Paying the Debts of the ‘Economy of Sacrifice’: Military Charities as Brokers in Veteran Care, 1919–1929

Abstract

This article examines the hitherto overlooked contribution of military charities to veteran welfare and reintegration after the First World War. I use the records of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Association War Memorial Fund (KOSB WMF), which operated similarly to other regimental charities, to argue that the scale of this apparatus – its social reach and its funding capacity – may be comparable to the better-known and nationally recognised British Legion. It thus represents an important arena to examine processes that informed veteran reintegration, especially for the wider, non-disabled veteran population whose experiences have been largely omitted from histories of veteran welfare. These archives not only demonstrate the interventions of military associational life in veteran welfare. They also provide an entry point to examine how the system worked holistically. Military charities, like the KOSB WMF, represented one of a range of agencies that cooperated to support veterans in the ‘mixed economy of welfare’. Their bureaucratic archival traces provide a productive route to illuminate the relationships behind fund allocation and delivery and to assess what politics animated these processes.

Keywords:

• interwar
• charity
• veterans
• military associations
• localism

Notes

1 Graham Wootton, The Politics of Influence: British Ex-Servicemen, Cabinet Decisions and Cultural Change, 1917–1957 (London: Routledge, 1963), 13; Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 16.

2 The literature on charitable support for disabled veterans is vast and cannot be outlined here. Scholars working in this field of war wounds, disability, and society include Julie Anderson, Ana Carden Coyne, Jessica Meyer, Fiona Reid, and Michael Robinson.

3 Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 112–51.

4 Cohen, 1–12.

5 Michael Robinson, ‘“Definitely Wrong”? The Ministry of Pensions’ Treatment of Mentally Ill Great War Veterans in Interwar British and Irish Society’, War in History, 28 (2021), 71–92; Bethany Rowley, ‘“We Will Never Forget You”: Christian Charities and the Rehabilitation of Disabled Ex-Servicemen in Inter-War Leeds’, Local Population Studies, 101 (2018), 47–63.

6 A broader view of veteran experience is proving a fruitful venue to explore the social and cultural dynamics of citizenship in the Irish Free State: Emmanuel Destenay, ‘“Nobody’s Children”? Political Responses to the Homecoming of First World War Veterans in Northern and Southern Ireland, 1918–1929’, Journal of British Studies, 60 (2021), 632–57.

7 A good example of this, of course, is the Men, Women and Care project, which has endeavoured to systematise the 22,756 files held in the PIN section of the National Archives, Ministry of Pensions and Successors; Selected First World War Pensions Award Files: <https://menwomenandcare.leeds.ac.uk/about/> [accessed 11 May 2023].

8 Paul Huddie, ‘Legacies of a Broken United Kingdom: British Military Charities, the State and the Courts in Ireland, 1923–29’, Irish Economic and Social History, 45 (2018), 3–22; Paul Huddie, ‘SSFA, Ex-Servicemen and Their Families 1919–2’, in Veterans of the First World War; Ex-Servicemen and Ex-Servicewomen in Post-War Britain and Ireland, ed. by David Swift and Oliver Wilkinson (London: Routledge, 2019), 34–47.

9 Wootton, The Politics of Influence; Niall Barr, The Lion and the Poppy: British Veterans, Politics, and Society, 1921–1939 (Westport: Praeger, 2005); Mike Hally, ‘Rights not Charity: the Radical Roots of the British Legion (PhD Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2021). Over 3000 local committees oversaw fund dispensation in the 1930s for the British Legion: Barr, 99.

10 Martin Crotty, Neil J. Diamant and Mark Edele, The Politics of Veteran Benefits in the Twentieth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020).

11 Chris Millington. From Victory to Vichy: Veterans in Inter-War France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012).

12 Veteran ‘special status’ refers to a range of (gendered) arguments made by ex-service supporters that the ex-service men of the war deserved either better or different treatment, based on their war service: Marjorie Levine Clark, Unemployment, Welfare, and Masculine Citizenship: ‘So Much Honest Poverty’ in Britain, 1870–1930 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

13 The charity activity outlined here complicates interpretations of the purely democratic remit of associational life: Helen McCarthy and Pat Thane, ‘The Politics of Association in Industrial Society’, Twentieth Century British History, 22, no. 2 (2011), 217–29.

14 For example, battalion, regiment, corps, or division. For an accessible and excellent description of army organisation in the First World War: Jonathan Boff, ‘Military Structures and Ranks’, <https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/military-structures-and-ranks/> [accessed 11 May 2023].

15 David French, Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army, and the British People, c. 1870–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

16 This may also reflect divisions between military and social history disciplines in the study of peacetime Britain.

17 Anne Digby, ‘Changing Welfare Cultures in Region and State’, Twentieth Century British History, 21 (2006), 1–26.

18 Marjorie Levine Clark, ‘The Politics of Preference: Masculinity, Marital Status and Unemployment Relief in Post-First World War Britain’, Cultural and Social History, 7 (2010), 233–52.

