Accrington Pals: The 11th (Service) Battalion (Accrington) East Lancashire Regiment: A History of the Battalion Raised from Accrington, Blackburn, Burnley and Chorley in World War One

By William Bennett Turner

Follow the footsteps of the Pals in their journey from Lancashire to their training camps in England and Wales and to the villages and battlefields of France. A comprehensive account, with maps and pictures, of a Pals Battalion's service throughout the war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 28, 2008
• ISBN: 9781473811621

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PALS

The 11th (Service) Battalion

(Accrington)

East Lancashire Regiment

WILLIAM TURNER

Additional research

FERGUS REED

Pen & Sword Books Limited

This book is dedicated to the memory of those

men who served in the Service Battalion known

as the ‘Accrington Pals’.

First published in 1987 by Wharncliffe Publishing Limited

Second impression 1992

Third impression 1998

Published by Leo Cooper

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Limited

47 Church Street, Barnsley

South Yorkshire S70 2AS

© William Turner 1987, 1992, 1998

ISBN: 0-85052-360-5

Printed by Yorkshire Web, Barnsley

Front cover: The Hindle brothers,

Clarence (standing) and John,

members of X (District) Company.

Also available in the same series:

Barnsley Pals:The 13th & 14th (Service) Battalions (Barnsley)

The York & Lancaster Regiment by Jon Cooksey

Sheffield City. The 12th (Service) Battalion (Sheffield)

The York & Lancaster Regiment by Paul Oldfield and Ralph Gibson

Liverpool Pals:A History of the 17th, 18th, 19th & 20th (Service)

Battalions The King’s (Liverpool Regiment) by Graham Maddocks

Leeds Pals:A History of the 15th (Service) Battalion The Prince

of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) by Laurie Milner

Salford Pals:A History of the 15th, 16th, 19th & 20th Battalions

Lancashire Fusiliers by Michael Stedman

Manchester Pals:The 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd &

23rd Battalions of the Manchester Regiment by Michael Stedman

Birmingham Pals:The 14th, 15th, & 16th Battalions of the Royal

Warwickshire Regiment by Terry Carter

Tyneside Irish:24th, 25th, 26th & 27th (Service) Battalions of the

Northumberland Fusiliers by John Sheen

Tyneside Scottish:20th, 21th, 22nd & 23rd (Service) Battalions of

the Northumberland Fusiliers by Graham Stewart and John Sheen

A group of ‘X’ (District) Company Pals on active service in France.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

1.

Come back this afternoon

2.

And we be brethren

3.

Croeso i Gymru! Welcome to Wales!

4.

Some Battalion! Some Colonel

5.

An eastern interlude

6.

We captured Serre three times a day

7.

God help the sinner

8.

The Aftermath

Epilogue

Appendix

1.

Personae

2.

Correspondent’s Reports

3.

Report on Operations

4.

Battle Report 12th Y.& L. July 1st

5.

Peltzer letter

6.

Appreciation messages

7.

Casualty lists

8.

Hometowns of July 1st casualties

9.

Total Battalion casualties 1916–1918

Nominal roll

Decorations

Officers Monthly Army List

Name index

Photo postscript

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgments

And away went

another, a red

horse; its rider was

allowed to take peace

away from the earth

and to make men slay

each other; he was

given a huge sword.

Revelation 6 verse 4

(Moffatt Bible)

PAL

Slang or low colloquial

Romany English: ‘Phal’ — brother, friend

Sanskrit: Bhrator — brother

Websters International Dictionary 1961

The industrial town of Accrington at the turn of the century.

Foreword

Martin Middlebrook

I’ve been there, a most striking place, a sad place — Serre! The front line trench from which the 11th East Lancashires attacked on the first day of the battle of the Somme is still there, a grassy zig-zag, clearly a trench, just on the edge of a wood up a farm track. The 11th East Lancashires were, of course, the Accrington Pals. Unfortunately, the place where their old front line trench is to be found is now called the Sheffield Memorial Park. But the Sheffield unit did not attack from this stretch of front line. Their sector was a short distance to the north, but post 1918 Sheffield established their Memorial Park nearer the track up which the visitors would have to come. Accrington must have been asleep and made no protest.

