Overview
The Machine Gun Corps Research Database is a non-profit making organisation, set up to assist the funding of the Machine Gun Corps Old Comrades Association (MGC/OCA).
The Association has been in existence since the end of the Great War. Its original function was to help ex-soldiers who had served with the Machine Gun Corps to settle back into civilian life, and to keep them in touch with their former comrades. It also provided limited assistance to those who fell upon hard times throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
In more recent years, with the dwindling numbers of old-soldier members of the Association, its continuity focused upon their families and descendants, together with those having a genuine interest in research and the history of the Machine Gun Corps. Membership is now largely open to anyone who claims either as a reason to join. Click here to visit the Association web site.
A growing interest in genealogy has placed the Association under increasing pressure to provide help for those seeking information. The Machine Gun Corps had a very limited life-span. Formed in October 1915, it was disbanded entirely by mid-1922. Unlike many military establishments with a long history, it ceased to have a Regimental Headquarters to act as a repository for historical records, and was without a Regimental Museum.
Consequently, such information that still exists about the Machine Gun Corps is fragmented and very hard for the layman to access. The destruction of a very high proportion of Service Records from the Great War Period during the blitz of 1940, affecting all military establishments, adds to the difficulty of meaningful research.
The Association decided to tackle this problem in two ways: 1) by attempting a written history of the Corps - a monumental task, made even more arduous by the passing of time since the events it would describe, and 2) by developing a research database of known facts about former soldiers which would encompass the main sources of general information that remain.
The written history project is ongoing, and likely to be so for some years to come. The research database was started in 2002 and from modest beginnings currently contains some information on over 80,000 former officers and men who wore the badge of the Machine Gun Corps between 1915-22. This is, however, a fraction of the 200,000-or so who had once called themselves machine gunners. Nevertheless, there is the potential to carry out immediate research on any MGC soldier, from material which we hold, but not yet incorporated into the research database.
The database continues to grow, but that growth is itself dependant upon funding by the Association which is totally self-reliant, receiving no outside help from any source. All those concerned with the two projects are volunteers, as are the officers of the Association.
The MGC Research Database will respond to any enquiry about a soldier - officer or other-rank - and will provide whatever information is held within its files. Advice will also be given about further avenues for research which only lack of time and effort have so far prevented us from carrying out.
Charges for information supplied are modest when compared with those levied by professional researchers. A minimum donation of £10 is required to initialise a search. It should be remembered that even a very rare “no trace” result will have involved a substantial amount of work. No upper limit has been set since it is impossible to know how much time and effort will be involved, until started. If a significant amount of information is provided, it is expected that £20-£30 in total should reflect the time taken to put together a service history.
The following pages contain examples of the sources which have provided information. When put together in our Microsoft Access database, they provide a totally unique reference tool. Data can be merged and manipulated in a way which can provide the answer to questions that no other storage medium can attempt.
The knowledge pool is being constantly updated. If information is subsequently uncovered about a previous enquiry, this will be passed on in the future.
Enquiries and requests should be sent by e-mail to: MGCdata@hotmail.co.uk
Payment, either initial or subsequent, may be sent by cheque made payable only to MGC/OCA at the address of the Honorary Secretary: Penfro, 111 Main Street, Pembroke, SA71 4DB, United Kingdom. An acknowledgment will be made and work started immediately. All enquiries will result in a response within days.
When making an enquiry about a soldier, please help us to help you. Tell us what you know already, such as full name, service number(s), year of birth, place of residence and whether you have a photograph, since these can yield vital clues. If you lack some of these details, we may still be able to help, but at least one service number is generally considered necessary. If even this is not known, we can sometimes do the impossible!
We look forward to helping you uncover information about your relative and we also welcome enquiries from historians and medal collectors. We have the largest searchable database in existence on the Machine Gun Corps and we are non-profit making. Let us help you and the MGC/OCA to keep alive the memory of the machine gunners in the 21st Century.
Click HERE to go to sources page
