Army Service Numbers 1881-1918

This blog is an information resource for which will look at British Army service numbers issued between the years 1881 and 1918. Its aim is to provide information which will help researchers and family historians determine - from a soldier's army service number - the date he joined a particular unit of the British Army.

The concept of this blog is simple. Every “Other Rank” soldier was issued with a service number. Although in most cases these numbers were far from unique and in fact often repeated many times in a single regiment, it is nevertheless still possible - in most cases - to estimate a likely joining date from a man’s army service number.

For the most part, I shall focus on army service numbers issued to Infantry of the Line. There are also some corps - The Army Service Corps and Labour Corps for instance - which are currently beyond the scope of this project.

A word of warning too. It is wrong to assume that numbering sequences in battalions always followed a sequential pattern. They didn't. As the war progressed and casualties grew, large numbers of men were often transferred from one battalion to another and allocated numbers within blocks which did not fit the sequential patterning seen to date. This becomes particularly evident in most battalions from 1916 onwards. For an example of this, see my post on the 23rd London Regiment.

I'll begin with army service numbers in the Essex Regiment. Don't forget there are millions of British Army records published on Findmypast and Ancestry.

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