De Ruvigny Roll of Honour WWI

In the early days of World War One, the enthusiastic patriotism with which young men queued up to join the army gave rise to the concept of a roll of honour war record, to be compiled by the Marquis de Ruvigny and published in honour of those soldiers who would give their lives for their country. It was originally thought that compiling a military record of names, biographies and photographs would be a relatively easy project to complete, given that most believed the war would be won swiftly and casualties would be small.

However, as the war dragged on and the number of dead increased throughout the remaining years on a scale never matched before or since, de Ruvigny's Roll of Honour became almost impossible to complete.

In its final published form, the Roll of Honour records the biographies of more than 25,000 members of the British army, navy and air force, with nearly 7,000 of the entries being accompanied by a photograph. This is only a tiny fraction of those who died in the Great War, is a tribute to those who compiled it, and those who feature in it.

There are several volumes in the finished books, many of which have images of the original publication within our 'Historic documents library' also.

Period covered: World War One.

Records in this collection are likely to include the following:

• surname
• first name(s)
• rank
• regimental number
• unit
• dates
• biographical information
• awards
• fate

Please be aware that due to the way we collate, and cross reference our databases, some records will contain more information than that listed above.

Original Source: This collection is indexed from the original books