Royal Warwickshire Regiment - 8th Bn (TF)

This post will look at regimental numbering in the 8th (TF) Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment between 1908 and 1914. 

The 8th Battalion was an entirely new Territorial Force unit, formed in 1908. It had no Volunteer Force battalion predecessor. In that year, as The Territorial Year Book for 1909 records, the 8th Battalion strength comprised 21 officers and 715 men. 630 men trained at camp that year for eight days, whilst 375 trained for 15 days. Sergeant E Robins, was the best shot of the battalion that year.

The following year, The Territorial Year Book for 1910 recorded that the strength of the 8th Battalion had risen to 25 officers and 970 men. At Brockenhurst camp that year, 362 men trained for eight days, and 584 trained for 15 days. Drummer Taylor of C Company was the best shot of the battalion in 1909.

The battalion was headquartered at Aston Manor, Birmingham, and with the exception of B Company (which recruited men from Saltley), A to H Companies all drew their men from Birmingham. ''D' Company, according to the Illustrated News in 1909, stood for 'Dunlop' Company as it was, in 1909 at least, composed exclusively of the employees of the Dunlop Tyre and Rubber companies. Pre 1914-1918 the battalion formed part of the Warwickshire Infantry Brigade in the South Midland Division. 

Here are some sample regimental numbers and joining dates for the the 8th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment:

177 joined on the 22nd April 1908
964 joined on the 17th May 1909
1179 joined on the 3rd February 1910
1305 joined on the 16th March 1911
1482 joined on the 9th May 1912
1709 joined on the 16th January 1913
2196 joined on the 16th April 1914
2302 joined on the 6th August 1914 

Use the regimental numbers above to estimate when a man would have joined this battalion between 1908 and August 1914. For example, if your man had the number 1000 and came from Saltley, he would have joined between May 1909 and February 1910 and would have almost certainly have served with B Company. 

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Royal Warwickshire Regiment - 7th Bn (TF)

This post will look at regimental numbering in the 7th (TF) Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment between 1908 and 1914. 

The 7th Battalion was a Territorial Force unit which had been formed out of the old 2nd Volunteer Battalion. In 1908, as The Territorial Year Book for 1909 records, the 7th Battalion strength comprised 24 officers and 808 men. The following year, The Territorial Year Book for 1910 recorded that the strength of the 7th Battalion had risen to 23 officers and 980 men. 

The battalion was headquartered at Coventry, and A, B, C & D Companies all drew their recruits from Coventry. E Company recruited in Rugby, F Company recruited in Leamington, G Company recruited in Warwick (and had a drill station at Kenilworth), and H Company recruited in Nuneaton. Pre 1914-1918 the battalion formed part of the Warwickshire Infantry Brigade in the South Midland Division. Here are some sample regimental numbers and joining dates for the the 7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment:

935 joined on the 6th April 1908
1106 joined on the 1st March 1909
1280 joined on the 18th July 1910
1325 joined on the 8th February 1911
1484 joined on the 26th February 1912
1756 joined on the 14th March 1913
2110 joined on the 18th February 1914
2678 joined on the 5th September 1914 

Use the regimental numbers above to estimate when a man would have joined this battalion between 1908 and August 1914. For example, if your man had the number 1500 and came from Coventry, he would have joined in, approximately, March 1913 and would have served in A, B, C or D Company. 

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Royal Warwickshire Regiment - 5th & 6th Bns (TF)

This post will look at regimental numbering in the 5th & 6th (TF) Battalions, Royal Warwickshire Regiment between 1908 and 1914.

The 5th & 6th Battalions were Territorial Force units which were formed as independent infantry battalions on the 1st April 1908.  They had formerly been the 1st Volunteer Battalion which, prior to the transfer to the Territorial Force, had comprised no fewer than 18 separate companies and between 1800 and 1900 men. In 1908, as The Territorial Year Book for 1909 records, the 5th Battalion strength comprised 24 officers and 808 men, whilst the 6th Battalion comprised 24 officers and 845 men.

The following year, The Territorial Year Book for 1910 recorded that the strength of the 5th Battalion had risen to 30 officers and 957 men whilst the 6th Battalion, matching the 5th almost man for man, had a strength of 29 officers and 954 men. Both battalions were headquartered at Thorp Street, Birmingham, and all companies (companies A-H) in both battalions, recruited in Birmingham.

