Try to find out:

• in which county the person was posted
• the dates of his service

Consult Proquest UK Parliamentary Papers for published reports of Customs activities. This is a subscription website you can access on The National Archives’ computers by visiting us at Kew. You may also be able to access it via a large reference library such as a university library.

To access these records you will either need to visit us, pay for research (£) or, where you can identify a specific record reference, order a copy (£).

Customs Board minute books (1734–1885)

Browse CUST 28 in Discovery, our catalogue, for minute books of Customs officers. These do not record appointments but include details such as leave, transfers, suspensions, sackings, resignations and pensions for existing officers.

Unfortunately, because of a fire at Custom House in London in 1814, very few minute books from before 1814 have survived.

From 1839 the volumes are quarterly. They are internally indexed, but before 1849 some of them have been split into two parts, with the index in the first part.

Pension records and staff lists (1642–1970)

Browse CUST 39 in our catalogue for pension records and staff lists of Customs officers. These records have not been indexed, so you will need to search records for the relevant years.

Quarterly bills of salaries (1675–1829)

Browse CUST 18 and CUST 19 in our catalogue for quarterly bills of salaries and pay lists.

Warrants for the appointment of Customs officers (1714–1797)

Search the indexes to warrants for the appointment of Customs officers in C 202/267–269 for a reference to the warrants themselves in C 208.

General records

Search, browse and consult the following departments for various records of Customs officers:

• Boards of Customs and Excise (CUST) – the main department for records of Customs officers
• Chancery (C) – including Customs officers patent rolls
• Treasury (T) – including applications for pensions and appointments

Scottish records

Contact the National Records of Scotland for records of Customs officers in Scotland.

Irish records

Contact the National Archives of Ireland and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland for some surviving Irish records of Customs officers.

Cornish records

Contact the Courtney Library at the Royal Institution of Cornwall and the Cornwall Record Office, for records about Customs officers in Cornwall.

Books

Consult ‘Ham’s Customs Year Book’ and ‘Ham’s Inland Revenue Year Book’, available in major research libraries. These are indexed directories of Customs officers, Excise men and Inland Revenue officials covering 1875 to 1930.

Officer ranks include:

• Lieutenant
• Captain
• Major
• Colonel
• Brigadier
• General

The Ministry of Defence website gives more detail.

Officers’ service records (1764–1913)

Search officers‘ service records by name in WO 25 and WO 76. Please note, these record descriptions have been created from a card index which was not comprehensive and may contain some errors.

Narrow your search by using (double) quotation marks to find a person’s full name, such as “John Williams”.

Please note, this is a search across the entire catalogue description of each record, not just the name. A search for someone called Barnes, for example, may give some results for people born in Barnes.

Alternatively browse WO 76 and WO 25 by regiment in the catalogue, and select individual pieces (such as WO 76/1 or WO 25/2) to view on digital microfilm.

Registers in series WO 25 are also available online through the FamilySearch website but can only be accessed at Family History Centres or through organisations with affiliate library status. Search Great Britain, War Office registers: Collection record, 1772-1935.

Printed annual army lists (1754–1879)

Browse the printed army lists (WO 65) available as digital microfilm via Discovery, our catalogue. They are arranged by regiment, of the regular army only, and give the names of officers with dates of their commissions. They are indexed from 1766, but engineer and artillery officers are only included in the index from 1803.

Army lists between 1790 and 1820 can be searched on the Georgian Army Officers website.

Campaign medals (1793–1949)

Search by name online in the campaign medal and award rolls (WO 100) using Ancestry (£), if you know a person was awarded a specific medal. The medal rolls do not usually contain biographical information. You can also search these records on microfilm at The National Archives at Kew, but you will need to know the campaign and the relevant regiment to use these records.

Birth, marriage and death certificates (1755–1908)

Search certificates of marriage, death, burial and the birth of officers’ children in WO 42 (1755–1908) on Ancestry.

The records can also be browsed, but not name searched, in our catalogue and downloaded. There are printed index books to these records in the reading rooms at The National Archives at Kew and separate indexes for the French, Swiss, Italian and Greek corps; Loyal American and Canadian corps; and the King’s German Legion.

To access these records you will either need to visit us, pay for research (£) or, where you can identify a specific record reference, order a copy (£).

Manuscript army lists (1702–1752)

Browse the manuscript army lists in WO 64 to trace an officer’s promotions before the published army lists appeared in 1740.

Baptismal certificates (1777–1868)

Look through the baptismal certificates for British Army officers in WO 32/8903-8920 (1777-1868).