In many ways the Accrington Pals were typical of Kitchener’s New Army of volunteers in 1914, but that local enthusiasm seems to have had a harder time in getting its Pals Battalion accepted by the War Office. Bill Turner’s book will describe the difficulties. In the post-war period, Accrington could not seem to stir itself to provide any memorial at the place where the Pals suffered so terribly on the Somme.

An Accrington man has produced a different type of memorial, a well researched history of the Pals which deserves wide circulation and support, not only in Accrington but further afield. I congratulate Bill Turner and most willingly commend his work.

Introduction

Accrington, East Lancashire, in the high hot summer of 1914 was a town of 45,525 people. A town famous for textile machinery, bricks and its football team. Howard and Bulloughs, makers of textile machinery, sold and installed thousands of machines, world-wide, every year. Seven collieries and thirty-two cotton mills completed the industrial basis of the town’s economy.

Accrington was a prosperous town. The Borough Treasurer presented ‘the most gratifying report on our financial position in thirty years an excellent state of affairs.’¹ In contrast the Medical Officer of Health spoke of general mortality and infant mortality rates higher than the national average with ‘too many preventable deaths.’² In a ‘prosperous’ town there were many poor, the margin separating working people from want and hunger desperately narrow. Accrington, as other industrial towns in Britain in 1914, had its bad housing and poverty but its parks and open spaces, along with easy access to open countryside, helped to make it a comparatively pleasant town. It had a considerable civic pride in its good reputation and achievements.

On June 27th, 1914, one of the cotton mills closed for six weeks because of lack of orders, putting five hundred men and women out of work. The closure came as no surprise. Orders for cotton cloth weaving had been falling for many months as part of a general decline in the British cotton industry. Other mills announced the extension to two weeks of the annual one weeks, unpaid holiday. The news added to the cotton workers’ growing fears about the future for themselves and the industry.

Engineering workers in the town were also restless for a different reason. In early June, 1914 simmering unrest by the skilled employees about low wages at Howard and Bulloughs culminated with a formal request for a ten per cent increase in wages.³ Saturday June 27th arrived with no reply from the employers. Feelings ran high, nothing it seemed could prevent a strike. The employees decided on a final dead-line of July 1st.

Mr Tom Bullough, Chairman of Directors of Howard & Bulloughs, a family firm founded in 1856. A.O.&T.

An artist’s view of Messrs. Howard and, Bulloughs Ltd, Globe Works, Accrington, as featured in a 1914 advertisement. Notwithstanding some artistic licence the works was large enough to employ over 4,000 men and boys. A.O.&T.

Groups of engineers from Howard and Bulloughs discuss the strike outside Accrington Market Hall. A.O.&T.

Meanwhile, on Sunday June 28th, whilst East Lancashire enjoyed the hottest day of the year, in Sarajevo, Bosnia, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand along with his wife died, the victims of an assassination plot. Balkan quarrels meant little to most in Accrington so the news received but passing interest the following day. At the Empire Picture Palace, the week’s film, ‘A King in Name Alone,’ coincidentally shared its opening night with the news, the film was proclaimed as a ‘strong drama set in South Eastern Europe showing the secret springs of intrigue and plot to overthrow a dynasty.’ The real-life attempt to overthrow a dynasty gave the film a measure of publicity.⁴ Concern, however, centered more on Wednesday July 1st.