Here are some sample regimental numbers and joining dates for the the 5th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment:

136 joined on the 8th April 1908
581 joined on the 25th January 1909
1232 joined on the 25th February 1910
1361 joined on the 24th February 1911
1501 joined on the 26th January 1912
1819 joined on the 24th January 1913
2318 joined on the 22nd May 1914
2445 joined on the 1st September 1914 

For the 6th Battalion:

1 joined on the 1st April 1908
1250 joined on the 11th March 1910
1360 joined on the 17th February 1911
1511 joined on the 26th January 1912
2110 joined on the 6th June 1913
2252 joined on the 27th March 1914
2400 joined on the 13th August 1914
2651joined on the 2nd September 1914

As can be seen from the patterns above, the battalions pretty much kept pace with each other in the years up until 1914; on the 26th January 1912 the 6th battalion had issued just ten numbers more than the 5th Battalion!

Use the regimental numbers above to estimate when a man would have joined this battalion between 1908 and August 1914. For example, if your man had the number 2000 and served with the 5th Battalion, he’d have joined the battalion between January 1913 and May 1914. The same number would have been issued to a 6th Battalion man between January 1912 and June 1913. 

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To search for photos of your Royal Warwickshire Regiment ancestors, check my British Army Ancestors website.

Royal Warwickshire Regt: Deaths, Sudan Campaign 1898

There's an impressive memorial in St Mary's Church, Warwick to the non commissioned officers and men of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment who lost their lives during the Sudan Campaign of 1898.

The names of the memorial are organised in order of seniority: non-commissioned officers first, followed by the men in order of length of service. The names appear in two columns and there are 49 casualties in all.

Colour Sergeant Doughty is the senior non-commissioned officer here and so his name appears at the top of the left-hand column. Sergeant Rea, as the longest serving sergeant, is the next most senior man and his name appears at the top of the right-hand column. Then it's sergeant Harrison on the left-hand column, Sergeant Stafford on the right-hand column and so on as you slalom down through the names. Here are the left hand-column names:

2578 Colour Sergeant H Doughty
2304 Sergeant W Harrison
3640 Sergeant G Gage
3250 Lance Corporal A Mitchell
1511 Private W Jones
3115 Lance Corporal W Vickers
3142 Private W Hale
3199 Private H Burrows
3313 Private F Bonehill
3404 Private A Power
3428 Private W Allkins
3611 Private G Clayton
3758 Private G Howling
3917 Private H Filkins
3990 Private T Raven
4067 Private J Wesker
4100 Private A Lockley
4125 Private F Gardner
4180 Private H Pettipher
4188 Private W Jackson
4212 Lance Corporal G Henshaw
4462 Private W Ray
4512 Private T Hunt
4868 Private C Newton
6175 Private H Burley

And here are the right-hand column names. The numbering goes slightly out of sequence when we reach 4088 Private M Lee who is followed by 4075 Private T Daffern.

1667 Sergeant H Rea
3681 Sergeant A Stafford
759 Corporal J Hirons
4335 Lance Corporal G Upton
2321 Private C Pink
3137 Private H Jones
3174 Private W Dutton
3219 Private A Holt
3321 Private J Yates
3425 Private H Meredith
3468 Private T Worrall
3641 Private E Wilson
3825 Private J Close
3973 Private J Cox
4088 Private M Lee
4075 Private T Daffern
4103 Private W Worrall
4171 Private A Fisher
4182 Private J Freebury
4201 Private J Hubbard
4418 Private C B Lowe
4471 Private W Manners
4565 Private C Gibbons
4900 Private W Jones

The longest-serving man on this memorial is 759 Corporal Hirons who, judging by his regimental number, must have joined the regiment in 1883 and would have been well on the way to a pension. 1511 Private Jones joined in the second half of 1885 and 1667 Private H Rea in 1886, but the majority of the men listed here joined in the 1890s. Private Burley, with the regimental number 6175, is the man with least experience. His number dates to late July or early August 1898.


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Royal Warwickshire Regiment - Militia and Special Reserve

This post will look at numbering in the regular, militia, special and extra reserve battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and will attempt to explain the vagaries (and applied logic) of regimental numbering.  But first, a snapshot of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1897.  The regiment had two regular battalions; men generally enlisting for short service (typically seven years with the colours and five on the reserve) or for long service (twelve years with the colours and no obligation to serve with the reserve).  In 1897 the two regular battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment were disposed as follows:

1st Battalion: Stationed in Egypt
2nd Battalion: Stationed in Chatham, Kent

Both of these battalions drew their regimental numbers from the same number series. A man joining the regiment as a regular soldier in 1897 would typically arrive at the regimental depot, be issued with his number and then undergo ten weeks' training at the depot before joining the 2nd Battalion (or whatever the home battalion happened to be). Typically, after two years' service with the home battalion, he would then be posted to the 1st Battalion (or whatever regular battalion of the regiment was serving overseas). This was a pattern that was repeated throughout the British Infantry of the Line regiments and one which meant that the most experienced soldiers were generally serving in the British Empire's far-flung outposts, whilst the newer, more inexperienced men were learning the ropes with the home service battalion in the UK (which at that time included the whole of Ireland). Battalions were supposed to do an overseas tour of duty for 16 years and then swapped places with the home battalion. 