Officers’ commissions (1679–1914)

Though the records contain scant information on each individual, the commissions or warrants of appointments of an officer are likely to be recorded in several places. Browse by reference or search using keywords such as ‘commissions’, ‘appointments’, ‘warrants’, ‘promotions’, ‘commission books’ or ‘succession books’ in the following series:

• Military entry books (1758–1855) in HO 51
• Submissions for royal approval of commissions, promotions and appointments (1809 and 1871–1914) in WO 103

In addition, use the index found in a private notebook (IND 1/8914) to locate records of commissions in SP 44/164 (1679–1782).

Army Purchase Commission records (1758–1908)

Browse through the various types of records created by the Army Purchase Commission in WO 74. Our catalogue does not yet contain separate descriptions for each piece but the series description provides some detail on the records included. Applications from officers of the British and Indian establishment (c.1871–1891) are in WO 74/1. The papers include certificates of service and related correspondence.

Commander in Chief’s memoranda of appointments, promotions and resignations (1793–1870)

Browse by reference the Commander-in-Chief’s memoranda in WO 31 for personal applications to purchase and sell commissions. The records are arranged by the date the appointment or promotion was announced in the London Gazette.

Secretary-at-War correspondence on the purchase and sale of commissions (1704–1858)

Select records by year range from WO 4/513 to WO 4/520 (1704–1858) to view War Office correspondence on the purchase and sale of commissions. Later volumes may include details of where the officer’s regiment was stationed or his own private address.

Half pay, disability and widows’ pensions (1755–1921)

Officers were not automatically entitled to a pension until 1871. Before then, when officers retired they sold their commissions or went on half pay.

Though there is little genealogical information in these documents, you can search for pension records using this advanced search option in our catalogue. Refine your search by date and try the following keywords and keyword combinations:

• ‘pension’ AND ‘widow’
• ‘pension’ AND the rank of officer
• ‘pension’ AND type of pay such as ‘half pay’

The following series all contain some records relating to officers’ pension. Click on the series codes for more information and to browse by reference/year or to search by the keywords suggested above:

• PMG 3 to PMG 14
• WO 23, WO 24 and WO 25
• WO 42
• WO 61

Within the above listed series, the following may prove most useful and easiest to use:

• Registers of the annual bounty paid to officers’ widows in WO 25/3995 (1755–1816) and WO 25/3069-3072 (1815–1856). The registers come with indexes.
• Ledgers of payments of half pay in PMG 4 (1737–1921). After 1841 arranged alphabetically, not by regiment, making it easier to find an officer by name, even if you do not know the regiment.
• Records of officers on half pay in WO 24/660-747 (1713–1809). The records provide an officer’s name, rank and regiment.

Sandhurst registers (1783–1964)

Visit the Sandhurst Collection website to search by name the registers of cadets who attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst 1783–1964 (£). These contain the cadets’ dates of attendance and may also include other personal information such as date of birth, school attended, religion and their father’s profession.

Records held elsewhere

The National Archives’ catalogue contains collections and contact details of local archives around the UK and beyond. To locate these records, search our catalogue with keywords and refine your results to ‘Other archives’ using the filters.

Published British Army Lists

Consult the official published Army Lists to trace an officer’s career in the British Army. There are annual lists (1740–1879), quarterly lists (1879–1922) and monthly lists (1798–1940) for the regular army in this period. The monthly lists include officers of colonial, militia and territorial units. All lists contain dates of commission and promotion.

Officers on half pay can be traced in the Army Lists, which give date of commencement.

Annual lists:

• arranged by regiment
• name indexed from 1766 (except engineer and artillery officers)
• name indexed for engineer and artillery officers from 1803

Quarterly lists:

• list officers in order of seniority
• include details of officers’ war service from April 1881

Monthly lists:

• name indexed from 1867
• provide some details of a regiment’s location

Other books

Some or all of the recommended publications below may be available to buy from The National Archives’ Bookshop. Alternatively, search The National Archives’ Library to see what is available to consult at Kew.

William Spencer, ‘Army Records’ (The National Archives, 2008)

Consult ‘Hart’s Army List’ by Henry George Hart (Smith, Elder & Co., 1839–1915), an unofficial alternative to the official Army List with details of officers’ war service from 1839.

Websites and blogs

Search the London Gazette on The Gazette website for information about British Army officers’ commissions and gallantry awards.

Read the blog Isaac Chetham: From ‘Scum of the Earth’ to Commissioned Officer in Wellington’s Army which explains the process of researching an Officer in this period.

Try to find out:

• the name of the local parish
• if the village you are researching has been known by any other name
• if there have been any changes to county names and boundaries in the area you are researching

Historical Directories (1750–1919)

Search the University of Leicester’s Historical Directories website for local and trade directories describing rural communities and their principal inhabitants.

To access these records you will either need to visit us, pay for research (£) or, where you can identify a specific record reference, order a copy (£).

Tithe maps and apportionments from 1836

Search Discovery, our catalogue for tithe maps (IR30) and apportionments (IR 29) by place name.

