Using A Soldier's Payslip Help Determine WW1 Enlistment Date

[Annbee]

I am trying to roughly establish when a soldier joined the 2/8th Royal Warwicks, and Jim1 has been very very helpful so far - it's his idea to use the payslip to calculate the mount of service - but I thought I'd post this extra couple of questions.

Thomas Richard Beach Reg No 3730 is the man. I had thought perhaps he enlisted late 1914/early 1915 but Jim1 points out that the war gratuity he was granted, of £4 10s, indicates that he joined up later since the annual pay was £5.

My calculations result with this: If £5 per year is what an infantry soldier was paid in first year, and £4 10s is what Thomas received on his death 26 June 1916, then it means Thomas enlisted about 1st August 1915.

My maths: £5 is 1200 pennies and that translates to pay of 3.29 pennies per day.
So if Thomas was paid 1080 pennies for his service (£4 10s), that means he served 328 days.
He died 26 June 1916 (a leap year) so he served 177 days in 1916. Which leaves 151 days of service in 1915 and that takes his day one to about 1st August.

Can anyone tell me if I missing something or if I have got the wrong end of the stick here? Or my maths is wrong?

I have read a fair bit about pay, trying to puzzle how renumeration worked. I saw on the attached link the rates per day and so have another question as to how this worked.

If infantry received 11p per day, then was it the remainder of a married soldier's pay which was passed on to his family via the Separation Allowance? Is that how it worked? ie the soldier was given 'pocket money' while the family received the real pay/living allowance.

I know that, without firm records, Thomas's enlistment date will not be able to be fully determined. But a rough guesstimate would help determine a sense of motivations for his family. He left 2 infants and a pregnant wife to join up and his death left a deep mark on them.

https://rapc-association.org.uk/Assets/User/
1813-1914_Minimum_daily_rates_of_pay_for_typical_ranks_or_appointments_of_all_arms.pdf

[Andy J2022]

I'm going to let Jim1 or one of the other experts comment on the basic premise and calculations, but it is worth pointing out that the gratuity awarded to soldiers at the end of their service was not 'pay'. It was a lump sum intended in part to compensate for the civilian wages the man had lost out on while serving and for the arduous nature of the conditions under which he had served. A sort of 'thank you'. As there were hundreds of thousands of men to process during demobilisation I suspect the formula was intended to be quick and easy to calculate, and wasn't given to subtleties.

His regimental number may provide a clue to his date of enlistment. According to Paul Nixon's excellent Army Service Numbers website the only known numbers issued to members of the 8th Battalion the Royal Warwickshire Regiment end at 2302 issued on 6 Aug 1914; the next lowest, 2196, was issued on 16 April 1914. Given the enormous surge in enlistments following the start of the war on 28 July I would have expected number 3730 (that is, 1428 higher than the August number) to have easily been reached by late 1914 or early 1915. However that presupposes that he joined the 8th Battalion from the start; if he transferred within the Regiment from another battalion when the 2/8th was formed, then this theory breaks down completely.

[Annbee]

Thanks Andy. So are you saying the gratuity does or doesn't relate to length of service?

I had found Paul Nixon's page on the numbers and the 8th Warwicks, and he's also got a video which shows how to try find attestation papers close to the soldier's number you're seeking. I haven't got subs to FindMyPast, as he demonstrated, but did a quick attempt on the search allowed and came up with no numbers at all close to 3730. I wonder if those are the burnt ones.

In the War Diaries I recollect it being reported that enlistment numbers hadn't reached optimal by end of 1914 and that enlistment continued into early 1915. Further on that year of 1915 I recall that something like 128 more new recruits joined the battalion as they trained. Unfortunately I didn't save copies of those pages and don't have access at this time.

I have seen in, say, the Birmingham Post, reports of who enlisted week by week. I don't know when they started reporting that, but perhaps I can trawl through papers and see. That's the only subscription I have at the moment - newspapers have been a great source of information for me.

I doubt he was in the regular army before the outbreak of war, given his earlier occupations, but that's just a guess of course. Is this what you mean? That he may have been a regular?

I've learnt a lot from you and Jim1. I've ended up doing a pile of reading, it's been fascinating and an eye-opener re. the war's horrors.

 

[Annbee]

The unpublished thesis by Robert David Williams "A Social and Military History of the 1/8th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, in the Great War"

http://www.rootschat.com/links/01ssk/

Starting page 40 it's said that "over 3,000 men have been identified who served in the Battalion during the war" and there is discussion about the numbering of the 8th and the numbers of the men who were posted into the Battalion form other regiments. There were 4 groups identified: Huntingdonshire Cyclist Battalion numbered 307649 through to 307737;  the Suffolk Regiment, numbered 29316 to 29634 and 325001 to 325103; the ASC numbered from 33593 through to 33702 and men from Wiltshire 4857 to 5300 and from 306600 to 306863.

So, if this is correct, Regt. No. 3730 is most likely originally an 8th recruit and a 2/8th...?

Just thinking out loud.

And as Andy says " I would have expected number 3730 (that is, 1428 higher than the August number) to have easily been reached by late 1914 or early 1915" - although I'd best check newspapers to see if they were keeping score.

I do have a thesis, or article, which traces how enlistment numbers took a nose dive early-ish 1915.

Jim1 could be right and No. 3730 signed up Sept/Oct.

This is most likely a Holy Grail, I know

[ALAMO2008]

[jim1]

As Andy said War Gratuity was separate from pay & there's
no correlation between the 2.
It may be worth noting that not all numbers were sequential.
The Army had a habit of using unused numbers from previous batches.