17th London Rifles drafts after High Wood? 1916

[Private Butler]

According to Ron Wilcox in his history of 'The Poplars' the 1st Battalion landed in France for the first time on March 10th 1915. However, I have reason to believe that my namesake first arrived in France as a draft sometime after his battalion lost over 300 men at High Wood, arriving between September 19th and 27th. According to Wilcox there were two lots of new drafts sent over in this time gap, during which the Poplars were refitting.

Now, I know that A. Butler has no 14-15 Star on his Medal Card Index paperwork and I know of no other time that the Poplars were redrafted in 1916 so I am assuming it was then that he joined the regiment unless anybody knows of another date that they may have been redrafted?

My questions are concerned with what he did before this date. I am trying to build a picture of his training. I am assuming he could well have been a conscript if he spent 5 months training (is this an average or a fairly reliable estimate of average training time) given that conscription began in January 1916 and he didn't get to France as I say, until September of that same year. Wilcox suggests that the first lot were in training around the Hatfield/Watford area for their training period, so:

-Would this have been the same training camp for later drafts and does anyone know specifically where it would have been?

-Would drafts like my friend Butler have been in a feeder battalion such as the 2nd/17th waiting for transfer to active service in France in the 1st/17th?

-Given that the first lot would have gone overseas with their CO and all other officers and NCOs, would the men who trained these later drafts have remained as training officers in camp or would some of them have gone overseas with their new batch of fighting men? Perhaps a mixture of the two?

-How would training have been different given the lessons being learnt on the field from say a recruit of the first batch of Kitchener's New Army, if any different?

Many thanks, in advance, for any time spent on this one.

Sam

[Pete1052]

My grandfather was in the 17th London and one of his stories was that a large influx of conscripts after heavy losses changed the battalion from being men with middle class backgrounds to being guys from East Ham. Grandpa believed himself to be one of the five or six members of the original 1915 battalion who were still in the unit when the war ended.

[Private Butler]

My grandfather was in the 17th London and one of his stories was that a large influx of conscripts after heavy losses changed the battalion from being men with middle class backgrounds to being guys from East Ham. Grandpa believed himself to be one of the five or six members of the original 1915 battalion who were still in the unit when the war ended.

That's interesting, I was always under the impression that the 17th was very white collar. Thomas himself was 27 when he was killed and was living in Shoreditch at the time he enlisted, despite his family being in Wandsworth. Must have been after high Wood methinks given the casualties there - 332 from the Pops alone.

[Pete1052]

He said many of the slumboys were thieves but that their upbringing made them born survivors on the battlefield.

[Private Butler]

Reading books like Coppard's With A Machine Gun to Cambrai I figure that his situation must have been very different to that given that he was not training as a whole battalion but as new drafts for an existing battalion. So, does anybody know whether this would mean, as normal practice I assume, that the men would have been put into platoons the same as George was in 14? How would they have been organised differently, if at all, from the original training given to the original 1915 battalion?