Our Family / Meghan’s ancestors / The source room
The signatures, military postings, tattoos, pay records, and small domestic details that survive from two periods of army service. An optional companion to The Long Way to Ontario.
← Return to Walter’s storyThese are actual scanned sheets from Walter's 1887 militia enlistment, his later regular-army service and his Canadian uniformed service. The family has made the originals available to view. Choose a record below to see the full page, then open it in Google Drive to zoom into the handwriting.
Walter Mitchell’s September 1887 militia attestation gives Fifield as birthplace, Warfield as residence, and labourer as trade.
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View full-size original in Google Drive ↗Source: Royal Berkshire Militia, The National Archives WO 96/865/39 (3 sheets); Royal Berkshire Regiment, WO 97/5522/130 (4 sheets); Library and Archives Canada, Walter Mitchell no. 868214, RG 150, box 6264, file 33 (15 individually uploaded sheets). The complete Canadian file has 26 digitized pages and is linked below. British originals displayed with the family's stated reproduction permission. The duplicate militia file and records of other soldiers are excluded.
Walter’s complete surviving Canadian Expeditionary Force file records his 1916 enlistment, medical examinations, the money paid and assigned while he served, and his discharge in 1917. The original is preserved by Library and Archives Canada. Fifteen individual images from this file are available in the gallery above. Select a page below to browse the institution’s complete 26-page PDF, including pages not yet in the family’s individual-image collection.
The original PDF is served by Library and Archives Canada. If your browser blocks the embedded document, choose “Open the original PDF” above to view its pages directly. Page numbers here refer to the digitized PDF, not handwritten page numbers on the forms.
Walter signed in Beaverton on 13 May 1916. The form gives his birthplace near Windsor, lists Emily Louisa as his wife and records twelve years with the Royal Berkshire Regiment.
Library and Archives Canada: Walter Mitchell, no. 868214, Canadian Expeditionary Force, RG 150, accession 1992–93/166, box 6264, file 33. The complete file comprises 26 pages. The full archival copy remains hosted by its custodian, rather than reproduced or edited on this site.
Service papers were designed for administration, not biography. Yet their questions preserved a surprisingly personal portrait: how Walter described himself, the marks on his body, the money supporting his household, and even his final handwritten acknowledgment.
A rose.
A dancing girl.
Walter's Canadian description recorded both tattoos. The dancing-girl motif also appears in his older British file, making it one of the most personal points of connection between the two enlistments. The forms differ about which arm bore it.
Examine the original · CEF page 2 ↗$20per month
Mrs Emily L. Mitchell · BeavertonWalter assigned twenty dollars of monthly pay to Emily. A separate ledger records family separation allowances. Together these entries connect the administrative machinery of wartime service to a wife and children in Beaverton.
Examine the original · CEF page 11 ↗Walter Mitchell
14 April 1917 · SergeantAt discharge Walter acknowledged the settlement of his pay, allowances and clothing. His signature is preserved on the form. It is a direct, physical trace of him, recorded on the day his second military service ended.
Examine the original signature · CEF page 24 ↗About these displays: The large lettering above is a designed transcription or summary of the named fields, not an image or imitation of Walter’s handwriting. Follow each archival link to inspect the actual scanned document and its surrounding entries.
Read these as clues from particular moments in Walter’s life. The documents speak for themselves; their differences deserve to be seen as well as described.
Look in the distinctive-marks entries. In 1889, Walter’s British examiner noted a dancing-girl motif among several tattoos. Twenty-seven years later the Canadian examiner recorded a rose and a dancing girl. The arm descriptions differ; the repeated image becomes persuasive when read together with the marriage to Emily recorded in his British file.
Walter entered the militia in 1887 describing himself as a labourer. When he joined the regular regiment in 1889, his occupation was written down as brickmaker. Two small entries anchor him in the clay-and-brickmaking country around Warfield and Bracknell before years of overseas duty.
Walter left full-time service for the Army Reserve in July 1896. The British military-history sheet was later updated with a Woodville, Ontario marriage to Emily L. Mitchell in 1897. It connects the regiment’s final Canadian station with the life he made in Beaverton—without needing to invent the journey between them.
The British medical description in 1889 gives Walter as about 5 feet 8 inches and 133 pounds. Canadian forms decades later record about 5 feet 9½ inches and, on a separate medical sheet, 160 pounds. Different examiners and paperwork produced different measurements. The 1917 review discharged him as over age, while distinguishing military fitness from ordinary civilian work.