The day dawned bright and full of promise, yet in the early afternoon the hot weather broke with a tremendous thunderstorm. Floodwaters swirled into the Howard and Bulloughs machine-shop and stopped production. At 5.30 p.m. six hundred skilled engineers, their final dead-line ignored, walked out on strike. The strike had bitter beginnings. Everyday following when the works opened and closed, mounted police stood by as crowds of hostile strikers jeered and jostled non-strikers. One week later the works closed. Almost 4,000 semi-skilled and unskilled men and boys were prevented from working, ‘locked out’ by the closure. July had begun badly for Accrington and district.

Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne from 1889, with his wife Sophia and children. B.C.P.L.

Men queue up outside the wages office at Howard and Bulloughs to draw their last wage. A.O.&T.

On July 18th, one week before the annual holiday, the six hundred skilled engineers collected their first strike pay of £1 each and 1,100 labourers ten shillings each from their respective Trade Unions. Three thousand not in a Trade Union had no income. On the same day a second cotton mill closed for an indefinite period, leaving five hundred more cotton workers with an income of only ten shillings a week.

On Summer Sundays many enjoyed a stroll in the public park and to listen to regular band concerts. In Oak Hill Park in Accrington, on the day after the cotton mill closure announcement, the band of the Scots Guards played. Seats near the bandstand cost three pence. Those who could not afford this (by now there were many) sat on the nearby grassy slopes and put what they could into a collection box. Hundreds basked in brilliant sunshine listening to music by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Massenet and Gilbert and Sullivan. The final waltz,’ the new ‘Destiny’, by William Baines, was a particular favourite. As they listened none of the audience had a notion of the significance the tune would have for them in the near future.

Four days later, on July 23rd, by which time the murder of the Archduke at Sarajevo was but a memory for most in Accrington, Austria delivered an ultimatum to her neighbour Serbia. Austria considered Serbia’s reply, with its one major reservation, as a rejection. Serbia objected to the demand that Austro-Hungarian police be allowed into Serbia to conduct the inquiry into the assassination. On July 25th both Austria and Serbia mobilised their armies.

These changed developments were as yet unknown in Accrington. July 25th was holiday Saturday and in spite of the recent troubles, railway bookings exceeded the 1913 record. The station quickly filled with families on their way to the popular resorts. Six crowded trains left for Blackpool, three for Morecambe, three for Scarborough and the Yorkshire coast. Most people were bound for the ‘two shillings per person per night, supply your own food,’ boarding houses. The wealthier and more adventurous left for London, Dover and the Continent. A one week tour to Bruges and the Ardennes cost £5.

On the same day Russia mobilised her forces in support of Serbia. Germany upheld Austria’s firm policy towards Serbia in an attempt to deter Russia from taking action. On July 27th France informed Russia of her complete readiness to fulfill her alliance obligations in the event of a dispute with Germany. France stopped all Army leave and recalled her troops from Morocco and Algeria.⁵

A group of ladies from Plantation Street, Accrington, ready to leave for a trip to the seaside. Author’s collection

In Accrington, however, the holiday spirit prevailed. Charabanc trips to Windermere and Morecambe were popular. A pleasant ride through the countryside to Blackpool complemented by a stroll on the Promenade could be had for six shillings return. The first editorial reference by the ‘Accrington Observer’ to the situation in Europe took a particularly local line, It is most unfortunate black and forbidding war clouds should be spreading over Europe, Accrington, exports vast quantities of machinery to Russia, Germany, Austria and France One needs no tar seeing eye to realise the state of affairs should war come upon us. With no thought that Great Britain would be involved, the editor continued, How a great European war would affect our insular land fills us with apprehension.⁶

The apprehension was justified for on August 1st, the day Accrington holidays ended, Germany declared war on Russia. Accringtonians returned home to the news of a War Office request to the local St. John’s Ambulance Brigade for volunteers for a British Expeditionary Force if such service be required. Holiday leave for the Lancashire Constabulary was suspended. By Sunday news worsened; three local people arrived from Paris with news of soldiers crowding the streets, banks closed and an air of war fever. They had been ordered by French police to return home immediately.