19 This has been particularly looked at in terms of the re-establishment of gendered norms and familial labour: Susan Pedersen, ‘Gender, welfare and citizenship in Britain during the Great War’, American Historical Review 95 (1990), 983–1006; Janis Lomas, ‘“Delicate Duties”: Issues of Class and Respectability in Government Policy towards the Wives and Widows of British Soldiers in the Era of the Great War’, Women’s History Review, 9 (2000), 123–14; Huddie, ‘SSFA, Ex-Servicemen and Their Families 1919–21’.

20 Archives of regimental associations have been used productively by military historians to conduct substantial investigations of wartime operations, but these are largely focused on 1914–1918. For instance, Mark Connelly draws on associational history and records to conclude his broader analysis of the impact of the First World War on the East Kent Regiment and assert the importance of the regimental lens on operational history: Mark Connelly, Steady the Buffs! A Regiment, a Region, and the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

21 A.A. Andrews, ed., Naval, Military and Air Force Guide: Service Funds and Institutions (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1931).

22 Eliza Reidi, ‘“Our Soldiers’ Widows”: Charity, British War Widows, and the South African War (1899–1902)’, War in History, 28 (2021), 46–70.

23 Peter Reese, Homecoming Heroes: An Account of the Re-Assimilation of British Military Personnel into Civilian Life (London: Cooper, 1992), particularly chapter four; Caroline Louise Nielsen, ‘The Chelsea Out-Pensioners: Image and Reality in Eighteenth-Century and Early Nineteenth-Century Social Care’ (PhD dissertation, Newcastle University, 2014).

24 This became the Soldiers and Sailors and Airmen’s Families Association (SSAFA) in 1919.

25 Associations were founded for the larger military formations (e.g. divisions, corps), as well as subdivisions (e.g. battalions). They also developed from the experience of smaller tactical units (e.g. platoons), although these tended to be informal reunion groups.

26 For a discussion of the emergence of military associational life: French, 244–5.

27 The regiment was the cultural umbrella apparatus for tactical units – it provided the touchstone for army identity well into the 20th century: French, Military Identities for the analysis of the regiment as a cultural project and its function for army cohesion and recruitment.

28 Lieutenant-Colonel Addison Smith, for instance, was seen as crucial in providing a systematic approach to associational administration for the Seaforth Highlanders Association, which led to the founding of a club in Edinburgh in 1909: The Scotsman, 4 October 1909, 7.

29 French, 244–5.

30 Peter Grant, Philanthropy and Voluntary Action in the First World War (London: Routledge, 2014).

31 ‘War Charities’, Times, 1 April 1919, 4. The Charity Commission, established in the mid-nineteenth century, regulated the charities sector in England and Wales (with separate bodies existing in Scotland and Ireland) and had to deal with the implications of a considerable rise in charitable activity during 1914–18.

32 For the USF: Hally, ‘Rights not Charity’, chapters five and six.

33 Jedburgh Gazette and Border Courier, 13 June 1919, 4. KOSB WMF Subscription List. KOSB WMF Accounts Book. S3/2.

34 ‘KOSB Prisoner of War Fund’, Jedburgh Gazette, 24 January 1919.

35 The KOSB WMF Subscription List. ‘KOSB War Memorial Fund’, Jedburgh Gazette, 13 June 1919.

36 ‘The KOSB War Memorial.’ Hawick News, 5 November 1920.

37 Minutes of KOSB WMF Council Meeting, 1 August 1923. KOSB WMF Accounts Book. S3/2.

38 ‘Association News’, Borderers Chronicle, 30 September 1927, 47.

39 ‘Association News’, Borderers Chronicle, 29 July 1939, 103.

40 ‘Association News’, Borderers Chronicle, 30 September 1929, 115. This is the sum of the accounts listed in the WMF accounts book, where case numbers are given. It does not include money dispensed to officers of the Widows and Orphans branch of the WMF.

41 Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association Annual Report, 1920–21, 102; SSFA, 1921–22, 118; SSFA, 1922–23, 2. Note courtesy of Paul Huddie.

42 Barr, 100.

43 Andrews, Naval, Military and Air Force Guide.

44 Further research, however, needs to be done to catalogue and assess the funding power of military charity, which would involve triangulating information from multiple sources, including the Charity Commission, military associational archives, newspapers, and local archival collections.

45 Gregory, 223.

46 Far higher figures were achieved by the Seaforth Highlanders’ Association, for instance, which finished the war with a balance of over £27,888: Cabar Feidh, January 1922, 43.

47 Intended as a charitable legacy, this fund reached a value of £111,111 by 1919: ‘War Commemoration Fund’, Daily Telegraph, 26 August 1919, 4.

48 South Staffordshire’s Old Comrades Association dispensed circa 25 per cent of the total grants of the KOSB in 1922: Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 October 1922, 10.

49 French.

50 For example, ‘Lancashire Fusiliers War Memorial Fund: Heaviest Calls Since 1921’, Manchester Guardian, 4 November 1926, 6.

51 For factors influencing growth in these associations during the interwar decades: Eleanor K. O’Keeffe, ‘Civic Veterans: The Public Culture of Military Associations in Inter-War Glasgow’, Urban History, 44 (2016), 293–316.

