Catalogue description Commissary General of Musters Office and successors: General Muster Books and Pay Lists

This series comprises muster books and pay lists of the Household troops, the cavalry, Guards and the regular infantry regiments of the line. Also special regiments or corps, colonial troops, various foreign legions and troops, general states and musters of regimental and other depots, etc.

It provides a comprehensive means of establishing dates of enlistment, movements throughout the world, and of discharge or death. The first entry may show age on enlistment. An entry on the form 'Men becoming non-effective', sometimes found at the end of each quarter's musters, shows the birthplace, trade, and date of enlistment of any soldier discharged or dead during the quarter.

Some muster books may include lists of men transferred from one battalion to another.

From about 1868, at the end of each muster, may be found a Marriage Roll, which enumerates wives and children for whom married quarters were provided.

For the continuation of the series see WO 16

See also Armed Forces Service Records in Division within WO

For musters of various companies and detachments (including cadets) from 1721 to 1760 see British Library. Add. MSS. 9913 and 9914; these two volumes having been transferred by the Master General and the Board of Ordnance in 1835.

Commissary General of Musters, 1660-1817

Secretary-at-War, 1660-1855

War Department, 1855-1857

War Office, 1857-1964