About the Legion#
The Royal British Legion has worked for the armed forces community since 1921 and calls itself the country's largest armed forces charity, with 180,000 members and 110,000 volunteers. Most people know it for the Poppy Appeal and national Remembrance. Behind that it gives grants, free benefits and debt advice, help with housing, employment and bereavement, recovery services, care homes, and independent advice for families facing an inquest. It is also a membership organisation with local branches, some of which visit members at home or in hospital.
Who qualifies#
Its eligibility page says support begins after just one day's pay in the British armed forces. That covers people serving now and veterans, and also:
- spouses and partners, bereaved partners and former partners;
- people who depend on a beneficiary for care, and people a beneficiary depends on;
- reservists, and some others who served in uniform alongside the forces;
- serving and former Gurkhas and their families, on the same terms, if they live legally in the UK.
In Scotland, the Legion directs people to Poppyscotland. Elsewhere it has 96 branches outside the UK, and supports people abroad on the same criteria.
Getting in touch#
The helpline page gives a free line, an overseas line, email and online chat, open from 8am to 8pm every day. You can contact it yourself, or another organisation can refer you; after an assessment, its team advises you, refers you to another Legion service or helps directly. It says it is not an emergency service. To meet people locally, its branch finder lists branches near you.
Claims, records and a new name#
The Legion publishes nothing about changing your name. Its most relevant work is on claims: it offers free guidance and tribunal representation for War Pension and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme claims and appeals, which Veterans UK manages, and it notes that you normally have a year from the decision to appeal. If you have changed your name since you served, or change it during a claim, the records need to match.
For veterans, the handbook's armed forces guide sets out who to tell. In brief:
- Veterans UK for a War Pension or compensation payments; it does not take a change of name by email.
- Equiniti for an armed forces pension.
- Service records requested under another name need proof of the change.
- Medals are not re-issued in a new name, except after legal gender recognition.
The change itself is made the ordinary way: by deed poll, which GOV.UK lets anyone aged 16 or over make for free with its wording, or with a marriage or civil partnership certificate. Other pensions follow the same pattern as the forces ones (pensions and savings).
If you are still serving#
The change has to reach your unit HR staff, and the security vetting service if you hold clearance, before you leave: the armed forces guide explains why it is harder to correct after discharge. SSAFA, the other main forces welfare charity, supports serving people and their families too.
This page describes what The Royal British Legion publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. The Legion has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
