Over 25,000 case files from military pensions appeal tribunals for First World War veterans in Scotland are now online on ScotlandsPeople, the records website for the National Records of Scotland (NRS).
The tribunals were set up in 1919 to allow injured servicemen or their families applying for pensions to appeal against rejections.
However, over 70% of applicants to the Scottish tribunals were unsuccessful, as they were required to meet strict criteria to prove that a medical condition had been directly caused or made worse by wartime service. The Scottish Labour MP Manny Shinwell described the tribunals as “graveyards of the hopes of many ex-service men”.
The pension appeal tribunal records from England and Wales have not survived, so the Scottish records are a rare and valuable resource.
NRS said it held 30,000 case files altogether, and would continue to add more each January when they pass 100 years from the date of the hearing.
ScotlandsPeople users can view digital copies of the case files in exchange for 20 user credits. Credits cost 25p each.
Any records of First World War soldiers are particularly valuable as approximately 60% of First World War service records were destroyed when the War Office Record Office was bombed during the Blitz in 1940.
The files paint a detailed, and often shocking, picture of the lives of First World War veterans.
The file for David Renfrew, for example, says that his appeal hearing was held on 10 November 1921 and he was 34 years old. He was a miner before the war and served as a private in the Scottish Rifles. He joined the army on 16 September 1915 and was discharged on 28 January 1919.
The file contains a statement signed by D. McLean, a doctor in the village of Tarbrax, South Lanarkshire, where Renfrew was currently residing.
McLean writes: “I have been asked by the local branch of the ‘Comrades of the Great War’ to see the abovenamed man, and also to communicate with you regarding him.
“It appears that he arrived in Tarbrax about five weeks ago with some travelling showmen. He remained behind when the shows departed and was afterwards discovered in a destitute condition, living in a sort of dugout and apparently living on charity. He came to see me a few days later and requested a certificate to state that he was not suffering from shell shock, so that he might obtain a job in the local oil works.”
McLean goes on to explain that Renfrew said that he was on board a troop ship en route to Egypt when it was sunk by a torpedo, and that he said “That he was three days in the sea, and that since then he has not been the same. That he was discharged with a pension owing to shell-shock, and that his papers have either been lost or stolen.” Other papers in the file say that the ship Renfrew sailed on was HMT Ivernia, which sank on New Year’s Day 1917.
McLean says he has concluded that Renfrew is not suffering from shell-shock and is “mentally defective”. However, he says: “Two of the local ‘Comrades’ were in his battalion were in the troop ship when it was torpedoed, and state definitely that before the sinking of the ship he was mentally quite normal.”
The tribunal disallowed Renfrew’s claim on the grounds that his “mental deficiency” was “congenital” and not caused by wartime service.
The report also states: “The man is stupid and cant [sic] answer questions definitely.”
