Unfit For National Service

[Empirestate]

Hi guys,

I was wondering what peoples thoughts are on looking for records of those who were unfit for national service? As I can tell, a young man would recieve a callup letter around his 18th birthday, be required to attend a medical examination, and then chose a speciality army/raf/navy and be elisted.

Im wondering what and where records of those who failed this medical may survive. The National Archives in MH114 hold some of the medical examination records, unfortunately not the one of the individual im looking for. But Im wondering what/where/whether any military record survives for such an individual. They have a National Service Number, and I presume the military would have kept a record somewhere to show theyd been called and failed etc.

But with whom, would the Army have been in charge of all callups prior to specialisation? or what

This is 1950s National Service

Thoughts please

[Peter Goodey]

would the Army have been in charge of all callups prior to specialisation? or what

Ministry of Labour and National Service, I believe.

The National Archives in MH114 hold some of the medical examination records, unfortunately not the one of the individual im looking for.

I'm not familiar with MH114. Can you explain how you reached that conclusion?

It looks from the catalogue that you have to know the approximate date and the relevant centre. Is that so? Are the records still closed?

Also the catalogue says "From June 1948 onwards, the records are microfilm copies of the original Medical Board examination reports, some of which cannot be read in their current format". What does that mean? I'm not sure what "some of which" refers to. Does it mean some microfilms are unreadable or that some of the original documents are?

[Empirestate]

Hi Peter. From what I can gather yes the Ministry of Labour and National Service was in charge of callups, however no records of individuals appear to be held in their records at the National Archives, Its just policy paperwork, forms, procedures etc.

The MH114 Collection took me a while to find. It is a patchy record of the medical examinations that were given to National Service callups from 1939-62. There seem to be big swathes that dont survive, and for the areas that exist not all years are present. For example I had a check made for my grandfather in the relevent year and place and no record was found despite him passing his medical and going on to serve. An equal check for an unfit relative left me finding the nearest location didnt go past 1948 so is unsearchable. Unfortunately my search of records of the Ministry of L&NS did not yield a list/map of the medical locations which may have aided a search or confirmed likely locations.

The records post 1948 are fische records, theyre kept in envelopes and then boxed. From what I can gather some have been copied to a form which the archives does not have a reader for, possibly ANSI or Aperture Microfilm Im unsure.

The records are all closed due to them being medicals. I had to make a FOI request against individual references, basically saying Id like the record open because Id like to see the record of blah blah born on blah blah, and theyll respond the record cant be opened but we've checked and theres no blah blah anyway. I was told if the individual was found that a death certificate could be provided and that particular record copied.

But is this (clearly non existant for me) record from a medical the only record that would even exist for someone declared unfit for National Service? Im not sure where else to be looking.

I recieved no reply from the army, but the Navy Disclosure Cell informed me that the Navy destroyed alot of documents/papers in the 60s including those for serving personel, and so they believed nothing would survive for someone who didnt serve. This is possibly true as my grandfathers 6yrs RN service equated in 3 sheets of paper.

[Peter Goodey]

Thanks for the explanation. Spreading 'how to do it' information around is a strength of this site.

Sorry I haven't got any suggestions.