Understanding cavalry records

Service records

If you are fortunate enough to locate the service record of a man who served with the cavalry, it is likely to provide rich and detailed information regarding his time in the army.

Figure A: Extract from a document in a man’s service record. This is from an Army Form B103, the “Casualty Form – Active Service”. It describes his movements and postings to units, and as such is one of the key documents for those wishing to determine a man’s story in detail. This man’s record refers to service with the 6th Dragoon Guards and the 4th Reserve Regiment. The entries in this form of record are not always written in strict chronological order. It is usually a good idea to extract the information one row at a time and recreate his timeline, before interpreting the entries.
Figure B: Typical column headings from the same type of document: note the word “casualty”. The army used the word to describe every time a man left a unit as well as when he became a casualty in the sense of being wounded, becoming sick, or killed. The report date, seen on the left, was often a few days or even longer afterwards.

Especially for a man’s time in his initial training at home, or if he returned to duty after a period of medical treatment, it helps if you understand the typical way in which a man was progressed through depots and training units.

Typical progress of a man of the cavalry

Although there were many variations in the way an individual soldier may progress through his time with the cavalry, I am going to illustrate the common possibilities by describing three cases. You could expect to see something similar with most men who were not commissioned officers.

Case 1: typical of pre- or early war voluntary enlistments into the regular army

Key stages:

  • Recruit would usually enlist local to his home
  • He would be sent to a Cavalry Depot for him to be clothed and equipped, and given basic training and initial instruction
  • He would then be posted to a unit to develop his training.
  • He may be posted onto other units, either at home or overseas, as he progressed.
A pre-war example of enlistment. Bertram Beadell joined the regular army in London in 23 September 1912, agreeing to serve for twelve years. It was to be made up of seven years of full-time service and then five years on reserve. He was made Private 4302 of the Lancers of the Line, allocated to the 12th (Prince of Wales’s Royal) Lancers. In earlier times, the term had been made up of eight years of full-time service and then four years on reserve.
At the beginning, his story is typical. He proceeded after enlistment to the Eastern Cavalry Depot at Shrapnel Barracks at Woolwich, until on 20 January 1913 he was posted to his regiment. On this date, it was en route from South Africa to go into garrison service at Norwich and Weedon. Beadell’s record therefore refers to “R”, the regiment’s reserve, stil located at Woolwich. He was soon discharged from the army and his record suggests that tjhis took place in Norwich.
This example, Frank Billington, enlisted in Chester on 7 August 1914, just three days after Britain declared war. Note how his his terms have been modified by hand to read “three years or [the duration of the] war”. This were often known as “general service terms”.
Billington also began training at the Eastern Cavalry Depot but on 1 September 1914 was posted to the newly-raised 8th Reserve Regiment of Cavalry at the Curragh camp in Ireland. He was sent to France for service with teh 16th Lancers in May 1915.
Case 2: typical of Group System recruits and men conscripted into the regular army during the Great War

Key Stages:

  • The man was either voluntarily attested (Group System) or deemed to have enlisted (under the 1916 Military Service Act). He was then placed into Section B Army Reserve.
  • He received a call-up notice and was mobilised, being ordered to proceed to a training unit, which could be a Cavalry Depot, or a Reserve regiment of Cavalry.
  • Typically, after a few months he would be named as part of a Reinforcement Draft for overseas.
  • He would first arrive at a Base Depot in the theatre of war and would then be posted to a unit.
A classic example. Newton Greenwood joined the army via the Group System, also known as the Derby Scheme. This is rarely explicitly stated in a man’s service record, although the box marked “Card No.” is often a clue.
The greater clue comes from the fact that Newton attested in Hebden Bridge on 11 December 1915, which is within the period when the Group System was open for recruits. As was his right under this arrangement he elected to defer the start of his service.
Newton was mobilised from reserve on 29 May 1916 and proceeded to the Northern Cavalry Depot at Scarborough. After a few days, he was transferred to the 11th Reserve Regiment of Cavalry to continue his training.
An example from a record of a conscripted man. Edward Baird was deemed to have enlisted on his 18th brthday on 1 July 1916, and was eventually called up form reserve on 31 May 1918. He began service with the 3rd Reserve Regiment of Cavalry but was transferred to the Tank Corps on 7 September 1918.

Common cavalry acronyms and abbreviations

Dgns and other variantsDragoons
GSGeneral Service
H or HrsHussars
L or LrsLancers
RCRReserve Regiment of Cavalry

Campaign medal records

In many cases, the man’s service record no longer exists and his story can only rebuilt by reference to fragmentary detail from other sources. A common source for this is the issuing rolls of the campaign medals.

The medal rolls are generally organised by type pf cavalry unit (in this case, it is a page from the roll of the Corpos of Lancers of the Line) and then by numeric sequence of the man’s number. Note that, for example, Pte l/6902 Jack Black served with the 5th Lancers.

Links

Researching the men of the cavalry

How to find records of cavalrymen

Numbering the men of the cavalry