Extra Reserve Lancashire Fusiliers

[stevenbecker]

Mates,

Another strange one of your Army?

An AIF soldier claims some 4 years with the 4Bn Lancashire Fusiliers

A check of the LLT, shows this was an Extra Reserve Bn based at Bury?

The soldier

KANE    Edward Arthur    5836    Spr    2 LH Sig Troop    14R Tos 2 LH Sig Troop 3-16 to APostC 4-16 to APostC France 6-16 to hosp (eyes) 9-16 shown APostC BPO London UK 1-17 RTA MU asthma for 2 months change disch 16-10-17 (British 4Bn Lancashire Fusiliers 4 years)

Born and raised at Salford Manchester

Since Salford appears to be a base for the Lancashire Fusiliers and Bury being not far north of Salford, and having the 3rd Reserve Bn there 

Any insight in what the Extra Reserve is?

S.B

[brianmorris547]

SB

2/5 Lancashire Fusiliers were raised at Bury in late 1914. They were originally the 5th (Reserve) Bn. I have recently read the Bury Times 1914 and 1915 and did see references to an extra Reserve Bn. 

Tricia will be along shortly.

Cheers

Brian

 

[stevenbecker]

Brien,

Thanks, but I believe this was four years before the war, so possibly between 1905 to 1914?

Since he was 30 years old in 1914, its hard to say when he served in the 4Bn LF, before he moved to Australia

So did he serve in the Regular LF before being placed in the Extra Res or did the 4Bn have another funtion?

S.B

[Keith_history_buff]

This is what is stated on the attestation, but it does not clarify matters. 
 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Brian was right to expect me to look at this as I am always interested in anything to do with the LF, though any special knowledge I have is limited to the 5th Battalion, a Territorial unit which at the beginning of the war was the 5th Reserve Battalion, based in Bury, before it split into the 1/5th, 2/5th etc (both of which units saw early overseas service).

However, having checked the LLT https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-british-infantry-regiments-of-1914-1918/lancashire-fusiliers/  (as Steven did), I see that the 4th Battalion was a regular battalion, described there as an "4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion". I assume that it was described as "extra", because the 3rd Battalion was the Reserve Battalion of the regulars.

LLT tells us that the 4th Battalion was a training unit which spent the whole war in the UK. It was in Bury in August 1914, but moved to Barrow in Furness within days of war breaking out, ending up as part of the Severn Garrison from October 1916.

I am not entirely clear when Kane joined the AIF, but, assuming that the 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion existed for some years before the war, it seems feasible that he spent 4 years with it, possibly partly in Barrow in Furness if he didn't join the AIF immediately upon the outbreak of war.

Tricia

 

Edited 8 June by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

[rolt968]

An Extra Reserve Battalion was a battalion of the Special Reserve. The Special Reserve battalions were created from what had been Militia Battalions in the 1908 reforms. They were numbered immediately after the regular battalions.

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/soldiers/a-soldiers-life-1914-1918/enlisting-into-the-army/british-army-reserves-and-reservists/the-special-reserve-category-b/

In most cases there was only one Special Reserve battalion in a regiment, usually the 3rd Battalion. The men in the Special Reserve battalions would become reinforcements for the regular battalions.

Where there was another battalion, the Extra Reserve Battalion, the Extra Reserve Battalion also consisted of Special Reserivists, but in theory they would be mobilised as a battalion to serve overseas. I believe that this happened in only a few cases and that in the others the men of the Extra Reserve battalions were used as reinforcements for the regular battalions like the men of Special Reserve battalions.  This seems to have been the case with 4 Lancashire Fusliers since they remained in the UK as a training battalion.

RM

Edited 8 June by rolt968

[FROGSMILE]

7 hours ago, stevenbecker said:

Brien,

Thanks, but I believe this was four years before the war, so possibly between 1905 to 1914?

Since he was 30 years old in 1914, its hard to say when he served in the 4Bn LF, before he moved to Australia

So did he serve in the Regular LF before being placed in the Extra Res or did the 4Bn have another funtion?

S.B

If it was between 1905 and 1908 then it probably refers to the 4th Volunteer Battalion (VB) of the Lancashire Fusiliers, a unit of the pre Territorials, Volunteer Force (VF).  I say this because his declaration on enlistment specifically says “volunteer”, which had a very precise meaning up until 1908.