52 ‘Regimental Association News’, Borderers Chronicle, 29 July 1939, 105–6.

53 They received a small honorarium for their work, which seems to have varied between £10 and £30 depending on the area.

54 Hew Strachan argued that the ‘politics of the army’ had a social significance, driven by the agitation of the officer class, the emergence of professionalism, and the defence of the army as an institution. Whilst recognised as important for military cohesion, regimental identity politics has largely been seen as an inward-looking project, but charity operation demonstrates that such identity politics had a social reality: Hew Strachan, The Politics of the British Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

55 For a good analysis of the different commemorative investments (in this case, the publication of regimental histories) made by regiments after the war, and how these choices reflected strategic factors related to army organisation: Helen McCartney, ‘Interpreting Unit Histories: Gallipoli and After’, in Gallipoli: Making History, ed. by Jenny Macleod (London: Routledge, 2005), 125–35.

56 Barr, Chapter four.

57 ‘Spirit of Comradeship: Welch Regiment Benevolent Fund Progress’, Western Mail & South Wales News, 1 May 1931, 5.

58 ‘Association News’, The Tiger & the Sphinx, July 1927, 170.

59 Barr, 101.

60 This was the same for other regimental associations: Seaforth Highlanders Association. Part 1. The principles upon which charitable relief is administered (1919). Seaforth Highlanders Association Misc. Papers. 12966/10. National Library of Scotland.

61 ‘Association News. Annual Accounts’, The Red Hackle, April 1925, 30.

62 There is no clear explanation offered either in the minutes or the journal that explains why this was the case.

63 David Vincent, Poor Citizens: The State and the Poor in Twentieth Century Britain (City: Longman, 1991), 75.

64 The Borderers Chronicle, December 1927, 138.

65 ‘Association News’, Cabar Feidh, January 1929, 265.

66 Crotty, Diamant and Edele, Chapter two, for this as a distinguishing element of British veteran welfare in contrast to Canadian and Australian systems.

67 Discussed in Minutes of KOSB WMF Council Meeting, 1 August 1923. KOSB WMF Accounts Book. S3/2.

68 For the influence of liberal ideals on the genesis of army organisation: Edward M Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, 1868–1902 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992).

69 Barr, 103, 113.

70 Nicola Blacklaws, ‘“Old” and “New” Welfare: The Poor Law and Social Housing in Leicestershire, c. 1925–1929’, Midland History, 43, no. 1 (2018), 82–96.

71 Seaforth Highlanders Association. Part 1. The Principles Upon Which Charitable Relief Is Administered. (1919). Seaforth Highlanders Association Misc. Papers. 12966/10. National Library of Scotland.

72 Vincent, Poor Citizens, Chapter two. This was never wholly successful, as the ability to fill out a form was predicated on issues of access and education.

73 Jane Lewis, The Voluntary Sector, State, and Social Work in Britain (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1995), 97.

74 ‘Regimental Association New’, Red Hackle, April 1925, 44.

75 ‘KOSB Association Annual General Meeting Report’, Borderers Chronicle, 30 September 1933, 112.

76 Similar locally based cooperation with the COS can be seen in relation to USF and British Legion relief funds: Rosalind Edwards and Val Gillies, ‘Insights from the Historical Lived Experience of a Fragmented Economy of Welfare in Britain: Poverty, Precarity, and the Peck Family 1928–1950,’ Genealogy, 20 (2020).

77 This is probably an overestimation. Some entries specified that a man/case received funds ‘direct’. This term was used in all cases where the Executive Committee members dispensed funds and was applied mostly for sums of 10s or below. But occasionally the awarder (i.e., the person who delivered the grant) could not be identified from directories, news databases, or other records in the archive. I nevertheless included these in the same category because of the terminology used.

78 Margaret E Brasnett, Voluntary Social Action: A History of the National Council of Social Service (National Council of Social Service: London, 1969).

79 Barr, 103.

80 ‘Berwick Lodging House Premises Opened’, Berwickshire News, 18 September 1923, 5.

81 The writer of the Borderers Chronicle suggested the insertion of ‘Allan’ in the phrase ‘alms, for the love of Allah’, Borderers Chronicle, 29 September 1927, 137.

82 The Southern Reporter, 15 May 1924, 6.

83 This reading is based on Doyle’s case notes and the recommendations he supplied to the Executive Committee in KOSB WMF Case Files. S3/10–11. The notes from the case files, including Doyle’s and others, will be explored further in future papers.

84 Cohen, 59, 101.

85 Ibid., 18.

86 Rowley, ‘“We Will Never Forget You”’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eleanor O’Keeffe

Eleanor O’Keeffe is a historian of social memory and memorialisation, with interests in military power and identity, rituals of commemoration, and the relationship between war, culture and society. Her thesis examined the reinvigoration of military identity and community in Britain after 1918, and she has since published on civic public spheres, military associations, and veteran associational life in the UK. Her recent work has encompassed commemoration in the First World War centenary, COVID-19 memorialisation, and contemporary British pilgrimage practices.