Provisional Battalions

[Bob Chandler]

As I understand it, in 1915 it was decided to form 60 Provisional Battalions from the home service Territorials of each regiment who were either not medically fit for overseas service or were still refusing to take the Imperial Service Obligation. In the majority of cases, a single Battalion was raised from a regiment's home service troops.

Can anyone tell me whether this was the case with the Royal Berkshire Regiment and if so, what number Provisional Battalion they became?

Many thanks

Charles

[purley]

As I understand it, in 1915 it was decided to form 60 Provisional Battalions from the home service Territorials of each regiment who were either not medically fit for overseas service or were still refusing to take the Imperial Service Obligation. In the majority of cases, a single Battalion was raised from a regiment's home service troops.

Can anyone tell me whether this was the case with the Royal Berkshire Regiment and if so, what number Provisional Battalion they became?

Charles

I think you may be mixing things up - Provisonal battalions during the war were formed by merging two line battalions that had suffered severe casualties so that they again formed an effective fighting unit until they could retire and replenish. What happened in September 1916 was the formation of the Training Reserve when 112 units were taken from the county regiments and variously styled graduated, young soldiers, junior reserve senior reserve etc. In this case it was the 9th Royal Berks that became the 37th TR regiment. These had been designated reserve battalions as of the 10th April 1915 when K4 was broken up.

The Royal Berks territorials were the 4th Battalion - the 1st/4th was made up of men who had signed the declaration, the 2nd/4th of men who hadn't and the 3rd/4th of new recruits and men who couldn't fit into the 1st/4th. They were redesignated the 4th (reserve) battalion 8/4/16.

The 8th Royal Berks started off as Army troops for the 26th Division but then got sent to France to replace a guards battalion in 1st Bde/1st Div and were generally treated like regulars rather than service

regards

John

[PPCLI]

Hi John,

No, Charles is quite correct. A quote from the Regimental Warpath site:

A number of other Territorial Force Battalions were raised during the summer of 1915, these Battalions were known as Provisional Battalions. These were made up from personnel of the 2nd and 3rd line Battalions not available for overseas service and soldiers of low medical categories. By 1916 there were 41 Provisional Battalions serving in ten Provisional Brigades. In November 1916 the 6th, 8th and 9th Provisional Brigades were used to form the Home Service Divisions (71st-73rd). Most of these Provisional Battalions were disbanded when the Graduated Battalions were posted to the Home Service Divisions. The remaining Provisional Battalions became numbered Home Service Territorial Battalions of the Infantry Regiments on 01 January 1917.

The remaining seven Provisional Brigades were numbered 221st-227th, the Brigades were later called Mixed Brigades and were stationed on the east coast for the remainder of the war.

Best wishes,

Stuart

[PPCLI]

Charles,

The three 4th Royal Berkshire men I have found being posted to a Provisional Battalion all went to 83rd Provisional Battalion (one via the 66th Provisional Battalion). Only one I kept a note of was 3516 William John Grace (record on Ancestry).

Other Provisional Battalions:

3rd Provisional Battalion became 16th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders

9th Provisional Battalion became 21st Highland Light Infantry

10th Provisional Battalion became 15th Scottish Rifles

11th Provisional Battalion became 11th Royal Scots Fusiliers

21st Provisional Battalion became 35th Northumberland Fusiliers

23rd Provisional Battalion became 26th Durham Light Infantry

24th Provisional Battalion became 18th Yorkshire Regiment

25th Provisional Battalion became 27th Durham Light Infantry

28th Provisional Battalion became 13th Lincolnshire Regiment

41st Provisional Battalion, became 12th King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment)

43rd Provisional Battalion became 25th The King's (Liverpool Regiment)

44th Provisional Battalion became 26th The King's (Liverpool Regiment)

45th Provisional Battalion became 28th Manchester Regiment

47th Provisional Battalion became 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers

48th Provisional Battalion became 4th Monmouthshire Regiment

49th Provisional Battalion became 14th South Lancashire Regiment

62nd Provisional Battalion became 9th Northamptonshire Regiment

63rd Provisional Battalion became 32nd Middlesex Regiment

64th Provisional Battalion became 14th Suffolk Regiment

65th Provisional Battalion became 15th Essex Regiment

66th Provisional Battalion became 16th Essex Regiment

67th Provisional Battalion became 17th Essex Regiment

68th Provisional Battalion became 18th Bedfordshire Regiment

69th Provisional Battalion became 19th The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment)

70th Provisional Battalion became 15th Royal Sussex Regiment

81st Provisional Battalion became 18th Royal Warwickshire Regiment

82nd Provisional Battalion became 17th Gloucestershire Regiment

83rd Provisional Battalion became 10th Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

84th Provisional Battalion became 17th Hampshire Regiment

85th Provisional Battalion became 11th Somerset Light Infantry

100th Provisional Battalion became 29th London Regiment

101st Provisional Battalion became 30th London Regiment

107th Provisional Battalion became 31st London Regiment

108th Provisional Battalion became 32nd London Regiment

I may have missed a few. There were many others but they were gradually subsumed e.g. 12th Provisional Battalion was disbanded and its men sent to the 10th Prov. Bn., which eventually became the 15th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles).

