Posting to unit

[akduerden]

I am trying to track my Grandfathers movements after he enlisted. So far I know the following:

• My Grandfather enlisted on 7/12/1914 and arrived Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow on 8/12/1914, joining RFA Depot No. 6.
• On 15/12/1914 he was posted to B Battery, 115th Brigade in the 26th Division. According to LLT the 26th Division had been forming on Salisbury Plains since September 1914.
• Gunner John William Horrigan B Battery, 115th Brigade RFA was killed in an accident at Mere, Wiltshire on 7/2/1915
• B Battery, 115th Brigade RFA transferred to No. 2 RFA Camp, Corton, Codford, Wiltshire on 4/6/1915 and on 25/6/1915 transferred to Boynton Camp, Corton.

Mere and Codford are quite close and both in the Salisbury Plains area (I think).

Should I presume the 115th Brigade were training around Mere and my Grandfather would have travelled by train from Glasgow to Salisbury (or a train stop closer to Mere).

If anyone has further information about the location of 26th Division units during early 1915 I would greatly appreciate it. Also any knowledge of how recruits were transferred from the depots would be useful.

Andrew

[Moonraker]

Eight years too late, I've just happened on this question (which shows the values of tags). And Andrew hasn't visited us since last September, so I'll try to PM him.

More about Horrigan here.  The 26th Division included units from Scotland, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, Devon and Cornwall. It assembled in the Wylye Valley in late September 1914. Headquarters at "Green hill, Sutton Veny" but artillery was at Shaftesbury, Gillingham, Wincanton and Mere (probably in billets over the winter); three companies of the 7th Wiltshire were at Marlborough, another at Hungerford.); to France May (September?) 1915 The terrible winter of 1915-15 resulted in many men  being billeted in civilian households.

Corton and Boyton (not Boynton) were/are small villages where five camps were built early in the war.They catered mainly for artillery units.  I lump the two together in my postcard collection because they were so close together, and records of postings to them can be confused, eg "Corton Camp, Boyton".

The War Graves of the British Empire for the Great War in Wiltshire notes that "BOYTON (CORTON) CEMETERY belongs to St Mary's Church, Boyton, and is in the hamlet of Corton". Kelly's Directory for the period describes Cortington or Corton as a hamlet in Boyton parish. Boyton Camp had its own postmark, which I imagine was applied to mail from Corton Camp.

Small stations on the Salisbury-Warminster railway line handled a great deal of military traffic, and many soldiers arriving at the local camps would have de-trained at Codford and marched to their accommodation.

If the 115th bought guns, limbers etc with them, it may be that these were off-loaded at Warminster  - I don't know if Codford had the facilities for this.

 

 

Edited 17 June , 2023 by Moonraker