In 1897, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment also had two militia battalions, the 3rd and 4th Battalions. These two battalions each had their own distinctive regimental number series and both battalions, like the two regular battalions, were administered from the regimental depot at Warwick. The militia was a part-time, home service army which largely drew its recruits from the local area. The regular battalions, whilst territorially organised since 1st April 1873, recruited men locally but also drew men from further afield. See my post on Border Regiment recruitment in 1906 as an example of this.

On the 6th April 1898, The Royal Warwickshire Regiment raised a third, regular battalion in Ireland which was designated the 3rd Battalion. The regimental depot was thus now issuing numbers to men who could be posted to any of the three regular battalions - and be posted between battalions - and still retain their regular number. The creation of a fourth regular battalion (the 4th Battalion, raised at Colchester on the 3rd February 1900) was treated in exactly the same way: one number series for regular soldiers which was shared between the (now) four regular battalions.

The creation of two more regular battalions with numbers already allocated to militia battalions now created a problem which was logically solved. What had been the 3rd and 4th Militia Battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment now became the 5th and 6th Militia Battalions. Although I've not seen any Army Council Instruction dealing with the re-numbering of militia battalions, it would appear that this happened at around the same time as the new 3rd (Regular) Battalion was formed. Alfred Ashfield and Frank Kirk both joined the 4th (Militia) Battalion on the 7th April 1898 (the day after the 3rd Regular battalion was formed) and Richard Ryan joined the 4th Battalion on the 12th April 1898. All of their attestation papers clearly show that they joined the 4th Battalion, rather than the 6th. By the 15th of April 1898 however, John Coney had joined the 6th Battalion, and my research of attestation papers for the Royal Warwickshire Regiment militia battalions for April 1898 onwards would suggest that by the middle of the month, the 3rd and 4th militia battalions had ceased to exist, being replaced by the 5th and 6th Battalions. It's interesting to note however, that old rubber stamps for the 4th Battalion (and probably the 3rd as well) were still being used as late as September 1898, the new number 6 being crudely over-written, as in the example below.

As for the numbering in the militia battalions, this remained unchanged. Men who had joined the 3rd militia battalion and now found themselves with the 5th Battalion, retained their 3rd Battalion numbers. New men joining the 5th Battalion from around mid April 1898 were simply given numbers in continuation of the (old) 3rd Battalion number series. The process worked in exactly the same way for the serving men and new recruits into the 4th/6th militia battalions.

Fast forward nine years.

By April 1907 the two newest regular Royal Warwickshire Regiment battalions - the 3rd and 4th - had both been disbanded and so when the Special Reserve was formed in 1908, the two Royal Warwickshire Regiment SR battalions were designated the 3rd (Special Reserve) and 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalions. Men transferring from the militia battalions into the Special Reserve retained their old militia numbers whilst new recruits into the two Special Reserve battalions were simply given numbers in continuation of what had been the old militia number series. For example, 129 Leon Taylor joined the 6th (Militia) Battalion on the 5th March 1907 and 367 William Dearn (a man with no prior military service) joined the 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion on the 10th April 1908.

This concludes my post on militia and SR numbering in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and indeed my posts for 2011. I wish all readers of this blog a happy and successful 2012.

The image I've chosen for this post is an anachronism, depicting a cross belt plate of the 6th Regiment of Foot. It comes from the 1812 History website.

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Royal Warwickshire Regiment - regular battalions

Having just commemorated a Royal Warwickshire Regiment man on my WW1 Remembrance blog, I thought I'd use this post to look at army service numbers issued to men joining the regular battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment between 1881 and 1914.

In 1881 the 6th Regiment of Foot became the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and in the years up until 1914 fought at Atbara and Omdurman in the Sudan and later during the Boer War campaign.

Service records for all of the following numbers survive in the WO 363 (Burnt Documents) and WO 364 (Pensions) series at the National Archives in Kew, London. A search on Findmypast for  Royal Warwickshire Regiment service and pension records reveals over 50,000 results. Click the link to see the search results. Also view these on-line as part of a FREE 14 day trial with Ancestry.co.uk. 