CEF pages 2 and 23 · British WO 97 descriptive marks
Both Canadian physical descriptions record a rose on one arm and a dancing girl on the other. The British Army papers had already noted the dancing-girl motif decades earlier. The documents disagree about which arm bore it, but together with the 1897 Woodville marriage, it is an unusually personal connection between the young British soldier and the older Canadian sergeant.
CEF pages 11 and 17 · Financial forms
Walter’s final pay certificate notes a monthly $20 assignment of pay to Mrs Emily L. Mitchell in Beaverton. Another ledger tracks the family’s separation allowance, month after month. These modest financial entries make the family’s experience of his wartime absence visible on paper.
CEF pages 2 and 13 · Medical history
The Canadian medical papers describe a man approximately 5 feet 9½ inches tall, with hazel eyes and light-coloured hair. One medical sheet gives his weight as 160 pounds and describes his physical development as very good. These are contemporary observations, not a modern portrait.
CEF pages 1, 19 and 23 · Age entries
Walter reported 11 October 1869 as his birth date when he enlisted, but the 1917 medical-review form recorded him as 50 years old, while the discharge-description form shows a younger age. The English evidence points to birth around 1868. The differences are part of the record; they are not a basis for inventing his motives.
CEF pages 19–20 and 23 · Discharge papers
His discharge reason was over age. The medical form describes the condition as permanent in a military sense, yet states that it was no prevention to earning a civilian livelihood. His service conduct was marked good. Military fitness and the ability to work were not the same thing.
CEF page 24 · Proceedings on discharge
At Oshawa on 14 April 1917, he signed a certificate acknowledging receipt of his pay, allowances and clothing. The signature appears as a sergeant’s rather than a private’s. It is one of the closest surviving traces of Walter himself: not just a name typed onto a form, but the marks of his own pen.
CEF page 2 · Religious denomination
The enlistment description has Church of England marked. His 1897 Ontario marriage registration lists him and Emily as Methodists. Such entries were supplied in different settings and years. They show how official forms recorded religious identity; by themselves, they do not tell us how his beliefs changed.
CEF pages 1, 11, 17 and 19 · Addresses and next of kin
Beaverton and Emily’s name recur through attestation, financial and medical paperwork. Official documents that otherwise dealt in regimental numbers repeatedly returned to one personal fact: he had a wife and a home to which his military obligations were connected.
The original British attestation and service papers established Walter’s earlier military career: the militia at Warfield, his regular enlistment at Reading, and the postings that eventually brought him to Halifax. These documents also record an extraordinarily useful detail: his marriage to Emily in Ontario.
British scans are now available to view. The family has confirmed permission to share these original document images, and the Drive folder is publicly readable by link. Browse all three militia sheets and four regular-army sheets in the gallery above. The images remain hosted in the family’s Google Drive collection and carry their National Archives references.
View 1887 militia attestation ↗
Walter’s September 1887 attestation puts him in the 3rd Royal Berkshire Militia, describes his civilian trade as labourer, and places his birth in Fifield near Windsor and his residence near Warfield.
View 1889 regular-army attestation ↗
Two years later Walter joined the regular Royal Berkshire Regiment, no. 2727. His trade was recorded as brickmaker. The physical description includes a dancing-girl tattoo and other markings.
View original statement of services ↗
The statement and military-history sheets set out his actual stations, not merely the regiment’s general history: Britain (1889–1891), Malta (1891–1893), Bermuda (1893–1895), and Halifax (1895–1896). He moved to the Army Reserve in July 1896 and completed his service engagement in June 1901.
View original military history ↗
On the British military-history sheet, Walter’s father is given as William Mitchell. The same sheet records his marriage to Emily L. Mitchell at Woodville, Ontario, in 1897. Alongside the unusual tattoo, this entry decisively connects the British soldier to the man later known in Beaverton.
Archival integrity: A previously assembled five-image WO 97 compilation included one unrelated 1879 East Lancashire Regiment drummer’s sheet. That record is excluded from Walter’s public collection. The four Royal Berkshire sheets shown above belong to WO 97/5522/130. The earlier militia number is not published here because its handwritten reading has not been confirmed.
This page is intended for family-history study and does not replace the institutions’ original catalogues. The British originals are linked and displayed above with permission; the explanatory panels are summaries rather than verbatim transcriptions. The complete Canadian PDF remains linked to Library and Archives Canada. If the institutional PDF service is temporarily unavailable, search the Library and Archives Canada First World War personnel records for Walter Mitchell, service number 868214.