
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.
How many are online?
This is a guide to the records of British Army soldiers who served in the First World War. Some First World War veterans continued to serve with the army after the war and for the records of these soldiers you may need to read the advice in our guide to British Army soldiers in service after 1918. However, many of the records in the First World War collections cover service up to 1920.
The ranks covered by the records detailed in this guide include Private, Lance Corporal, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant Major and Warrant Officer – but not commissioned officer ranks.
For the service records of soldiers serving in the armies of Commonwealth countries (such as Canada, New Zealand or South Africa) you will need to contact the respective archives of those countries.
To uncover details of a soldier’s service in the First World War you should begin by searching for the following three types of records:
Whether other records survive or ever existed for a soldier depend upon a number of variable factors. If, for example, a soldier was wounded, taken prisoner or was granted an army pension, records may survive recording these events.
Many records held at The National Archives are available online, some of them on partner websites, others on our own website. For details of other online First World War records, see the Records in other archives and organisations listed below.
Search military records of non-commissioned officers and other ranks on Ancestry.co.uk (£) and Findmypast.co.uk (£) including service records (WO 363), pension records (WO 364) and campaign medal cards.
These cover regular soldiers who may have enlisted as early as 1892 for 22 years’ service as well as a small number of stray service records of pre-war soldiers who did not serve from 1914–1920.
The records include:
The records do not usually include:
The British Army contained regiments from parts of the former colonies. The service records in WO 363 and WO 364 include regiments such as:
They do not include the service records for soldiers serving in the armies of Commonwealth countries (such as Canada, New Zealand or South Africa). You will need to contact their respective archives for advice on how to locate these records.
Note that military records collections searched on both Ancestry and Findmypast also contain other types of military record from before and after the First World War.
Search and download (£) service records (WO 400) of non-commissioned officers and other ranks who served in one of the Household Cavalry regiments during the First World War.
These records can also be searched on Findmypast.co.uk.
These cards, along with the medal rolls to which they form an index (see below), were created primarily to record the awarding of campaign medals. Campaign medals were awarded to all soldiers who served in a theatre of conflict overseas. In some instances the cards also record gallantry awards.
Search by name or regimental (service) number for First World War army medal index cards (WO 372) on our website (£).
Search the campaign medal rolls (WO 329) on Ancestry (£) by name, regimental (service) number and regiment. You may find abbreviations on a roll entry – some of these abbreviations are explained in our guide to army medal index cards.
The British War and Victory medal entries may give you a battalion/unit number which will help you to find a unit war diary.
Search the Silver War Badge rolls (WO 329) on Ancestry (£) by recipients’ name, regimental number or by badge number. Alternatively you can search by regiment.
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.
Search the London Gazette on The Gazette website for the official announcements of British Army soldiers’ gallantry awards.
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.
These are selected records drawn from series MH 106, itself a representative, rather than a complete, selection of various kinds of medical records from various theatres of the First World War.
Search for the hospital admission and discharge records (£) of servicemen in MH 106 on Findmypast.co.uk. The records include admissions and discharge records from military hospitals, field ambulances, and casualty clearing stations. Details of servicemen may include year of birth, service number, rank and hospital admission date.
See our guide to records of British prisoners of the First World War for details of the prisoner of war records available online.
To access these records you will either need to visit us to see the documents for free at our building in Kew or, where you can identify a specific document reference, order a copy (£) to be sent to you.
Search our catalogue (below) for pension case files in record series PIN 26. Only a 2% sample of these records survive.
These are selected records drawn from series MH 106, itself a representative, rather than a complete, selection of various kinds of medical records from various theatres of the First World War.
Search MH 106 in our catalogue by name, service number or unit for a sample of British servicemen’s medical sheets and medical cards. The detailed catalogue descriptions may mean that consultation of the original records is unnecessary.
The hospital admission and discharge records from this series are available to view online (see section above) but are not searchable by name in our own catalogue.
Search by unit name and number for document references to unit war diaries in series WO 95 using the series search. Use this search tool if you are looking for the war diaries of units that served in Russia, British colonies and theatres of operations other than the Western Front, Mesopotamia and Gallipoli – for these latter three see the advice on online diaries in the previous section.
For more detailed advice see our guide to British Army operations in the First World War.
For service records of the Guards regiments (Coldstream Guards, Grenadier Guards, Irish Guards and Welsh Guards) visit the GOV.UK website.
Enlistment registers of the Scots Guards covering 1799-1939, and 1642-1939 for officers, can be searched on Findmypast.co.uk.
Some records were destroyed by enemy bombing of the Guards chapel during the Second World War.
Search the soldiers’ effects ledgers (£) covering April 1901 to March 1960 (from The National Army Museum) by name or regiment on Ancestry.co.uk. These list monies owed to a soldier who died in service.
You may be able to purchase a transcript from the ledgers which usually show:
Ledgers from 1901 to 1914 also show the soldier’s trade and date of enlistment.
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.
Search for a soldier by name in the Absent Voters Lists, taken from electoral registers held at the British Library, on Ancestry.co.uk (£) and on Findmypast.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.
Read ‘First World War Army Service Records’ by William Spencer (The National Archives, 2008).
Use our library catalogue to find a recommended book list. The books are all available in The National Archives’ reference library, or you may be able to find them in a local library.
You can also search our bookshop for a wide range of history titles.