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.
Changes to this Military section
The section was last updated on 21 November 2025.
Information will be added to these Military pages as research is completed. If you would like to help with the items below or submit other Wiltshire-related information, please contact Martin Barrett or Teresa Sheridan.
Major changes and additions to these pages of the WOPC website will be reported via the regular “Latest Uploads to the Website” posts in Facebook.
The abbreviation “WWRT” stands for We Will Remember Them, which is our database of Wiltshire personnel who we have identified as dying in service.
Recent Research added to the Military Pages
This section gives a flavour of some of the sub-projects that have been completed in the last 6 months.
| Wiltshire Men present at Battle of Trafalgar | We have identified men born in Wiltshire who served at the Battle of Trafalgar and added those who died at Trafalgar or died in service at a later date, to the WWRT database. |
| Durrington – Larkhill parish page | We created a new parish page on the WOPC website to hold information specifically related to Larkhill. There are many military associations with Larkhill. It can be considered a sub-page of Durrington parish. |
Military Research in Progress
These sub-projects are currently underway.
| Soldiers Died in the Great War | We are examining all the entries in this database (on Findmypast) for the whole of the First World War, where “Wiltshire” is present in any part of the record. Any new entries and additional details (e.g. associated parishes) for those we already know about are being added to the WWRT database. All casualties are also added to the WOPC web calendar. |
| Photographs of Belgian Headstones and Memorials | One of our members, Stewart May, recently took 50-100 photographs of headstones in Belgian cemeteries and of the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot Memorials. We are reviewing these photographs and will be uploading them to various galleries on these military pages. |
| De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, 1914-1919 | We are examining all the entries in this database (on Ancestry), where “Wiltshire” is present in the location of birth. Any new entries and additional details (e.g. associated parishes) for those we already know about are being added to the WWRT database. |
| Mapping of the Wiltshire fallen | An ongoing sub-project is to identify on Google Maps, the geographic location of all the casualties listed in the WWRT database. There are links to the various regional maps on the Remembrance page (in this Military section). |
| Visiting Parish Churches in Wiltshire | John Pope continues to visit churches in Wiltshire and photograph the interior and exterior of each one. He also photographs headstones and memorials and transcribes Rolls of Honour. All of these photographs and transcriptions are uploaded to the relevant parish page on the WOPC website. |
Future Military Research
These topics are next on the list to tackle!
| Royal Artillery Memorial at Larkhill | We plan to list all the names on the Royal Artillery memorial Larkhill and research each person to see whether they have a connection to Wiltshire and, if so, include them in the WWRT database. We will also produce a document listing the personnel and the basic information from our research (place of birth, death date, etc). |
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.
