Structure of the Military section of the WOPC website
This Military section of the WOPC website consists of 7 sub-pages:
– Introduction (this page)
– Royal Flying Corps & Royal Air Force
– Mercantile Marine & Merchant Navy
Objectives of the Military section
Wiltshire is steeped in Military History and these pages house military records related to the county which are generally not related to a particular parish.
Research by the OPCs and members has produced a lot of information about the different armed services and various conflicts that may be of use to family historians and these pages enables us to share this information.
These Military pages do not attempt to provide more than a basic framework of the history of the regiments and other service units – other organisations are much better placed to provide more detailed historical notes about these areas. The notes on each page are designed to provide a structure within which we can attach the many, varied and hopefully interesting articles, documents and images from Wiltshire military history.
The Parish Pages and Military Information
Please note that any Wiltshire military information we have that is parish-specific can be found by accessing the separate individual parish pages.
On the 300+ parish pages you can generally find parish-related materials that we have under the “War, Conflict and Military Matters” heading. This information may include: casualties of the parish; biographies of fallen service personnel; local Rolls of Honour; photographs of military memorials and graves; transcribed news items about military personnel and events; information about local camps and aerodromes; and, personal stories of local families in the services.
Note that information about Wiltshire and the Royal Artillery is contained in the separate parish page for Durrington – Larkhill.
Moving from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ Military page structure
In June 2025, the ‘old’ WOPC Military Information page was restructured to incorporate new pages covering the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, the Royal Flying Corps & Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine & Merchant Navy. Hitherto the single Military Information page had focused on the Army, particularly the Wiltshire Regiment. In the new format, the Wiltshire Regiment page itself has been restructured into sub-sections reflecting the different periods in the Regiment’s history.
Over the past two years the WOPC has also identified many more men and women connected to Wiltshire that died in conflict whom we remember in several ways. The information about Remembrance has been consolidated into a single page.
The style of the military pages, in common with the rest of the WOPC website, is to provide short simple introductory narratives, pointing readers to where they may find other information to help them in their research, supported by more detailed transcribed documents contributed by members.
Future changes to this Military section
Further changes and additions to these pages of the WOPC website will be reported via the regular “Latest Uploads to the Website” posts in Facebook.
Details of changes to these Military pages will also be identified on this Introduction page.
We intend to publish a detailed task list of help needed in researching further aspects of the Military history of Wiltshire – you may be able to help!
Contact details
If anyone has a question, comment or further Wiltshire military material to offer, or wishes to volunteer to help with Wiltshire-related military research, please contact Martin Barrett or Linda Robson (for Wiltshire Regiment items), via the Members/Contact menu option above or a post on the WOPC Facebook page. Thank you.
