Services and Regiments – Buxton Casualties (WW1)
Sixty-eight of the casualties on the WW1 Memorials of Buxton and its surrounding area had enlisted with the local Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby) Regiment.
Four more came from the Derbyshire Yeomanry and a further 7 from the nearby Cheshire Regiment.
However, analysis of all the available records on this site show that Buxton men and women enlisted in a total of 86 different Army Regiments, the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
In addition to English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Regiments, 14 men commemorated on the Memorials had joined the War as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1 as part of the New Zealand Force and 1 from the Indian Army.
The men from Canada had all been born in the Buxton area and emigrated to Canada as young men. As soon as War was declared in August 1914 they joined one of the Canadian Battalions and were posted to France as part of the CEF (Canadian Expeditionary Force) to join the BEF.
[N.B. Buxton Town Cemetery contains the graves of a further 29 Canadian servicemen who died in the Military Hospitals based in the town.]
Quite why the men and women of Buxton ended up in at least 86 different Services and Regiments could not be determined. [There are probably many more as only the Regiments etc. of casualties have been identified here.]
Some could be family links but the Military Service Act of 27th January 1916 stopped all voluntary enlistment. All British males were now deemed to have enlisted on 2nd March 1916 – that is, they were conscripted if they were aged between 19 and 41.
Conscripted men were no longer given a choice of which service, regiment or unit they joined, although if a man preferred the Royal Navy it got priority to take him. This act was extended to married men, and the lower age dropped to 18, on 25th May 1916.
Some earlier exceptions are worthy of note:
Middlesex Regiment: 19 men on the local Memorials were serving with the Middlesex Regiment.
In the photo on the right shows a number of Buxton recruits, at Buxton Railway Station, bound for London to enlist in the Middlesex Regiment.
The story is that they were all turned down by the local Battalion, 6th Sherwood Foresters, as being too young so decided en masse to travel and try their luck in London.
Standing on the back row, extreme right, is Pte. 6027 Frederick Arthur Mycock, who was posted to France with the Middlesex Regiment on 17th March 1915.
Frederick was later Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment) on 30th October 1917. 
… about Frederick in the Footnotes to his brother’s page, Pte. George William Mycock, who was killed in action on 3rd October 1918.
