The database is in the form of an Excel spreadsheet for each district currently covered: to see them, click the buttons below.​​
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Central Stockport: Adswood, Davenport, Edgeley, Great Moor, Heaviley, Offerton, Portwood, Shaw Heath, etc.
Heatons and Reddish
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The database
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In general there is one entry for each known serviceman, showing the first and last regiments in which he served during the war. However, a few men had two (or more) separate periods of service during the war (ie. they were discharged from the army due to age, ill-health, etc, but later re-enlisted) - these are shown as multiple entries for the sake of clarity.
Most of the database is self-explanatory, but here are some brief details for those unfamiliar with First World War service records.
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Abbreviations
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Frequently occuring abbreviations include:
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A. E. Coy.
H.S.E. Coy.
Agr. Coy.
I.W. & D.
R.C. Coy.
Rly. Op. Div.​
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​A/[rank]
L/[rank]
A.M 1 (2,3)
​​(C.)Q.M.S.
E.R.A.
​W.O. II
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C.C.S.
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​​​C.W.G.C.
G.S.W.
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O.T.C.
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M.C.
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S.W.B.
Area Employment Company (Labour Corps)
Home Service Employment Company (Labour Corps)
Agricultural Company (Labour Corps)
Inland Waterways & Docks (Royal Engineers)
Road Construction Company (Royal Engineers)
​Railway Operating Division (Royal Engineers)​
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​​Acting [rank]
Lance [rank]
Air Mechanic 1st (2nd, 3rd) Class.
​(Company) Quartermaster Sergeant
Engine Room Artificer
Warrant Officer 2nd Class
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​Casualty Clearing Station
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​Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Gunshot wound - this term included shrapnel as well as bullet wounds. (The abbreviation S.W. is also used for shrapnel wounds.)
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Officer Training Corps
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Silver War Badge, awarded to those discharged from the Army due to wounds or illness. It was worn with civilian clothes to show that a man was no longer able to serve.
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Attestation and mobilisation
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War was declared on 4 August 1914 and the part-time Territorials as well as reservists and members of the Special Reserve and Home Hospital Reserve were called up immediately. Voluntary recruitment began on 7 August and almost half a million men enlisted over the next two months, but the number of volunteers gradually decreased and the Group Scheme (also known as the Derby Scheme) was introduced on 16 October 1915 in an attempt to avoid conscription. This called on men aged 18-41 either to volunteer for imediate service as before or to attest their willingness to serve when called upon: those who attested for deferred service were placed in one of 46 age groups and issued with an armband to wear on their civilian clothes until mobilisation. The scheme ran until 15 December 1915, but less than half those eligible joined the scheme, so conscription was finally introduced for single men on 2 March 1916 and for married men in May 1916. Those who had enlisted under the Group Scheme were mobilised from March 1916 onwards. In the later part of the war young men were called up to attest shortly before their 18th birthday and usually mobilised shortly afterwards.
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Age
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At the outbreak of war, the minimum age for enlisting was 18 (or 17 for Territorial units) and no recruits were supposed to go overseas until they were 19. The maximum age for recruits was 38, although former servicemen were accepted up to the age of 45. However, no proof of age was required, and there are numerous examples of underage and overage enlistment.
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Initial/final regiments
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Until the introduction of conscription, volunteers could generally choose the regiment in which they enlisted: this was not the case after February 1916. If a man completed his training with one regiment but was transferred to another before being drafted overseas, the first regiment is not shown on his medal card and may not therefore be reflected in the database if no other source has survived.
After absence from the front lines for a period of time due to injury or illness, it was not uncommon for a man to be transferred to a regiment in need of reinforcements instead of returning to his previous unit. Those whose health or fitness had declined (but who were still apt for service) were frequently transferred to the Labour Corps, which mainly operated away from the front lines.
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Discharge​
After the Armistice, volunteers and conscripts with scarce or urgently-needed industrial skills (such as miners) were the first to be demobilised, followed progressively by the others from the longest-serving to the most recent. Most had returned to civilian life by the end of 1919, although some volunteered for further service, notably with the army of occupation. Repatriated prisoners of war were granted an imediate furlough of two months on arriving home, and those who fulfilled certain criteria (age, occupation, etc) could choose to be demobilised at the end of their furlough without returning to the army.
