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London North Western
Railway:
Midland
Railway:
Stratford
Midland Junction Railway
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LMS Route: Evesham to Birmingham
Redditch Station: mrred1396
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A train of army personnel wait to depart from Redditch station
in 1914 as their family and friends look on. Bob Essery writes that the
photograph was inscribed 'International War 1914, Redditch'. In all probability
the scene is showing the departure of men from the Territorial Force,
originally formed by the Secretary of State for War, Richard Burdon Haldane,
following the enactment of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 which
combined and re-organised the old Volunteer Force with the Yeomanry. As part of
the same process, remaining units of militia were converted to the Special
Reserve. The TF was formed on 1 April 1908 and contained fourteen infantry
divisions, and fourteen mounted yeomanry brigades. It had an overall strength
of approximately 269,000. The individual units that made up each division or
brigade were administered by County Associations, with the county's Lord
Lieutenant as president. The other members of the association consisted of
military members (chosen from the commanding officers of the units),
representative members (nominated by the county councils and county boroughs in
the lieutenancy county) and co-opted members (often retired military officers).
Associations took over any property vested in the volunteers or yeomanry under
their administration. Each regiment or battalion had a regular army officer
attached as full-time adjutant.
Interestingly, the use of the word territorial signified
that the volunteers who served with the force were under no obligation to serve
overseas, in 1910, when asked to nominate for Imperial Service overseas in the
event of mobilisation, less than ten per cent of the Force chose to do so. In
August 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War, territorial units were
given the option of serving in France and, by 25th August, in excess of seventy
battalions had volunteered. This question over the availability of territorial
divisions for overseas service was one of Lord Kitchener's motivations for
raising the New Army separately. Territorial formations initially saw service
in Egypt and India and other Empire garrisons such as Gibraltar, thereby
releasing regular units for service in France and enabling the formation of an
additional five regular army divisions (for a total of eleven) by early 1915.
Several reserve units were also deployed with regular formations and the first
territorial unit to see action on the Western Front was the Glasgow Territorial
Signallers Group, Royal Engineers at the First Battle of Ypres on 11th October
1914. The first fully Territorial division to join the fighting on the Western
Front was the 46th Division in March 1915, with divisions later serving in
Gallipoli and elsewhere. As the war progressed, and casualties mounted, the
distinctive character of territorial units was diluted by the inclusion of
conscript and New Army drafts. Following the Armistice all units of the
territorial Force were gradually disbanded.
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