Recruitment in The British Army - From National Service To All-professional Army

From National Service To All-professional Army

As with the previous World War, the end of wartime conscription saw the army reduced in size and reverting to its peacetime role of maintaining the Empire. In 1947 British India was given Independence, which meant the loss of the British Indian Army and thousands of volunteer soldiers. The British Government had relied upon the British Indian Army for Imperial matters. Now without this army, the regular British Army was judged to be too small for the demands of an impending Cold War and maintaining the Empire. To meet this demand which volunteers alone would not, peacetime conscription was enacted by the government and passed by the House of Commons in 1947. In the United Kingdom, it is this period of peacetime conscription that is usually referred to as 'National Service'. It remains the only period of peacetime conscription in UK history, apart from the periods immediately before and after World War II. The majority of National Servicemen went into the Army and by 1951 National Servicemen made up half the force, leading to a reduced level of voluntary recruitment to the regular army. The last intake of National Servicemen took place in 1960, with the last National Serviceman being demobbed on 16 May 1963. The army reverted back to an all professional volunteer service, which it remains to this day.

The decision to abolish National Service was taken in 1957 with the 1957 Defence White Paper, which led to an enormous reduction in the number of soldiers between 1958–63, from about 330,000 to 165,000 by the end of National Service. In the decades that followed cuts in the Army were the constant theme. Between 1963 and 1992 strength was reduced to 153,000, however never on a large scale until the end of the cold war. In 1990 the Government started another defence review which concluded with the Defence White Paper of 1992. In a post-Soviet world the white paper would again further reduce the army by 50,000, effectively ending the British Army of the Rhine. The current strength of the British army is approximately 102,000 regular personnel.