War Diaries Talk

Honorary Lieutenant?

  • angiehart by angiehart

    What is an Honorary Lieutenant, and do I tag him as a Lieutenant, he is also described as an A/Adjutant but there isn't a rank for this under 'Person'.

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    "Honorary" isn't a term usually used by the British Army in this context. Can you hashtag the page so we can see it? Meanwhile you'd better tag him as a Lieutenant I guess.

    Posted

  • angiehart by angiehart

    I've moved on from the original page, but he is mentioned again on the next page so will hashtag it. It says Hon Lieut & Quartermaster N Lang, so I assumed it was honorary, maybe I am wrong.

    Posted

  • angiehart by angiehart

    should be at this page: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0000m52

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    It does look like "Hon Lieut" doesn't it! In my experience, the British Army would usually use "Acting" "Temporary" or even "Local" before the rank to show that it was not a permanent rank, not Honorary and in any case I'd expect a QM to be a Captain or a Major usually so this doesn't make sense to me. I can only suggest that you keep an eye out for any other occurrences of this man to see if they shed any more light on the mystery. Anyone else got any thoughts?

    I have found an online list of the officers that were in the Battalion in Nov 1915 when it sailed to France and it does include a Lt N Lang.

    Posted

  • angiehart by angiehart

    I've got someone else who is an A/Major which I assume is an Acting Major.

    Further down the page Hon Lieut & Quartermaster N Lang goes on leave, so i may not see his name for a while.

    Thanks for your help.

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Yes, Acting Major is correct. Acting rank is where someone has all the pay, allowances, etc for the rank but may be required at some stage to revert to the previous rank. Not unusual for someone to have Acting rank at first and later be promoted to "substantive" rank which then makes it permanent. If you see the terms local, temporary or brevet rank then it's without the pay and allowances and often for a set time or set task.

    Posted

  • angiehart by angiehart

    Thanks, the Acting Major is back down to Captain on the next page.

    Posted

  • David_Underdown by David_Underdown moderator

    To return to the original query, Quartermasters (who were essentially the battalion logistics officer), were generally promoted from the ranks and were in some ways slightly anomalous people. Class consciousness being rife, they were only given honorary ranks (which I think determined their pay), so you could be quartermaster and honorary lieutenant, right the way up to honorary major (I think), if you'd be in the position long enough

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    David seems to have nailed this one. These days the Army is more egalitarian and the QM's rank is not called Honorary, although there does exist a separate "QM Commission", which some Regiments call "LE (Late Entry) Commission" - i.e. Commission from the ranks. Quartermasters now as then are generally promoted from NCO or WO rank and do not undergo normal officer selection, which I suppose explains the different terminology.

    There's an interesting discussion about it here (Refers to Victorian Wars but does discuss the WW1 situation) http://www.victorianwars.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=6845

    Posted