The Extra Reserve was something different and if I recall correctly, along with specially selected units like the North and South Irish Horse, was part of an auxiliary forces element given a wartime role upon mobilisation to defend key infrastructure like ports and railway terminals, etc. whereas the Special Reserve supplied battle casualty replacements for the regular battalions.  Of course as the war evolved things changed with the usage of the Veterans / National Reserve and Volunteer Training Corps becoming organised for home defence.

Afternote: examining the Childers Reforms it seems that the Lancashire Fusiliers initially had just two regular battalions (1st and 2nd), one militia battalion (3rd (Militia))and two volunteer battalions (1st and 2nd VB), so the 4th Battalion can only refer to the Extra Reserve and not the Volunteer Force.

Edited 8 June by FROGSMILE

[Keith_history_buff]

Could he be making things up, to secure his enlistment?

He says 4 years service, which sounds plausible for Volunteers, whereas it would be a longer term of service for Regulars, or Militia. The use of 'volunteer' suggests enlisting in the Volunteer Force prior to 1908. Up to here, it's okay.

Under usual circumstances, the 4th Battalion of most infantry regiments would be TF. Not so in the case of this "large" regiment, whereby there was a 4th Battalion of regulars from 1900 to 1906. There was a 4th battalion after 1908, but they were Special Reserve. There were a total of 3 volunteer battalions, not 4, prior to 1908. 

As per the prior thread, I am assuming the Volunteer Force had a 4 year term of service, and this was continued when they became the Territorial Force.

 

[Allan1892]

2 hours ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

I am not entirely clear when Kane joined the AIF

From his AIF record -- enlisted at Sydney 6th August 1915, joined AIF 14th Reinforcements on 15th September 1915 (images courtesy of the National Archives of Australia)

[RussT]

There were actually 3 Volunteer Battalions of the Lancashire Fusiliers:

Their immediate lineage, as per Ray Westlake "Tracing the Rifle Volunteers", goes as:

8th Rifle Corps (Bury) to 1st Vol Bn LF in 1883 and then to 5th Bn TF LF in 1908

12th Rifle Corps (Rochdale) to 2nd Vol Bn LF in 1883 and then to 6th Bn TF LF in 1908

17th Rifle Corps (Salford) to the 3rd Vol Bn LF in 1886 and then to the 7th Bn and 8th Bn TF LF in 1908.

Regards

Russ

[FROGSMILE]

8 minutes ago, RussT said:

There were actually 3 Volunteer Battalions of the Lancashire Fusiliers:

Their immediate lineage, as per Ray Westlake "Tracing the Rifle Volunteers", goes as:

8th Rifle Corps (Bury) to 1st Vol Bn LF in 1883 and then to 5th Bn TF LF in 1908

12th Rifle Corps (Rochdale) to 2nd Vol Bn LF in 1883 and then to 6th Bn TF LF in 1908

17th Rifle Corps (Salford) to the 3rd Vol Bn LF in 1886 and then to the 7th Bn and 8th Bn TF LF in 1908.

Regards

Russ

Thanks Russ. I’m out and about on the move today, away from my Westlake, and so had to resort to Wikipedia (never ideal), which erroneously referred only only to the 8th and 12th RVC for some reason. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childers_Reforms
Like you Westlake is always my go to ordinarily.  That said it unfortunately doesn’t really help us with the 4th Battalion reference of this thread.

Edited 8 June by FROGSMILE

[brianmorris547]

I have just had a play on FMP using WO 96 in the keywords and it came up with a Nelson Lovett of Radcliffe, Lancashire. His papers are on Ancestry (WO 363 Lov 2240). They show that he was Service Number 1438 in 4th V.B. Lancashire Fusiliers and in April 1918 signed up to 16 Bn Lancashire Fusiliers. The papers refer to the Volunteer Act 1916.

I do not think that he served in France. He is not on a Medal Roll.

The 1911 Census shows him at 14 Milner St, Radcliffe, age 30.

Brian

[RussT]

18 minutes ago, brianmorris547 said:

in April 1918 signed up to 16 Bn Lancashire Fusiliers.

It's not the Lancashire Fusiliers - rather it's the 16th Battalion Lancashire Volunteer Regiment - although I admit I don't know much about them.

