Military Labour During The First

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Researching Labour Units

Researching Labour units is often a difficult and time consuming task. Surviving War Diaries are kept at the National Archives, Kew in class WO 95. A search of this class for Labour units comes up with over 300 items covering both British and foreign units in France, Italy, Salonika and Mesopotamia.

Over a hundred of these Diaries cover Indian Labour Corps units in Mesopotamia and the Macedonian and Serbian Labour Battalions in Salonika.

Most of the Diaries for the British Labour Corps in France are either for Labour Group Headquarters or higher level ones like the Director of Labour (WO 95/83) . There are very few Diaries specifically for a Labour Company. References to individual companies can sometimes be found in GHQ, Army, Corps or Divisional Diaries.

Even where there is a specific Diary it may cover a short period of time, for example, the Diary of 71 Labour Group Headquarters (WO 95/4173) is only for the month of October 1917.

Following the Armistice in November 1918 the Labour Corps played a major role in battlefield clearance, exhumation and re-burial. These aspects of their work are not well documented in Dairies although some references can be found in the Diaries covering Salvage and Graves Registration.

There are no Diaries for any of the Labour units that served in the U.K. although through our research we have been able to identify where individual companies were stationed and, in general terms, the type of work they did.

There are no Dairies for any Labour Corps Companies that served in Egypt and very few references to them in higher level Diaries.

A few Diaries exist for Labour Corps companies stationed in Salonika; these are in WO 95/4944.

Dairies for Canadian Works, Labour and Graves Registration units have been digitised and can be downloaded from the Canadian Library and Archives website.