Recruitment in the British Army from families with a military tradition. (This contrasted with the Navy, whose officers were more often from a middle-class background.) The second son of King George III, Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, did much to improve the standard of officer recruitment from his position as Commander in Chief of the Army (from 1795 to 1809, then from 1811 to 1827). The sale of commissions, finally abolished in the Cardwell reforms in 1868–1874, and the further Childers Reforms. In spite of its abolition, the status of an officer being from a privileged background and that of another rank being
Recruitment in the British Army and Country, and voluntarily joined the British Army. By early 1915 much of the regular army had been killed and were now replaced by the part-time volunteers of the Territorial Force and Kitchener's new volunteer army. A feature of the volunteer army was the Pals battalions, recruited from single communities or even factories, who were allowed to serve together. The Kitchener recruitment campaign had proved to be very successful, as on 1 September 1914, over 30,000 men enlisted. With each day passing, thousands more were clamouring to be taken. The British Government soon realized the main drawback of this campaign,