Russ

[RussT]

Related to the VTC, and given a new release of life via the Volunteer Act 1916 (as mentioned on one of his papers).

Volunteer Training Corps - Wikipedia

A little discussed topic on the Forum but a Forum search does return a few his on the general subject.

It would be "nice" to have a full list of the Volunteer Regiments that were raised.

I do acknowledge that I don't know what to make of the stamp "4th Vol Bn Lanc Fusiliers" on one of his papers. 

Russ

Image courtesy of FMP

 

 

[RussT]

An interesting old post - but no source References unfortunately

 

[FROGSMILE]

17 hours ago, RussT said:

Related to the VTC, and given a new release of life via the Volunteer Act 1916 (as mentioned on one of his papers).

Volunteer Training Corps - Wikipedia

A little discussed topic on the Forum but a Forum search does return a few his on the general subject.

It would be "nice" to have a full list of the Volunteer Regiments that were raised.

I do acknowledge that I don't know what to make of the stamp "4th Vol Bn Lanc Fusiliers" on one of his papers. 

Russ

Image courtesy of FMP

 

 

The previously VTC, County Volunteer Regiments (see varying title scrolls below), did subsequently (and formally) become numbered “Volunteer Battalions” of their local regular regiments right at the end of the war**.  I’ve never searched it out, but I imagine that they are all shown against their parent regiments in the 1919 Army List.  They were subsequently disbanded.

**Forum member Graham Stewart, an SME in this area, explains this in at least one post some years ago.

Edited 9 June by FROGSMILE

[stevenbecker]

Mates,

Many thanks for your interest, as this had me stumped, not being O'fay with your units

I was confused by his use of at first, of Volunteer, and seeing Extra Reserve in the LLT 

I think Keith hit the nail on the head, and his service was around the 1908 peroid, VB not extra Res

Thats if correct?

S.B

[brianmorris547]

8 hours ago, RussT said:

It's not the Lancashire Fusiliers - rather it's the 16th Battalion Lancashire Volunteer Regiment - although I admit I don't know much about them.

Russ

Russ

My mistake. It reads 16 Bn Lancashire Volunteers.

I will have a look for others. I really knew nothing about them. 

Thanks, Brian

[FROGSMILE]

There seem to be rather a lot of posters not reading the preceding posts, and that’s arguably leading to excessive, albeit no doubt unintended, repetition in this thread.

Edited 10 June by FROGSMILE

[FROGSMILE]

On 08/06/2023 at 22:43, stevenbecker said:

Mates,

Many thanks for your interest, as this had me stumped, not being O'fay with your units

I was confused by his use of at first, of Volunteer, and seeing Extra Reserve in the LLT 

I think Keith hit the nail on the head, and his service was around the 1908 peroid, VB not extra Res

Thats if correct?

S.B

Steve, I can’t be definitive as to which 4th Battalion your subject served with, but I was puzzled by the sequence that the unit numbering took and so looked into this further.  On examination it seems that there were three occasions when a 4th Battalion existed over the span of just a few decades.

When the Lancashire Fusiliers formed in July 1881 as a result of the Childers Reforms it at first had just one Militia battalion, the 3rd as I mentioned above.  However, in 1891 a 4th battalion was created by dividing the overstrength 3rd in two.

Subsequently and in common with a handful of other regiments that recruited from highly populated urban areas, the Lancashire Fusiliers raised two further regular battalions to deal with the emerging crisis in South Africa, the 3rd in 1898, and the 4th in March 1900. This necessitated adjustments to the numeric designation of the Militia battalions, which became the 5th and 6th battalions. However, the 3rd and 4th Regular battalions were disbanded in 1906 and numbering reverted to its previous configuration.

There then followed the fallout from the 2nd Boer War, whereby as an outcome another set of reforms, this time by Haldane, led to the 3rd and 4th Militia battalions (returned remember to their original designation just 2-years before) being ordered to stand down, and raised in their place two new units (in effect direct replacements under different terms and conditions) designated the 3rd (Reserve) and 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalions.

Going by this course of events it seems that your subject’s use of the word “volunteer” was misleading, and it suggests that if he was in a 4th Battalion LF circa 1900 then it must have been as a regular.  As you’ve pointed out, the dates are critical in establishing which of the 4th battalions he served with and thus what his status was, regular, or auxiliary.

Edited 13 June by FROGSMILE