Cheers,

Stuart

[purley]

The three 4th Royal Berkshire men I have found being posted to a Provisional Battalion all went to 83rd Provisional Battalion (one via the 66th Provisional Battalion). Only one I kept a note of was 3516 William John Grace (record on Ancestry).

Stuart

Many thanks for this - you learn something new every day. 3516 Grace was certainly one of the territorials I was missing.

In nearly 20 years of trawling through Royal Berks records I have never before come across even a mention of provisional battalions in this context - several mentions of p-bs from France after a major battle. Where do I go to look?

regards

John

[Graham Stewart]

A lot of information regarding the formation of Territorial Provisional Battalions can actually be found in local newspapers for 1915. The number of PB's formed depended on the number of TF Bn's a regiment supported, as in the case of the Northumberland Fusiliers they formed the 21st & 22nd Provisional Bn's. The 21st being formed by the home service sections of 4th & 7th Bn's and the 22nd by the home service sections 5th & 6th Bn's.

A book entitled "British Infantry Regiments 1914-1918", whose author I forget covers nearly every battalion formed as does the two volume academic work "The Lineage Book of British Land Force's" by Fredericks.

[themonsstar]

The book was by Brig. EA.James OBE,TD. "British Infantry Regiments 1914-1918"

[purley]

A lot of information regarding the formation of Territorial Provisional Battalions can actually be found in local newspapers for 1915. The number of PB's formed depended on the number of TF Bn's a regiment supported, as in the case of the Northumberland Fusiliers they formed the 21st & 22nd Provisional Bn's. The 21st being formed by the home service sections of 4th & 7th Bn's and the 22nd by the home service sections 5th & 6th Bn's.

A book entitled "British Infantry Regiments 1914-1918", whose author I forget covers nearly every battalion formed as does the two volume academic work "The Lineage Book of British Land Force's" by Fredericks.

Graham

thanks for this - I already have James book but had not noticed the references to the PBs before - I also have the Berkshire Mercury on microfiche for the war period but the PBs seem to passed Berkshire by. What I would like to look at are references to men from the Royal Berks who went to one or other of the PBs - Ancestry was quoted - are there other sources as I have not come across any.

regards

John

[Ron Clifton]

Hello all

There is also some information about Provisional Battalions in A F Becke's "Order of Battle of Divisions, Part 2B" which deals with the second-line and Home Service divisions. Men in these battalions were normally existing TF home-service-only men, whilst those in the Training Reserve were predominantly those newly joining under conscription.

It is mostly buried among the copious footnotes to the tables covering 71, 72 and 73 Divisions.

These are the "Provisionalm battalions" specifically referred to on this thread but the same term has been used in other contexts bot before and during the Great War. In the Boer war, a regiment having both its Regular battalions serving in South Africa would leave a rump with this title at its home depot to handle recruit training etc, and in the Great War there were, as John/purley says, several instances of battalions being temporarily amalgamated, sometimes under fanciful names like the Dubsters (RDF/RMF) or the Norsets, but more usually as Composite, rather than Provisional, battalions.

Ron

[PPCLI]

Many thanks for this - you learn something new every day. 3516 Grace was certainly one of the territorials I was missing.

In nearly 20 years of trawling through Royal Berks records I have never before come across even a mention of provisional battalions in this context - several mentions of p-bs from France after a major battle. Where do I go to look?

Hi John,

I think I was more likely to notice provisional battalions because my research focuses on a TF battalion, one in which a significant proportion of the surviving service files are for those men who enlisted with the reserve (second line) battalion and subsequently passed through the provisional battalion(s) at some stage of their service. All the data I have on provisional battalions has come via the service files uploaded by Ancestry.

Another one of your 4th Berkshire men:

4104 William Marshall, 41 Cumberland Road, Reading

Enlisted 16 Sep 1914, 4th Royal Berkshire Regt (National Reserve), 1 Supernumerary Coy.

Posted 1 Nov 1915, 66th Provisional Battalion

Posted 11 Jan 1916, 83rd Provisional Battalion

Transferred 1 Jan 1917, 10th Ox & Bucks

Transferred 2 Mar 1917, Devonshire Regt

Overseas, 26 Mar 1917

Transferred 14 May 1917, 176 Labour Coy.

Disembodied 16 Feb 1919

So, a possible pattern of 66th and 83rd Provisional Battalions used by the Berkshires? His MIC records: Devonshire Regiment 51491 Acting Corporal; Labour Corps 105258 Acting Corporal

Perhaps see you this weekend at the conference.

Best wishes,

Stuart

[anthony yates]

Hi I have part of my Grandfathers (Albert Edward Yates service numbers 3944/50838/81007) war records and the war diary of the 2/4th Battalion Royal Berkshire regiment .It says 25 men were posted to the 86th Prov? Battalion on 3rd of November 1915.This links in with the thread above.

This ties up with his service records, which also shows that he was promoted to lance sergeant and transferred/posted to the RDC 9th Ob Co (Observation Coy?) on 1/4/16.

Later he is with the 28th Labour corps Queens (Royal west Surrey Regt) 10/3/17 .Lastly 136 Labour Coy until demobbed in 1919.

We know he was injured in France and we presume this led to him joining the Labour Corps but we are not sure where he fought and with whom?

I wonder if you could shed some light on this at all

Thanks

Kind Regards

Anthony

[anthony yates]

sorry typo 83rd Prov Battalion not 86th!