Eighteen Canadian Soldiers Who Died Before Their 16th Birthday

An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 underage boys served for Canada and Newfoundland during the First World War. “Old Enough to Fight” by Dan Black and John Boileau (Lorimer, 2013) devotes over 400 pages to the subject, while an article written by the late Tim Cook, “He was determined to go”: Underage Soldiers in the Canadian Expeditionary Force”, provides another comprehensive look at Canada’s boy soldiers. The information presented here takes a different approach and focuses entirely on the eighteen Canadian soldiers who lost their life before their 16^th birthday.

A total of 22 young men who served for Canada are identified on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) database as being 15 years old, however a closer look revealed that two of them were in fact only 14 years of age. Four of the soldiers were found to be 16 years or older.

Establishing the soldiers date of birth required sifting through more than a hundred genealogy and military records. I’m confident I’ve established accurate birthdates for the majority of soldiers however there were some cases where a variety of sources were used to arrive at what I deemed to be the most likely date of birth. I encourage you to read my ‘General Notes’ section below.

I’ve summarized my findings in a table, although it offers only a glimpse of the information I’ve gathered. More details, including a brief biography and research notes, can be viewed by clicking on the soldier’s name. The boys are listed from youngest to oldest, and include the four older boys identified as being 16 or older.

If you have information on any of the soldiers I’ve researched please comment below. I’m also interested in hearing from you if you know of any other soldiers who served for Canada or Newfoundland, aged 15 or younger, who lost their lives during the First World War.

General Notes

1. My starting point for this research was the CWGC database, and it’s important to note that just over one-third of the 65,002 soldiers in the database do not include age information.
   
   Age information was collected by the CWGC after the war, through verification forms sent to the families of the fallen. These forms also gathered other information, including personal inscriptions and details on next-of-kin. These additional details, including age, were optional and therefore not all records include them. While I believe it is far more likely that age details were provided for underage soldiers, it remains possible that there are more 15-year-old soldiers to be identified.
   
   
2. Establishing a date of birth through official primary records is key to establishing the real age of a soldier. The date written on an attestation form should be viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism. It’s no coincidence that the medical examination form required the physician to record the soldier’s “Apparent Age”. It is also important to point out that not all boy soldiers lied about their age. Some joined up expecting they would serve as a Bugler and remain in Canada.
   
   Civil registration or Baptismal documents that included date of birth were used whenever possible. Whether these documents exist depends largely on the province (or country) the soldier was born in. Six of the boys were born in Nova Scotia and civil birth registration did not take place in that province from 1877 to 1908.
   
   
3. Census records, while not as reliable as civil birth registers, can also help establish a soldier’s year of birth. Some included the exact date of birth while the majority provided just the month and year (or the year only).
   
   
4. In some cases, date of birth was provided through another reliable source. Oscar Poulin’s birthdate was inscribed on his father’s headstone, while Frank Victor Milan’s date of birth was recorded in a register of a school he attended while living in Britain.
   
   
5. Unfortunately primary sources could not be found for every soldier, and in those cases several sources for their date of birth were evaluated to arrive at what is effectively an educated guess. If so, a note was added to the “Date of Birth Research” section to indicate which source was used to calculate the soldier’s age.
   
   In some cases a birth date is stated on an Ancestry family tree or Find a Grave page. That date may be correct, but if a source isn’t provided it is less reliable than the sources discussed in points 2 to 4.
   
   
6. Links to sources are provided whenever possible. Ancestry records are noted but not linked as they require a subscription to view. Complete military service file PDFs, when available, are linked to and downloadable from Library and Archives Canada.