Conscription in the United Kingdom

Conscription during the First World War began when the British Parliament passed the Military Service Act in January 1916.

The Act specified that single men aged 18 to 40 years old were liable to be called up for military service unless they were widowed with children, or were ministers of a religion.

There was a system of tribunals to adjudicate upon claims for exemption on the grounds of performing civilian work of national importance, domestic hardship, health, and conscientious objection.

However, as a result of the deteriorating international situation and the rise of Nazi Germany, the Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hore-Belisha, persuaded the cabinet of Neville Chamberlain to introduce a limited form of conscription on 27 April 1939.

Men could be rejected for medical reasons, and those engaged in vital industries or occupations were "reserved" at a particular age beyond which no one in that job would be enlisted.

People who had retired, resigned or been dismissed from the forces before the war were liable to be called back if they had not reached 51 years of age.

The Militia was divided into nine companies, one for each parish (collectively forming a battalion under a lieutenant-colonel), and were embodied annually for training, or as required by war or emergency.

Volunteers, organised under appointed Captains of Forts, also manned fortified coastal artillery batteries to maintain a standing defence against enemy vessels or landing parties.

Bermuda had received its first regular (English Army) unit (an Independent Company, detached from the 2nd Regiment of Foot) in 1701.

This unit was joined in 1794 by a company Invalid Royal Artillery from the Board of Ordnance Military Corps (and not at that time part of the British Army).

There were no Royal Sappers and Miners present, however, until the 19th century, and civilians (including retired soldiers) were hired locally to carry out the construction work.

The British Government spent the next eight decades unsuccessfully asking, pleading and cajoling the local government to restore the militia until the requirement of consent for American investment into the Princess Hotel and the dredging of the channel into the St. George's Harbour led the local parliament to pass new militia and volunteer acts in 1892.

During the interim, Bermudian volunteers had been recruited for local-service only into the regular army and the Board of Ordnance Military Corps, under terms of service similar to those of the old militia.

From 1894, recruitment into the new part-time military reserves raised under the 1892 acts had originally followed the post-1850s practices in England for the Militia of the United Kingdom, in which soldiers voluntarily enlisted for six years (embodied for the duration of wars or emergencies, or otherwise only for annual training), and the Volunteer Force, in which part-time soldiers served voluntarily and could quit their service with 14 days' notice, except while embodied for training, war, or national emergency.

The Militia, Volunteer force, and Yeomanry were merged into the Territorial Force (later renamed the Territorial Army) in Britain in 1907–1908, with the introduction of terms of service (specific lengths of service for which volunteers enlisted), but this did not occur in Bermuda until the 1920s (1921 for the BVRC and 1928 for the BMA, as post-war reductions of the British Government's defence budget let to the reduction of the regular army components of the Bermuda Garrison, with the reserve units taking on greater responsibilities).

"[12] In 2024, Chief of the General Staff General Patrick Saunders delivered a speech advocating a volunteer "citizen army" of the willing in the wake of global turmoil, specifically the Russo-Ukrainian War and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which elements of the press mischaracterised as advocacy of conscription;[13] these statements generated controversy, and led to the Ministry of Defence and a spokesman for the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak publicly denying this was a plan by the armed forces, with the former issuing a statement declaring "The British military has a proud tradition of being a voluntary force and there is absolutely no suggestion of a return to conscription".

[14] Reintroduction of mandatory national service was a key plank of the Conservative Party manifesto for the 2024 general election and was announced as such on 25 May 2024, despite the Conservative defence minister Andrew Murrison stating just two days prior that government policy was that circumstances demanded a volunteer professional military and that national service would have a negative effect on morale.