Description
Object description
Ms diary (147pp), August 1914 - June 1918, with annotations added in 1959 and 1962, covering his training and service with the 7th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment to December 1915, as a staff officer with HQ 56th Brigade until June 1918, and as a staff officer with HQ 8th Division (July 1918 – March 1919), describng how he joined the 7th South Lancashires as a subaltern at Tidworth (September 1914) before promotion to Captain (December), brief but interesting details on the problems of command, training, equipment, billets, conscription, trench raids and the movement and engagements of 56th Brigade including their arrival at Boulogne (July 1915), campaigns across the Western Front including fighting at Loos, Ollivers, La Boiselle, High Wood, the winter of 1916 - 1917 on the Somme, Messines (1917), Green Wood, Menin Road, Poelcapelle, Passchendaele, Bapume (March 1918) and on the Aisne (May-June 1918), detailing particularly the fighting in March and June 1918 when he was wounded in the shoulder and evacuated near Bapume (24 March 1918), spending April in a London hospital. The diary includes many references to the location of HQs and various officers serving, and is accompanied by lists of the commanding and staff officers of 56th Brigade, and the Commanding Officers of the various units comprising the Brigade; a photograph showing him as Brigade Major; a watercolour painting labelled 'View from Brigade HQ near Mont Noir, Belgium' by W A Mitchison, 2 September 1917 (killed 20 September 1917); and a note 'Good bye! North Hamptons' left by retreating Germans in October 1918, explanation attached.
Content description
Ms diary (147pp), August 1914 - June 1918, with annotations added in 1959 and 1962, covering his training and service with the 7th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment to December 1915, as a staff officer with HQ 56th Brigade until June 1918, and as a staff officer with HQ 8th Division (July 1918 – March 1919), describng how he joined the 7th South Lancashires as a subaltern at Tidworth (September 1914) before promotion to Captain (December), brief but interesting details on the problems of command, training, equipment, billets, conscription, trench raids and the movement and engagements of 56th Brigade including their arrival at Boulogne (July 1915), campaigns across the Western Front including fighting at Loos, Ollivers, La Boiselle, High Wood, the winter of 1916 - 1917 on the Somme, Messines (1917), Green Wood, Menin Road, Poelcapelle, Passchendaele, Bapume (March 1918) and on the Aisne (May-June 1918), detailing particularly the fighting in March and June 1918 when he was wounded in the shoulder and evacuated near Bapume (24 March 1918), spending April in a London hospital. The diary includes many references to the location of HQs and various officers serving, and is accompanied by lists of the commanding and staff officers of 56th Brigade, and the Commanding Officers of the various units comprising the Brigade; a photograph showing him as Brigade Major; a watercolour painting labelled 'View from Brigade HQ near Mont Noir, Belgium' by W A Mitchison, 2 September 1917 (killed 20 September 1917); and a note 'Good bye! North Hamptons' left by retreating Germans in October 1918, explanation attached.
History note
Cataloguer AJC