WW1 Conscription - critical dates

[Christine in Herts]

I have been researching my paternal grandfather's history, and have wondered whether anything specific might have triggered his emigration to Canada in the spring of 1916. I was also after more ideas for researching his life in Canada between 1916 and 1924.

A different mailing list had flagged up the new Toronto FHC Bulletin/Blog (http://torontofhc.blogspot.com/ ) to which you can submit problems for which others can suggest ideas. I had submitted a potted history of my paternal grandfather...
Q1/40/2010. England to Toronto .

I am researching the life of Leonard BENNETT, who was born on March 6, 1887 and married Alice Warr in 1911 close to Birmingham , England . He left her with two young sons and went to Canada about 1916. According to his US immigration document, he landed at Montreal in May 1916 on the S S Metagama, although he has not yet been found on any passenger or crew list. He emigrated from Toronto to the USA via Detroit on the train on March 19, 1924. By the time of the 1930 census, he is living with/married to Ruth in Michigan . By 1937 he is younger (but still the same birth month/day) and is married to Edith Louise. He died in 1967 in Florida, leaving his widow, May G Bennett, a stepson and two grandchildren. I live in England and I would be grateful for any hints on how I might be able to illuminate the years he spent in Canada - especially Toronto. It doesn't seem impossible that he might have married there and had a family, although I have seen no trace of that. It may be that he was in contact with his own family, and avoided marrying again until he knew that his first wife had actually died (not until 12 June 1927, by which time he had emigrated to the USA).

The Bulletin editor found the date of Leonard’s emigration, May 1916, from England to Toronto very interesting. By the end of 1915 more than half a million soldiers in the British Army had been killed, wounded or presumed dead. In January 1916 the Military Service Act was introduced – it started with conscription for unmarried men between 18 and 41. But it was widened in May 1916 to include married men as well. Perhaps Leonard left because he did not wish to be conscripted and not that he wished to leave his wife and children. Or perhaps he had been given a White Feather (see below Were You Aware…).

In fact there are a number of other ideas for other areas of my question, but I just thought that that one was significant in being a critical timing issue. And I'm sharing it, in case it means something in anyone else's tree.

Christine

[Little Nell]

Conscription was introduced in 1916. My grandfather was called up to the Royal Artillery, even though he was 41. His wife moved the same year to new premises in Stoke Newington Church Street to run a shop, only to find that 5 years after her youngest child, she was pregnant again at the age of 40 - with my father.

[Christine in Herts]

I was interested when my attention was drawn to the fact that it was extended to married men only in the May of that year - just the time my grandfather appears to have done a runner!

Christine