National Farm Survey (1941–1943)

Search our catalogue by parish name for records of individual farms (MAF 32). Associated maps are in MAF 73.

Records of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1386

Browse our catalogue for records created or inherited by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food in MAF.

Records of the Rural Development, National Parks, Countryside and Forestry Commissions from 1910

Browse our catalogue for records of the Rural Development Commission in D, the National Parks and Countryside Commissions in COU and the Forestry Commission in F.

Local authority records

Consult records of local authorities and parishes in local archives and libraries. Use Find an archive to find their contact details.

The National Archives’ catalogue contains collections and contact details of local archives around the UK and beyond. To locate these records, search our catalogue with keywords and refine your results to ‘Other archives’ using the filters.

Websites

Visit A Vision of Britain Through Time for maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions of places in Britain between 1801 and 2001.

To uncover details of an officer’s service in the First World War you should begin by searching for the following three types of records:

• Service record: If it survives it is likely to be the most detailed record for an officer that you will find but they are not available online. To see them you will need either to visit us or order a copy (£) to be sent to you.
• Medal records: Low on detail but, unlike service records, available online. All soldiers of all ranks who served in a theatre of war were issued with at least one campaign medal; some were also awarded medals for gallantry and meritorious service though there are few surviving records of this type.
• Unit war diaries: Among the records available online, unit war diaries hold the most promise for a picture of an officer’s time at war. You will need to know which unit, often a battalion, an officer served with to effectively search these records. If you do not know the exact unit in which he served you may be able to find out by consulting the medal records.

Whether other records survive or ever existed for an officer depend upon a number of variable factors. If, for example, an officer was wounded or taken prisoner, records may survive recording these events.

First World War British Army Lists

Search the British Army Lists 1882–1962 by name on the Fold3 website (£) – you can search the lists at Ancestry.co.uk (£) but for images of the lists you will need to go to Fold3.com. These online versions include all the First World War lists, originally published at monthly or quarterly intervals.

Monthly Army Lists contain lists of officers by regiment and include details of:

• promotions and appointments
• deaths of officers, with date and cause
• regiment’s location

Quarterly Army Lists feature lists of regular army officers by rank in seniority order and include details of:

• promotions, with dates
• gallantry medals
• war service since April 1881 (in January issue only, 1909–1922)

British military medical records, 1912-1921

A representative selection of several types of medical records relating to the diagnosis and medical treatment of service personnel during the First World War can be found in series MH 106.

The first 2078 boxes of the series are admission and discharge registers from military hospitals and casualty clearing stations, field ambulances, an ambulance train and a hospital ship. Search MH 106 admission and discharge registers by name or regimental number on Findmypast (charges apply) in the collection British Armed Forces, First World War Soldiers’ Medical Records. Details of service personnel may include year of birth, service number, rank and hospital admission date.

The series also contains 306 boxes of medical case sheets and medical cards for individual service personnel. The case sheets were selected to illustrate the diversity of diseases contracted, the type of injuries received and the kinds of treatments prescribed to the war wounded, and the medical cards relate to individuals from selected regiments.

To search the case sheets and cards go to MH 106 and search by name, regimental number, unit, and condition, injury and disease. These records are only available as original records and cannot be downloaded.

Unit war diaries from the Western Front, Mesopotamia and Gallipoli, 1914–1922

Search by unit name and number for the war diaries of British Army units that served on the Western Front and in Mesopotamia on our website (£) and for units that served in the Gallipoli Campaign at the Dardanelles on Ancestry.co.uk (£).

See below for advice on searching for the war diaries of units that served elsewhere in the world during the war.

Campaign medal index cards, 1914–1920

For details of First World War campaign medals awarded to both officers and other ranks, search and download (£) British Army medal index cards (WO 372) from our catalogue. These cards provided an index to the medal rolls (see below).

Not all officers applied for their campaign medals. If an officer did not apply, there will be no medal index card.

Campaign medal rolls, 1914–1920

Search by name, regimental number and regiment the campaign medal rolls (WO 329) on Ancestry (£). You may find abbreviations on a roll entry – some of these abbreviations are explained in our guide to British Army medal index cards.

The campaign medal roll usually contains the same information as the medal index card, but it may also provide the battalion or equivalent unit number.

Silver War Badge rolls, 1914–1920

Search the Silver War Badge rolls (WO 329) on Ancestry (£) by recipients’ name or by badge number.

The badge was awarded to all of those military personnel who were discharged as a result of sickness or wounds contracted or received during the war, either at home or overseas.

Official announcements of commissions and gallantry awards in the London Gazette

Search the London Gazette, the official journal of the British government, on The Gazette website for announcements of British Army officers’ commissions and gallantry awards.

Prisoner of war records, 1914–1918

See our guide to records of British prisoners of the First World War for details of the prisoner of war records available online.

