Images from the First World War

Recruitment, and Conscription

Throughout the autumn months of 1914 and into 1915 enormous efforts were made to encourage men aged 19 – 30 to join the armed forces. Young men such as James Malin (Jim), an 18 year old building labourer who lived in Cambridge Street, St Neots, enlisted in August 1914.

By June 1915, as casualties mounted, the age of men able to enlist rose to 35 and by August Huntingdonshire was recruiting for a ‘Bantam’ regiment of men below the usual height requirements for the army.

Conscription

The government realised that voluntary recruitment was not producing enough men and Conscription was introduced in early 1916, with the first exemption tribunal in St Neots reported in the St Neots Advertiser of 18^th February 1916. The Tribunal meetings were held in the Magistrates Room, now St Neots Museum.

Many local farmers, manufacturers and shopkeepers applied for exemption for their staff fearing that their businesses would fail if they lost all their staff, many had signed up in the initial rush to enlist in August 1914 and employers were finding it hard to recruit new staff.

For example Mr Cadge, who ran a clothing and shoe shop on St Neots Market Square, asked for Charles Saddington, the manager of his boot department, to be given exemption in May 1916, but this was refused and it was suggested that he could employ a woman to help in the shop.

By September 1916 the local recruiting office was printing the names of men who had not yet enlisted on the front page of the St Neots Advertiser.

5th Bedfordshire Regiment Recruitment advert, 25th June 1915

Bantam Platoon advert, 6th August 1915

St Neots soldier, Private James Malin, 1914

James Malin & the Hunts. Cyclists Battalion ‘D’ Co. Football Team, St Neots Advertiser May 1915

Report of the first meeting of the local Military Tribunal, St Neots Advertiser, 18th February 1916

An advert for Mr Cadge’s working men’s boots, August 1915

Boot Manager Must Go, St Neots Advertiser, 2nd June 1916

The Magistrates Room, New Street, St Neots on the right of the photograph, about 1910

Cartoon postcard of a Military Tribunal, 1916

Britons! Your Country Needs You. Poster

St Neots Market Square with the field guns of the 1st Highland Brigade Royal Field Artillery, Aberdeen Battery, Mr R. E. Cadge’s shop is on the left.

Before computers, television or the radio people obtained important information from the national newspapers which were delivered by train from London. The local newspaper was the St Neots Advertiser and as the war progressed the main source of news was from local men themselves. Men wrote home to relatives or were able to come home on leave, and their letters and stories were then passed to the local paper who printed them on a weekly basis. Graphic accounts of the fighting began to appear in the local paper – albeit weeks after the actual events.