York servicemen - Introduction
The basis for this list of men and women who served is the York 1918 Absent Voters List (AVL).
The Absent Voters List was compiled following the requirements of the Representation of the People Act 1918. The Act allowed service men and women to register in order to obtain a vote in the constituency of their home address. They had to provide their own details. Men had to be over the age of 19 years, the voting age was however 21.
A printed copy of the AVL is available in the York City Archives and consists of 191 pages.
The City of York was divided up into six Wards, Bootham, Castlegate, Guildhall, Micklegate, Monk and Walmgate. Each Ward was sub-divided into a number of Polling Districts, as follows:
Bootham A, B , C
Castlegate D, E, F G
Guildhall H, I, J,
Micklegate K, L, M, N, O
Monk Ward P, Q, R, S
Walmgate T, U, V, W
The printed AVL presents the names by Ward and Polling District, with each Polling District the streets are given alphabetically and the names by street number. Part of the first page is shown below.
The entries on the AVL will be presented as follows, using John Abbott, entry 1 as an example:
Abbott, John
15037, Pte, 26 Lab. Co., Labour Corps
3 Barkers Court, Gillygate, Bootham Ward, A, 1
For each soldier a search has also been done to see if the there is a Medal Index Card (MIC)available. If so the MIC provides infomration on the medals awarded, additional information such as date of entry into first theatre is shown, if the soldier was prisoner of war, other units served etc.
If there is a medal index card a typical entry would look like this:
Abbott, John
15037, Pte, 26 Lab. Co., Labour Corps
3 Barkers Court, Gillygate, Bootham Ward, A, 1
John Abbott originally served in the South Staffordshire Regiment and had the service number 40656 and later joined the Labour Corps with the service number 15037. John Abbott was awarded the British War and Victory Medals.
If no medal index card is found it will usually mean that the soldier didnt serve overseas or that the medal card has been misfiled and not been found.
There are no medal cards for Royal Flying Corps / Royal Air Force personnel.
I have decided to start to list all of the names on the 1918 AVL, this will be done alphabetically. I have provided some additional information for a few of the first soldiers listed, taken from their service records and references fund in the Yorkshire Herald (from Rolls of honour, published in late 1914 or the first half of 1915).
However to speed up the process of adding names I will only check the MICs.
I am happy to check my index for specific soldiers that are not yet listed (ie most of them), please send me an email if I can help.
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