WW1 Liverpool Civic Service League
 

There seems to have been an amazing variety of organisations which played a Home Front role in WW1.

I have just acquired a mufti badge for an organisation called the Liverpool Civic Service League, an organisation formed well before WW1 but which during WW1 appears to have had a paramilitary role.

The following is an extract from an article on the internet which gives a small insight into the League


The work of the Civic Service League during WWI

The league was formed in 1911 by F.J. Leslie in response to the general strike in Liverpool that year. When the First World War broke out in August 1914 the committee of the League held regular meetings to organise war service activities, including:

Drill Classes – began on 10th August in North Haymarket for men who were too old to enlist in the Army, which, at that time was 35 years old. A small rifle range was created in the basement of the meat market at Great Newton Street. The number of classes around the Liverpool area soon increased, and would eventually evolve into The City of Liverpool Volunteer Guard

Goes to show that even organisations that on the face of it had no military connection. often end up deserving a place in a collection of military badges for a particular area.

P.B.

This from another history on the internet:

Meanwhile Robert Gladstone Jr submitted for the consideration of the Committee a scheme “by which he would bear the cost of drilling five hundred men, over the army limit, to be ready for such services as they might be required for”. The proposal met with unanimous approval and Gladstone was appointed Honorary Secretary for the Drill section of the League. The League, in collaboration with the Liverpool Meat Importers’ Association, constructed a miniature rifle range in the basement of the Meat Market (Great Newton Street). On the 10th of August 400 men reported for drilling and by the 12th of August 100 more had enrolled. The unprecedented popularity of the instruction led to the establishment of the Volunteer Rifle Corps and secured the League’s reputation as a “pioneer in the matter of civilian drill”.

With some negotiation the League was granted permission to forward goods for the Front, via Southampton, “free of carriage”, and shortly thereafter set to work supplying men with pipes, cigarettes, chocolate, candles, playing cards and toothbrushes along with socks, mufflers and mittens, many knitted by volunteers from the community including local children who were taught to knit and sew through the interventions of the Women’s Branch.

Ambulance training was also on-going, alongside Nursing classes and instruction in First Aid. The League, with the assistance of local doctors, ran courses culminating in medical certification. Many of the newly qualified were enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps and many more became employed in tending to the sick and wounded who were arriving into Lime Street Station and elsewhere in the city.

P.B.

WW1 Liverpool Civic Service League
 

PB. thanks for sharing this interesting item, prior to The Great War lots of paramilitary organisations were formed, many of which have almost disappeared into obscurity kept only in peoples minds by the badges they wore.

Rob

I found the article's very interesting Peter.

Thanks Rob and George
Peter

Very interesting ... another sign of 'Total' war
Mike

Liverpool civil service league
 

Hi Peter, I collect these badges as well as the usual military ones, but it is good to see this one,and in such good condition thankyou

Thanks Mike,

Peter

Hi

Just reading this post and I'm fairly certain that I have a badge that says "Exempt from Army & Navy Service". Bound to be from WW1 (style of manufacture, size and maker's mark suggest this) and, if a most unreliable memory hasn't failed me, I think that it is white metal. Possible that this is for a civil servant carrying out "vital" war work?

Photos anyone?

Actually I think that it is Military and Naval Service. I must have been thinking of the Army & Navy Co-Op stores........

Hi

I'd clearly make a terrible witness in the event of an accident.....

Here is the badge of which I spoke in my previous post. A nice, well-made item and, interestingly enough, using those blue/ white colours that there have been posts about.

Seeing the date "1914" leads me to wonder if there were subsequent dates (e.g. 1915) or where they only issued for a very brief period or did they follow the model of the Admiralty pattern and ALL badges were dated 1914.

My last "thinking aloud" question is, if most 1914 enlistments appear to have been voluntary, why would you need to state that you were "exempt"?

Answers on a postcard......

Reading the extracts which I had posted at the beginning of this thread I suddenly realised that I had seen a reference before to The Liverpool Meat Importers who`s Rifle Corps badge I had bid on ( and missed by a mile ) in the last Bosleys postal auction.

P.B.