Re: WW1 Enlistment at the age of 50

Don Aitken wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:11:09 -0800, anonymous <anonymous@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Anne Chambers wrote:
Phil C. wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:38:42 +0000, Mike Williams
<nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Wasn't it StephenP who wrote:
I have been looking for a great great uncle for a couple of years
now. The last the “family heard” was that he “was in Dublin” around
1895. Over the weekend I found his details in the British Army
Pensions for 1914-1920 at Ancestry. It would appear he enlisted in
June 1918 at the age of 50 in Dublin into the Army Pay Corps. He was
promoted corporal in 1919 and discharged in 1920 having spent the
whole time in Ireland. Before enlistment he had been a “traveller in
tea” for the firm of R S Christie in Dublin.

I am now pondering as to why he joined up. It seems to me that aged
50 in 1918 it was a bit late to be conscripted or to have the same
patriotic rush as in 1914. It is also a bit late to be a reaction to
the Easter Rising of 1916.
As the war progressed, the accounting grew more complicated and more staff were required for the Army Pay Corps. Perhaps they made him an offer that was better than travelling in tea.
I wonder if he'd wanted to join before for the usual patriotic reasons
but had been rejected because of his age. By June 1918 they'd have
been desperate to free up younger men for the front and might have
dropped their standards for non-combatant roles(?)
An English-born relative enlisted in the Australian Army about the same time and served in Egypt as a clerk until 1920. I had to chuckle when I saw his service record - under 'distinguishing marks' they had written "Right leg missing" - it had been amputated when he was 9 after he fell onto the engine on his father's ship.

I think by that stage, all able-bodied men were so desperately needed at the front that they were taking anyone still breathing for base jobs.

My great grandfather also enlisted in 1916 at the age of 50. He lied
about his age when he joined. He was discharged 7 months later with the
reason that he was too old.

Sir Ernest Gowers' preface to the 1968 revision of Fowler's "Modern
English Usage" tells the sad story of the Fowler brothers' attempts to
fight in WWI, quoting a petition they sent to their CO. Henry enlisted
when he was 56, giving his age as 44. The petition claims that
recruits were "officially encouraged to mis-state their ages as a
patriotic act"; since he was actively involved in recruiting for some
time before to joined up himself, he was in a position to know. As
soon as they reached the front they were "sent back to the base, not
as having proved unfit for the work, but merely as being over-age -
and this though their real ages had long been known to the
authorities". After that they were confined to "performing such menial
or unmilitary duties as dish washing, coal-heaving and porterage".
They indignantly assert that "such conversion of persons who undertook
merely from patriotic motives the duties of soldiers on active service
into unwilling menials or servants is an incredibly ungenerous
policy". That suggests a rather unrealistic view of what life in the
ranks could be expected to be like.

I wouldn't have fancied being Fowler's CO. In the event he fainted on
parade shortly after sending in this petition; after some weeks in
hospital he was discharged as unfit, having, as far as I can see, been
a pure liability to the army from beginning to end.


wasn't the ratio about 5 persons supporting one front line soldier in those days?

Hugh W
.

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