Facts and Statistics

About the Legion

  • The Royal British Legion is the leading ex-Service charity protecting the welfare, interests and memory of ex-Service people and their families and dependants.
  • 2001 was its 80 th anniversary year. It was founded in 1921.
  • Some 13 million people in the UK are eligible to ask for its help – 5.5 million ex-Service people and 7.5 million dependants. (i.e. one in five people or 20 per cent of the population).
  • The Legion is almost the UK 's largest membership organisation, with 519,000 members (including the Women's Section this total is 589,000)  Anyone can be a member, ex-Service or not.
  • You don't have to be a Legion member to receive assistance – but you must be an ex-Serviceperson or a dependant. Anyone who has been in the British Armed Forced for seven days or more (and their dependants) is eligible for help.
  • People as young as 17.5 years can be sent on active service, so veterans are often much younger than people realise.
  • There has only been one year (1968) since the Second World War when a British Service person hasn't been killed on active service.
  • Each year the Legion answers 300,000 calls for help to its helpline, Legionline.
  • It helps with a huge range of issues, including counselling, job retraining, skills assessment, getting the right pensions and benefits, advice and grants for setting up small businesses, welfare grants, Remembrance Travel to war graves, convalescent and nursing care, and home and hospital visits.
  • The Legion has close links to many other charities, organisations and trusts, enabling it to draw on the best resources and expertise, and to refer people to those best equipped to help them.
  • The Legion will be needed for as long as people continue to be affected by conflict. It doesn't advocate war but is simply there to support those who have been prepared to make a personal sacrifice through serving in the British Armed Forces.
  • The Poppy Appeal raised  over £21.1 million in  2002 . It aims to better that total in  2003 .
  • In  2002  the Legion spent over £50 million on its work. Apart from donations, funds come from legacies, sponsorship, corporate support, fundraising events.
  • 70% of the 61 Poppy Factory workers are disabled or suffer from chronic illness. The Factory was designed to offer jobs to such people and its remit remains the same today.
  • 300,000 staff and volunteers organise the Poppy Appeal each year
  • More than 38  million poppies, 98,000 wreaths and sprays, 730,000 Remembrance Crosses and other Remembrance items will be made at the Poppy Factory in Richmond , Surrey , this year.

Poppies Distributed

38.4m

 

Care Home Residents

400

 

Veterans & Carer Breaks Guests

4,200

Per Annum

War Pensions Cases

41,750

 

Cases represented at War Pensions Tribunals

4,900*

 

Almonising Income

£10.2m

 

People in Employment through RBL

3,000

 

Trained Case Workers

5,000

 

Welfare Visits and request for assistance

300,000

 

Visitors to War Cemeteries

1,158

Includes 48 War Widows

School Children's Visits to War Cemeteries

331

 

Army Recruits' Visits to War Cemeteries

2,079

 

Small Business Loans

£375,000

 

Careers Advice

1,200

Requests

London Taxi Driver Training

10

Passes of the Knowledge