Sources and method

The collection

The memorial currently contains 649 individual biographies. It brings together the original veterinary memorial and subsequent research into officers, other ranks and related personnel from Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. This total counts biographies, rather than every name mentioned in a hospital account.

The focus is men connected with the veterinary services who died during the First World War or subsequently as a result of their service. The collection includes military and civilian veterinary personnel, men who changed regiment or role, and some who died after discharge. Each profile retains the man’s recorded service identity; a connection with veterinary work does not make an attached labourer a member of a veterinary corps.

The current other-ranks research collection chiefly covers deaths up to 11 November 1918. The same inclusion criteria apply to officers and other ranks: deaths from 4 August 1914 to 31 August 1921 inclusive, in service or, after discharge, attributable to service. Qualifying post-Armistice deaths are included in the memorial but remain distinct from the wartime roll ending on 11 November 1918. A later death does not qualify simply because the man served in the war. Profiles without an established qualifying death remain unpublished pending verification. Coverage remains incomplete: the biographies are not a total casualty roll for any country or corps.

The British hospital directory covers Nos. 1–30. Its casualty lists overlap the biographies and are not additional profile totals. A recorded hospital assignment does not establish that a man died at that hospital. Canadian and Australian hospitals used separate numbering.

Sources

Biographies draw on service papers, census returns, newspapers, family material, medal and pension records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission records and the researchers’ registers. Available source links accompany each account. Some accounts draw on the original memorial and Graham Hodgkins’s earlier research rather than a fresh examination of every document.

Home cards give a short account of each man. Where records disagree, the full biography identifies the difference and its source; detailed research notes are retained separately. A cause of death is given as established only when the evidence supports it; an illness recorded during service does not automatically establish the cause of a later death. A short biography commemorates a man even when much of his life remains unknown.

A research record number identifies an entry in the British other-ranks register. It is not an Army service number.

Photographs and contributions

The Research guide explains how to begin, compare record types and follow an unresolved identity. The photographs and documents gallery brings together material already published with the biographies and workplaces. To find men connected to a town, cemetery or memorial, enter its name in the Men search.

Every biography has a copyable citation. A dated source-review note is added where a particular document review can be identified; it records that review’s scope, rather than a fresh audit of the whole collection. Open source links and document captions remain available beside each story.

Historical photographs and documents have captions and source credits. Unidentified people remain unidentified. The homepage uses public-domain historical photographs with dates and collection references. Photographs taken after the Armistice are identified as such. Where a portrait has not been traced, a generic front-facing soldier silhouette is used. It represents no identified man and is not historical evidence.

When sending information, please include the source of a photograph or document and any archive reference or publication details. Contributions are reviewed before being added to a record.