Ministry of
Government and Consumer Services
Fonds F 895
7.5 metres of textual records
The Military Records collection is an artificial creation of the Archives of Ontario and consists of originals and copies of documents relating to military action seen by Ontario citizens, both at home and abroad. The collection includes pamphlets, newspaper clippings, and scrapbooks on various military events such as the War of 1812, the Rebellion of 1837, the Fenian Raids of 1866, and, most predominantly, World War I and its immediate aftermath.
The collection also contains histories, personnel and casualty lists, general orders, commissions, and papers of individual soldiers from several Ontario county militias. Militias represented include: Addington, Dundas, Durham, East York, Essex, Glengarry, Hastings, Huron, Lincoln, Prince Edward, Simcoe, and York. In addition, the collection includes materials relating to military awards, clothing, education, entertainment, hospitals, and recruitment.
Much of the collection focuses on World War I, both on the home front and overseas. In North America, the collection documents the various War Bond drives, recruitment campaigns, support actions by the Red Cross and veteran's associations, pro-war propaganda and testimonials from a variety of sources, and broadsides and posters announcing patriotic funds and presentations. Overseas, the collection contains copies of the militia and general orders, extensive nominal rolls of the Canadian Expeditionary Force for 1915 and 1917, papers and correspondence of various soldiers and officers, casualty lists, regimental histories, and reports of life in the trenches and the convalescent hospitals. The collection includes copies of the informal newspapers and bulletins issued by the troops themselves and their supporting medical, ambulance, and transport companies, including "Listening Post", "Khaki Life", "Blighty", "Trench Echo", "Open Exhaust", "Ontario Stretcher", "Iodine Chronicle", and "Dead Horse Corner Gazette”. The collection also holds a variety of maps documenting the defence of Sebastopol in 1855, the newly-constructed Camp Borden, and trench work in Belgium and France.
Title is based on the subject of the collection.
No further accruals will be made to this collection.
Accession Numbers: 10417, 14895, 6659, 1771, 4863, 9270, 6028, 11957, 9624, 3929, 3926, 544, 3784, 9005, 13786, 3601, 1356, 3602, 2637, 10406, 9047, 9488, 3782, 14765, 2685, 10797, 4308, 6480, 10672, 1530, 3855, 13611, 2276, 4683, 559, 2080, 13926, 6597, 612 and 10136.
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