71 joined on 3rd September 1881
354 joined on 20th April 1882
710 joined on 27th June 1883
934 joined on 25th January 1884
1401 joined on 22nd June 1885
1930 joined on 6th October 1886
2110 joined on 9th February 1887
2260 joined on 3rd March 1888
2448 joined on 25th January 1889
2693 joined on 17th April 1890
3200 joined on 12th March 1891
3582 joined on 19th February 1892
3781 joined on 17th January 1893
4216 joined on 17th April 1894
4553 joined on 5th June 1895
4680 joined on 8th May 1896
5028 joined on 4th August 1897
5440 joined on 15th March 1898

On 6th April 1898 - and with tensions in South Africa increasing - the Royal Warwickshire Regiment raised a 3rd regular battalion in Ireland. The 3rd Battalion drew numbers from the same series as the 1st and 2nd Battalions. It would eventually be disbanded in England on 23rd April 1907.

6661 joined on 13th February 1899
7326 joined on 5th June 1900
7683 joined on 13th February 1901

On 3rd February 1902 the Royal Warwickshire Regiment raised a 4th regular battalion at Colchester in Essex and it too drew numbers from the same series being used by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions. The 4th Battalion would be disbanded on 9th February 1907.

8480 joined on 1st March 1902
9376 joined on 30th March 1903
9842 joined on 9th January 1904

In 1904 - or late 1903 - and with its numbering approaching 9999, the regiment applied to the Adjutant-General to commence a new series of numbers. Permission was duly granted and the regiment started numbering from 1 again in 1904. 1904 was also one of those years in which regulations regarding numbering changed; not in time though for the Royal Warwickshire regiment which had seen its recruitment figures leap as a result of the addition of two regular battalions. Read more about Queen's and King's Regulations regarding numbering, HERE.

552 joined on 17th October 1905
779 joined on 2nd March 1906
968 joined on 13th November 1907
1152 joined on 11th August 1908
1493 joined on 13th December 1909
1650 joined on 8th June 1910
1770 joined on 4th February 1911
1987 joined on 27th January 1912
2253 joined on 7th January 1913
2539 joined on 9th June 1914

When Britain went to war with Germany a couple of months later, the newly forming service battalions (with the exception of the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th Battalions) drew numbers from the same series that had been used by the regulars.

1st Battalion stations 1881-1914

1881     London

1885     Plymouth
1885     Tipperary
1889     Fermoy
1890     Aldershot
1895     Malta
1896     Egypt
1898     Sudan
1898     Madras
1901     Belgaum
1904     Quetta
1908     Peshawar
1910     Bombay
1911     Aden
1912     Shornecliffe
1913     Portsmouth
1914     France & Flanders (from August)

2nd Battalion stations 1881-1914

1881     Jubbulpore

1885     Calcutta
1889     Subathu (India)
1891     Ceylon
1896     Chatham
1898     Ireland
1899     South Africa
1901     Devonport
1904     Portland
1906     Borden
1909     Lichfield
1912     Malta
1914     France & Flanders (from October)

3rd Battalion stations 1898-1907

1898     Raised in Ireland on the 6th April
1898     Malta
1902     Bermuda
1904     Gibraltar
1905     South Africa
1907     England.  Disbanded on the 23rd April.

4th Battalion stations 1900-1909

1900     Raised in Colchester on the 3rd February.

1901     Dublin
1906     England
1907     Disbanded on the 9th February.

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From The Naval & Military Press



A Brigade of the Old Army - 1914

The author was a Brigadier-General in 1914, commanding the 10th Infantry Brigade (1st Royal Warwickshire, 2nd Seaforth Highlanders, 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers and 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers) of the 4th Division and ending up as a corps commander. The 4th Division formed the second wave of the BEF, arriving in France on 22nd August 1914 in time to join in the retreat from Mons.

This account, though not published until after the war, was written at the front in the Spring of 1915 and the author has allowed it to stand practically as it was written at the time, thus providing a valuable and immediate contribution to the fighting in those early days. He covers Le Cateau, the retreat, the subsequent advance to the Aisne and the move to Flanders. In mid-November 1914 Haldane handed over command of 10th Brigade at ‘Plugstreet’ on promotion to command of the 3rd Division at Ypres, where its commander, Maj Gen E.Hamilton, had been killed. During the retreat from Mons the COs of 1st R Warwicks and 2nd RDF attempted to negotiate the surrender of their battalions at St Quentin, a move that was frustrated by the actions of Major Tom Bridges. Both COs were later courtmartialled and cashiered.