My Grandfather served in three of the battalions of the Regiment, the 2nd, 6th and 10th.  Because of the paucity of records on individual private soldiers I have had to try to make my best assessments on when and why he might have moved between these units.

“Tennis ends abruptly..........The newspapers are full of the acute situation in Europe” General Jack’s entry for July 29th, 1914, before the outbreak of war.  To me, a quintessentially English start to war.

At eleven o’clock at night, 4th August 1914, the British ultimatum to Germany, that Britain would go to war if Germany invaded Belgium, ran out. On August 7th Field-Marshall Lord Kitchener, as the new Secretary of State for War, called for 100,000 “volunteers” to increase the size of the Army. Many of those who volunteered did so in groups of friends, or as whole workgroups.  The Battalions they joined were known as “Pals” Battalions, like the Accrington Pals. Men flooded to the recruiting stations, many believed that “it would all be over by Christmas”, so they wanted to get in quick to have a crack at the Germans.  We know now that it was not like that.

The 6th (Service) Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment (York and Lancs as it was known) came into existence on the 19th August, 1914, and Major F.E. Ashton was appointed to raise and command it. The 6th Battalion would be part of the 32nd Infantry Brigade of the 11th (Northern) Division. The 11th Division would be wholly formed with battalions of the “New Armies”.

The 10th (Service) Battalion was formed on the 23rd September, 1914, as part of the 63rd Brigade of the 21st Division. “The Division was ordered to be stationed at Halton Park, between Tring and Wendover, the men being billeted in Tring and neighbourhood; but by May, 1915, huts had been erected in Halton Park and these were occupied until early in August, when the Division moved to camp at Witley, where the final training was carried out.”  I have included this little extract from the Battalion History as my brother and I were both Aircraft Apprentices in 1963 - 1965, and the Apprentice training school was at Halton.

As war started the 2nd Battalion was already in being as a part of the regular army, and was based at Limerick in Ireland.  The 2nd Battalion was in the 16th Brigade of the 6th Division.

These were the three battalions of the York and Lancs in which my grandfather would serve during the war.

As a complete aside, the 2nd Battalion would form part of the defence on the island of Crete in the Second World War, and I have included a section on them on my site www.crete-1941.org.uk .