Birth, marriage and death certificates (1755–1908)

Search certificates of marriage, death, burial and the birth of officers’ children in WO 42 (1755–1908) on Ancestry. Some records from the late nineteenth century could relate to First World War officers.

The records can also be browsed, but not name searched, in our catalogue and downloaded. There are printed index books to these records in the reading rooms at The National Archives at Kew.

To access these records you will either need to visit us, pay for research (£) or, where you can identify a specific record reference, order a copy (£).

Officers’ service records, 1914–1922

There are over 217,000 British Army officers‘ service records for the First World War held by The National Archives. An officer’s file originally had three parts but two of these were destroyed by enemy action in September 1940. What remains was heavily weeded prior to 1940 and in many cases this means that nothing remains for many officers.

Search our catalogue for references to officers’ service records by name in record series WO 339 and WO 374:

The content of the files varies – some have simply a note of the date of death whilst others contain attestation papers for those commissioned from the ranks, a record of service, personal correspondence and other items.

Alternatively, click on the links below to search more specifically for references to:

• records of officers who finished serving before 1922, by first and last name in WO 339. WO 339 includes officers who were given a temporary commission in the regular army, those who were commissioned into the Special Reserve of officers and those who were regular army officers before the war.
• records of officers given a Territorial Army commission or a temporary commission, by first and last name, regiment and rank, in WO 374.
• officer’s long numbers in the online indexes in WO 338 – this is only worthwhile if you have not found anything in WO 339 or WO 374 (please be aware that the online indexes are very large files and only suitable for download on a fast and unlimited broadband connection). Long numbers for officers in the WO 374 series start with the first letter of the surname and the first vowel of the surname. The number for Anderson, for example will start with AE (references starting with a P refer to records which are still held by the Ministry of Defence). To search WO 374 with an officers name and number, remove the initials from the number. For example if the long number is AE/279, simply search for Anderson 279.

Famous army officers

Search by name among the service records of a few notable individuals (WO 138), such as Wilfred Owen and Field Marshal Douglas Haig, in our catalogue.

Unit war diaries from Russia, British colonies and other theatres of operations, 1914–1922

Search by unit name and number for document references to unit war diaries of British Army units that served in Russia, British colonies and other theatres of operations. This series of records, WO 95, also contains diaries for units located on the Western Front, in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli, but for advice on locating those diaries see the Online records section of this guide.

For more detailed advice see our guide to British Army operations in the First World War.

Sandhurst registers, 1783–1964

Visit the Sandhurst Collection website to search by name and download (£) the registers of cadets who attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst 1783–1964. These contain the cadets’ dates of attendance and may also include other personal information such as date of birth, school attended, religion and their father’s profession.

First World War pension record cards for servicemen killed or injured

Search among the First World War pension record cards on Fold3.com (£) – you can also search on Ancestry.co.uk (£) but for images of the records you will need to go to Fold3.com.

The cards record details of the pension entitlements of soldiers and other servicemen killed or injured in the war, both of officers and other ranks, and of the widows and dependants of deceased soldiers.

The much larger collection of originals are in the care of The Western Front Association (WFA) but had previously been held locally, around the country, and then by the Ministry of Defence. Read the WFA’s article on the records for more information.

Absent Voters Lists, 1918–1921

Search for a soldier by name in the Absent Voters Lists, taken from electoral registers held at the British Library, on Findmypast.co.uk (£) and Ancestry.co.uk (£).

The Absent Voter Lists enabled servicemen and women away from home to vote by proxy or by postal application. They record the address, service number and regimental details of each person.

Indian Army records

Records of officers in the Indian Army are held at the British Library.

Printed British Army Lists

Consult the official published Army Lists to trace an officer’s career in the British Army. These are the original printed versions of the online lists described above. There are monthly lists (1798–1940), quarterly lists (1879–1922 and 1940–1950) and half-yearly lists (1923–1950), as well as the ongoing modern Army List (1951–), for the regular army in this period. All the monthly lists and the quarterly lists for 1940–1950 include officers of colonial, militia and territorial units. All lists contain dates of commission and promotion.

Books

Choose from a wide selection of First World War books at The National Archives bookshop. The following publications are available at The National Archives’ Library at Kew:

The Cross of Sacrifice: An Alphabetically Compiled record of British Officers who Died in Service of Their Country, Identifying Where They Died and are Commemorated by S D and D B Jarvis (Roberts Medals, 1993)

Officers Died in the Great War (Samson Books, 1979)

Commissioned Officers in the Medical Services of the British Army 1660–1960 by A Peterkin (The Wellcome Historical medical Library, 1968)

The Roll of Honour: A Biographical Record of Members of His Majesty’s Naval and Military Forces who Fell in the Great War by the Marquis de Ruvigny (London Stamp Exchange, 1987)

First World War Army Service Records by William Spencer (The National Archives, 2008)