Catalogue description War Office: Officers' Services, First World War, personal files (alphabetical)

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Details of WO 374
Reference: WO 374
Title: War Office: Officers' Services, First World War, personal files (alphabetical)
Description:

This series contains records and correspondence for officers with temporary commissions and Territorial Army officers who served in the First World War.

Note: Catalogue entries for this series have been enhanced as part of a project supported by Volunteers, including the Friends of The National Archives; completed in August 2016.
Date: 1898-1922
Arrangement:

WO 374 is made up of two registered files series: the 'vowel' series which was introduced to cope with the large number of temporary commissions and the 9 series, so-called after the numerical prefix within the War Office file series which was the allocated code for the Territorial Force. The two series of files were later combined by the Ministry of Defence into a single alphabetically arranged series.

Please note that the series list is not in strict alphabetical surname order, a few strays appear at the very end, and a very small number date to prior the First World War and were retained in this series for pension purposes.

Related material:

See also the registers of Officers Services (including Civilian Dependants and Civilian and Military Staff Appointments) in

For related personal files see WO 339

WO 340

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 77834 file(s)
Access conditions: Open
Immediate source of acquisition:

1996 to 2000 Ministry of Defence

Selection and destruction information: The bulk of the forms which recorded service up to 1939 were destroyed in September 1940, when the War Office Record Office in Arnside Street, London, was damaged by enemy bombing. With their loss, it was decided to keep the personnel records now found in this series and WO 339 (Regular Army and Emergency Reserve officers) as together these records provided the only remaining service record for First World War officers.

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