Introduction: Military psychology literature tends to focus particularly on combat-related service (Gordon, 2014). There are long-term consequences of wellbeing related to service in addition to normal ageing concerns. The characteristics of military veteran populations also change over time due to the historical context of their service. Since 2012, there has been increased interest in British Armed Forces military serving and ex-service personnel and the advantages and disadvantages of their military service. This thesis aimed to explore what sense British Armed Forces ex-service personnel made of their experiences and whether they perceived significant impact of their experiences over the lifespan. Method: 30 participant interviews with ex-service personnel were collected and data were analysed using Narrative Analysis and Thematic Analysis. Findings: participants expressed concerns about quality of life, mental health and the significance of pre- during- and post-service events on themselves and their families. Conclusion: Narratives of experiences adds valuable detail to current research in this field, and helps to highlight the broader psychosocial and practical concerns of UK ex-service personnel and the members of their familial and social network. This thesis presents current and potential implications for the welfare of veterans, their network, and informs providers of and stakeholders in the wellbeing of future ex-service personnel populations.

This thesis deals with a largely forgotten soldier, writer and administrator of the mid to late Victorian era. General Sir Henry Brackenbury’s career covered some forty- eight years. He was either directly involved in or was witness to all the major events of the British Army during this period, from the Crimean War to the South African War. His career encompassed an era of reform that saw the army move away from the military system of the Napoleonic Wars and the gradual establishment of the system with which the British Army would take the field in 1914. The aim of this thesis is to look at the military career of Sir Henry Brackenbury, rather than be a biography of the man. However his literary career, personal life and financial circumstances are intrinsically linked to his life as a soldier. What this shows is a highly intelligent soldier, perhaps the first of a new bread of so-called ‘Scientific Soldiers’, men who studied and thought about their profession. Apart from a considerable, and important, amount of active service overseas, Brackenbury held three key administrative positions, which were the highlight of his army service and allowed his talents to come to the fore. As Head of the Intelligence Branch at the War Office, Military Member of the Council of the Governor General of India, and Director General of the Ordnance, he ended his long career with powerful and important positions that brought much praise. Indeed his contemporaries considered him to be the most effective holder of these posts.

The upheavals of the cataclysm of the First World War reverberated through every comer of British society, how society was reconstructed afterwards is the subject of enormous critical debate. This study examines how masculinities were disrupted and. reconstructed during and after the war. It is a study of British men, previously civilians, who became servicemen in the First World War. It aims to map the continuities and discontinuities in the construction of their masculine identities during war and in its aftermath in the 1920s. Pioneered by feminist scholars concerned with analysing the historical construction of femininity, the study of gender relations has become a significant area of historical enquiry. This has resulted in a substantial body of historical scholarship on the history of masculinities and the increasing visibility of men as gendered subjects whose masculinities are lived and imagined. This thesis is informed by, and engages with, the histories of masculinities. It also draws on recent historical research on the cultural legacy of the war. The first chapter explores the subjectiver esponsesto becoming a soldier through an examination of personal memoirs; largely unpublished sources drawn from memories and written or recorded by men as narratives of their wartime experiences. The subject of the second chapter is shell shock. The outbreak of shell shock among the troops aroused anxieties about masculinity. The competing versions of masculinities which emerged in military and medical discourses is examined. Returning to individual memoirs, the chapter examines how men produced their own representations of the shell shocked man contesting other versions. Chapters 3 and 4 focus their attention on the relatively neglected subject of ex-servicemen's organisations and the collectivities of ex-servicemen. During and after the war a movement of ex-servicemen emerged to campaign for justice and fair treatment. Comradeship underpinned the attempt to forge an ex-serviceman identity and an examination of veterans' publications, a largely neglected source, has revealed the tensions and conflicts which contested this form of masculine identity. Masculine identities, as citizens and workers, presented a challenge to the potential for a unified, apolitical movement. Unemployment was a challenge to male identities traditionally secured through work and masculine codes of independence. Unlike many studies, this thesis intentionally straddles war and peace. It begins in 1914 and ends a decade later in a society restored to peace but still essentially in the shadow of war.