Medal card
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In theory, a medal card (or medal roll index card) exists for each man who served overseas: it shows his service number(s) and the regiment(s) with which he served. For those who went overseas before the end of 1915 the date of entry into a theatre of war is also shown. It gives little or no other identifying details except occasionally an annotation with date of death, date of demobilisation, a cross-reference to the Silver War Badge list, or - very rarely - an address. If no medal card has been found for a man known to have served during World War I, barring error on my part (always possible!) there are three likely reasons:
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The original card has been lost, is illegible or badly misspelled and/or there is an error in the indexing.
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The man served under an alias.
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The man was engaged throughout the war on home service and did not go overseas.
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Home service
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Throughout the war a part of the army was stationed in the UK: this included not just men in training but also those engaged in home defence, instruction, administration and certain other duties. While most men went overseas after training, a minority spent all their wartime service in Britain or Ireland, with certain regiments affected more than others. These included:
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Royal Garrison Artillery (home defence units)
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Royal Engineers (infrastructure and communications)
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Territorial cyclist battalions/Army Cyclist Corps
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Royal Army Medical Corps (military hospitals in the UK)
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Agricultural and some other companies of the Labour Corps
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Military Police
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Army Pay Corps
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The Royal Defence Corps, made up of men too old or unfit for overseas service, operated exclusively within the UK.
Virtually all of the information under the various headings of my database can be found or inferred from a full service record. However, when the service record is fragmentary or inexistant, what sources can be used to replace it?​
Age/Year of birth
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Baptismal/civil birth registration
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Recorded age on census returns
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Recorded age on other military records, eg. Silver War Badge
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Newspaper obituaries
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Underage enlistments and other significant differences between a man's true age and that stated on his service record are asterisked and/or indicated in the "Notes" column.
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Attestation​​​
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Silver War Badge records - exact date of attestation
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Newspaper articles - anything from an exact date to "two years ago"
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Hospital records - usually state a man's length of service in months/years
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Service number - can be used to infer at least an approximate date of attestation due to the use of sequential numbering in many regiments. (For original members of the Manchester “Pals” battalions, which were recruited in a very short space of time, this can be accurate to the day.) Inferred dates are shown in italics in the database.
Occupation​
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Census returns (if a man had the same occupation in 1911 and 1921)
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Newspaper articles
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Where a newspaper obituary states a man's employer but not his role in the company, this is shown in italics. (For instance, while a majority of Stockport's hatworks employees could obviously be described as hatters, others were clerks, warehousemen, salesmen, or even directors.)​
Address​
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Pension ledgers and index cards
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Census returns (if a man had the same address in 1911 and 1921)
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Newspaper articles
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Initial/final regimental number/regiment​
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Medal index card
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Service medal and award roll
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Pension ledgers and index cards
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Soldiers Died in the Great War
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C.W.G.C.
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Newspaper articles
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Overseas​
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Medal index cards (if a man went overseas before the end of 1915)
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Newspaper articles
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Pension ledgers and index cards (infrequently)
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Hospital records - usually state a man's length of overseas service in months
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Silver War Badge - indicate whether a man served overseas, but do not give a date
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Discharged/Cause of discharge​
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Silver War Badge records - date of discharge and (usually) whether it was due to wounds or illness
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Medal index card - infrequently gives date of discharge
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Service medal and award roll- infrequently gives date of discharge
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Pension ledgers and index cards - date of discharge and (usually) the reason a man received a pension​​
While a relatively small number of men were discharged for misconduct or on other dishonourable grounds, most of those who were discharged early from the army were discharged for medical reasons and received some kind of disablity pension on demobilisation. This ranged from a short-term award until a man recovered from wounds or illness to a lifetime pension for the permanently disabled.
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Pre-war soldiers were discharged when they reached the end of their period of engagement, although they were encouraged to extend it. Some of these men subsequently re-enlisted voluntarily, while those still young enough were liable to be recalled for service after the introduction of conscription.
Death/Cause of death​
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C.W.G.C
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Soldiers Died in the Great War
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Newspaper articles
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Medal index cards (usually)
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Service medal and award roll (usually)
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G.R.O. index
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Notes
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Under this heading I include further information about a man's cause of death/discharge, pension application, social and professional affiliations, or basically anything else I discovered which I found interesting! Remarks in italics are my own editorial/working comments.
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