11Google Scholar.

39 Ibid. p. 10.

40 Dearle, , An economic chronicle, entries for 1 01 1916Google Scholar; 7 July 1916; 17 Nov. 1916; 20 June 1917; 1 Jan. 1918; 20 April 1918.

41 Board of Trade, Report on the state of employment… July 1915, pp. 7–9.

42 Thus in October 1918 there existed the following number of exemptions: coal mining, 502,000; metals, 1,032,181; railways, 401,641; agriculture, 340,506. In the case of coal mining and agriculture, these amount approximately to three-quarters of the pre-war male labour force of military age (taken here as 20–44). Classification problems prevent similar calculations being undertaken for metals and the railways. Census of population, 1911; General annual reports of the British army, p. 11.

43 Barnett, Britain and her army, p. 379.

44 SirRedmayne, R.A.S., The British coal-mining industry during the war (Oxford, 1923), p. 12Google Scholar.

45 Board of Trade, Report on the state of employment… July 1918.

46 P.R.O., NATS 1/53, List of certified occupations; it was noted by a former official of the shop assistants' union that shopkeeping became an unprotected occupation during the war. Hoffman, P. C., They also serve, the story of the shop worker (London, 1949), p. 245Google Scholar.

47 Thus some white-collar employees were protected from financial loss on joining the forces; Scottish bank employees who enlisted had their incomes made up to the level of their previous salary by the banks, and the Royal Exchange Insurance Co. gave those enlisting leave on full pay, with a guarantee of their jobs back on their return, at pro rata increases in salary. Checkland, S. G., Scottish banking; a history, 1695–1973 (London, 1975), p. 563Google Scholar; Supple, B., The Royal Exchange Assurance; a history of British Insurance 1720–1970 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 423Google Scholar.

48 In 1911 there were 157,000 females in commercial occupations in Britain; in 1921 the number had risen to 587,000; Mitchell and Deane, Abstract, p. 60.