Battalions formed by (civilian) companies

[RobL]

Putting together the final touches for my book 'The North Eastern Railway in the First World War', due for publication in August, which will of course feature the 17th (Pioneer) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers - also known as the NER Battalion as it was formed of NER men, as was the 32nd Battalion. Were any other Battalions in WW1 formed of men that joined up from a single company as in this case? As far as I can gather it was the only case.

Best regards, Rob

[bill24chev]

The 15th (service)Bn HLI was formed by a large proportion of the volunteers coming from the Glasgow Tramways.

An infantry Bn was at full strength over 1000 men. Only a large firm could have the resources to absorb such a loss of man power in a short time. How did the NER cope with such a reduction in staff. Also did The Bn lose men by having skilled engineers and footplate men returned to civvy street to carry out important war work.

In the case of the HLI/Glasgow tramways I believe that tram drivers and conductor posts were carried out by women. I cannot recall railway driving & fireman jobs being done by women although the did take over posts such as signal(man) and station staff.

[centurion]

A substantial number of women became constables in the NER railway police.

In the railways of Britain as a whole by 1916 13,900 women were employed as clerks, over 900 as porters with another 1,000 as platform workers. There were over 2,000 carriage cleaners and nearly 600 engine cleaners. Over 700 ticket collectors/inspectors and another 700 gate keepers. In addition about 1,200 were employed in the workshops on railway work with another 1,000 employed in them making munitions. Employment of women as firemen or drivers was banned by the NUR as they would only permit women to be employed as temporary workers and these posts were part of the permanent career progression system. There were however 230 female labourers

[centurion]

The biggest drain on the Railways must have been ROD given that by the end of 1918 over 24,000 railwaymen were attached to it as well as a further 2,000 plate layers employed in a civilian capacity

[RobL]

Don't have the numbers with me but as Centurion says, vast numbers of female workers, not on the footplate but porters, warehouse workers, engine cleaners (one of my favourite photographs from the war is a 1917 photo of women cleaning one of the new electric locomotives used on the NER, see here -

As well as the workers going to the ROD, the NER also sent over an entire class of locomotives, fifty T1 class 0-8-0's. What started off as casual research rapidly turned into the writing of the book, it's such a fascinating story, and may be doing talks to accompany it