Popular data website TheGenealogist.co.uk has released more than 650,000 records of ‘other ranks’ who died in World War One, taken from War Office publications. The new records further enhance the already significant military collections available at the site, which include Roll of Honour records, unique casualty lists, prisoner of war records (see last month’s issue of the Periodical), regimental records and war memorial lists – making it the perfect place to start researching your ancestors who fought a century ago.

You can now see a large amount of detail for those who fought and fell in the line of duty. Records can include the full name, birth place, place or residence, place of enlistment, service number, regiment and rank along with the date, place and cause of death. In most cases there is also a link to the Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC) website for more information.

Using a wide range of sources, many of them unique to TheGenealogist, the continually expanding pool of military records allows you the opportunity to discover more about your military ancestors.

Among the many men who made the ultimate sacrifice and are listed in this data are soldiers who had previously worked for one of the world’s most famous department stores. Established in 1824 by Charles Henry Harrod, the main Harrod’s store is still situated where Charles set up a small shop in Brompton in 1849 to capitalise on the forthcoming Great Exhibition of 1851. Despite the setback of a fire in 1894, Harrods went from strength to strength. Clientele ranged from Oscar Wilde, Charlie Chaplin and Noel Coward, Sigmund Freud to members of the British Royal Family.

By the outbreak of World War One, Harrods had firmly established itself as one of the premium department stores in the world, competing particularly with Selfridges. With a large workforce on the sales floors, packing and support departments, it was inevitable many of the young male workers would answer the call for volunteers or be conscripted into the armed forces by 1916.

Many of the Harrods workers subsequently joined the war effort and sadly many were not to return to their jobs. A total of 147 Harrods employees made the supreme sacrifice and are now commemorated on the four war memorial tablets on display in the store (see page below). These can now be viewed online in the unique War Memorials collection at TheGenealogist.

The new ‘Soldiers who died in the Great War’ records published at TheGenealogist give us a great amount of detail about the brave ‘Harrodians’ who gave their lives serving their country.

For example, Arthur Brocks was a ‘Harrodian’ who worked in the bedding department and would have still have been a junior learning the retail trade when war intervened. Searching the Military Records at TheGenealogist and the new ‘Soldiers who Died in the Great War’ collection, we find Arthur’s details listed.

With one mouse click on the results page we are able to view where Arthur is commemorated, thanks to a unique link to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. We find him on The Arras Memorial, which bears the names of more than 35,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African and New Zealand forces who died in the Arras sector of the Pas-de-Calais between the Spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918 and have no known grave. The memorial commemorates the large Arras Offensive in 1917 in which Private Arthur Brocks of the 3rd City of London Battalion (Royal Fusiliers) was no doubt involved.

Using the unique online resources at TheGenealogist we can then search and find Arthur Brocks commemorated on the Harrods Memorial. One click takes us to an actual image of Arthur’s name on the war memorial itself – see the picture above.

Adjacent to Brocks on the memorial is Arthur Miles. Arthur George Miles from Betchworth in Surrey was working in the antiques department at the Harrods store when he joined the army. Newly married to Maud, in the 1911 Census (available at TheGenealogist) his occupation was furniture porter and the couple were living in Chelsea.

Arthur joined the Grenadier Guards as a Private or Guardsman in the 1st Battalion. The site’s military records show him killed in action on 27 September 1918, nearing the end of the war. Arthur also appears in the Roll of Honour Index found at TheGenealogist.

Arthur is commemorated in the Sanders Keep Cemetery, south west of Arras. Sanders Keep was a German fortification and was stormed by the Guards Division on the 27th September 1918 and after the fight, the dead (including Arthur Miles) were buried on this battlefield. One click from the ‘Soldiers who died in the Great War’ record takes us to the CWGC’s images of the Sanders Keep Cemetery.

Despite the tragic loss of the many brave employees who gave their lives in the War, Harrods continued to trade and business as usual continued throughout the war. Below we see a typical advert found in the Sphere Magazine in 1915, available in the Newspaper collection at TheGenealogist.

The ‘Soldiers Who Died in The Great War’ records are now available to view for all Diamond Subscribers at the site.