1. Soldiers’ wills - the Army’s system
From the early nineteenth century onwards the Army developed a system to allow a soldier to make his will. The aim was to allow the disposal of his pay and effects in the event of his death, whether on active service in some corner of the empire, or through illness or accident.

The soldier could complete various forms at different times. In peacetime, he could do so at the regimental depot. In wartime, he could do so when ordered to go on active service or when he was actually in the field. The commonest document was the pay book, known as Army Book 64, in which a suggested form of words guided the soldier in writing a brief will on a special page. A legal privilege permitted a soldier on active service to make an un-witnessed will.

Since many soldiers were young unmarried men, they usually left their property and effects to their mothers. Alternatively they named their fathers or parents jointly, other relatives, or in a few cases a sweetheart, to receive their modest entitlements.

Some wills include personal letters from the servicemen, or testimonies by their family and friends. These papers testify to the courage, humour and comradeship which soldiers displayed during some of the greatest ordeals men could face.

2. From death in the trenches to the War Office, 1914-1918
Whenever possible those killed in battle were identified soon afterwards. Burial parties removed identity discs and retrieved pay books from tunic pockets. If weeks or months had elapsed the books might be badly decayed.

Wills and personal possessions were passed up the line to the battalion orderly room, where the adjutant completed casualty returns. From there wills were sent via the brigade and division to General Headquarters (GHQ).

At GHQ the wills were removed from the pay books, examined and certified, then forwarded to the Effects Branch of the War Office. The work of settling the pay and pension entitlements of the next of kin of the war dead grew immensely. Starting the war with a staff of 10, at its peak in November 1919 the Effects Branch employed 1,852, including 817 women. Bureaucracy played its own vital, if impersonal, role in the war by helping the dependants of the dead.

3. Missing wills and evidence of soldiers’ lives
Soldiers were encouraged to make wills. Some regiments were more efficient than others in helping the process. Clerks at depots or camps filled out forms for signature if the soldier could not easily write, and filed the completed wills for future use.

When a soldier died, if no will could be found on his body or in the army record offices, the War Office would go to great lengths to establish whether a will had been made in any way. They used evidence from other soldiers that a will had been made either verbally or in writing. The Effects Branch also sought the testimony of next-of-kin, as often a soldier on leave reassured his family that they would receive his pay and other entitlements. These unwritten wills were known as ‘nuncupative’ wills.

Written evidence of a person’s wishes was also accepted as equivalent to a will. More than a hundred letters written home by soldiers during the First World War have survived and are preserved in the National Archives of Scotland. Only a handful of letters survive from the Second World War. The Army at this time was much more efficient in getting soldiers to make their wills, and was therefore less reliant on letters and oral testimony as evidence.