All day Sunday in Accrington there were unprecedented scenes as huge crowds in tense excitement gathered outside the newspaper offices waiting for news. In the afternoon another large crowd watched an order posted outside the Central Post Office calling on Army Reservists to prepare to join their Regiments.

Sir Edward Grey, Liberal M.P. for Berwick on Tweed 1885 to 1916 Foreign Secretary 1905 to 1916.

Many in the crowd, anxious for the future, held a strong desire for peace. Most nonconfor-mist churches sent telegrams to Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister; to Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary; and to Harold Baker, the Liberal M.P. for the Accrington Division, asking them to avoid any step which may depart from our strict neutrality.⁷ By this time the British Cabinet decided any violation of Belgium’s neutrality would oblige Britain to intervene. The same Sunday evening an ultimatum demanding passage for German armies to pass through Belgium’, convinced them that Britain needed to join France and Russia in the coming conflict.

war on France. The following day Britain served on Germany an ultimatum, expiring at 11 p.m. calling on her to withdraw from Belgium territory.

In London, as the time-limit approached crowds gathered in Trafalgar Square singing and dancing and displaying marked tendencies towards mafficking.⁸ The ‘Accrington Observer’ still had hopes for peace. Its editorial, written for publication on August 4th, reviewed recent events in Europe and concluded One would fain hope these point to a state of readiness which may dispel the threatening shadows and enable Britain to stand by, a mere spectator of a clash of arms the like the world has never seen.⁹ The crowds in London made it clear attitudes were changing.

The anti-war element resisted to the very end Britain’s entry into the conflict, in their view, binding commitments ought not to bind.¹⁰ The pro-war group had no doubt Britain’s vital interests at heart and demanded British intervention, quite apart from French expectations. The fear of a victorious Germany turning to confront Britain, plus an acute sympathy for ‘little Belgium, convinced them that Britain needed to join France and Russia in the coming conflict.

At 11 p.m. on August 4th, the ultimatum remained unanswered, Britain and Germany were at war. The locked-out engineers, the unemployed cotton workers, and now the remaining citizens of Accrington and district saw a future of more foreboding and uncertainty. None in Accrington, nor indeed any in Britain, Europe or the Empire, had an inkling of the price to be paid for victory.

Introduction Notes

1

Accrington Observer and Times (Hereafter A.O.T.) 27.6.14.

2

Report on Health and Sanitary Conditions, Borough of Accrington, Year Ending December 31st, 1913.

3

The application was to bring the rate up to 36 shillings per week, the rate paid for comparable work in other textile machinery works in Lancashire.

4

A.O.T. 27.6.14.

5

See ‘Origins of the First World War’, L.C.F. Turner P.104.

6

A.O.T. 1.8.14.

7

E.G. Cannon Street Baptist Church and others. A.O.T. 4.8.14.

8

See ‘Britain in the Century of Total War’. A. Marwick P.50 (quote from Daily News, August 5th, 1914).

9

A.O.T. 4.8.14.

10

‘Britain’s Moral Commitment to France, August 1914.’ T. Wilson, article in ‘History’, Vol. 64, No. 212, October, 1979.

Chapter One

Come back this afternoon

In Accrington, in the first few days after Britain’s declaration of war, the excitement intensified. The grave anxieties of the last days of peace gave way to a patriotic enthusiasm for war as every day excited crowds gathered eager for any news, outside the Town Hall, the Post Office and the newspaper offices.

On Wednesday August 5th over five hundred Special Reservists, those alerted the previous Sunday, left Accrington on special trains. All the previous day and through the night, well into Wednesday morning, the Post Office remained open to pay each man the three shillings allotted by the War Office as expenses. Thousands of people clapped and cheered as the Reservists marched through the town to the railway station. In the station they bade their private and family farewells, then started their journey to their various depots and thence active service.

The same evening over fifty of the Accrington Company of the North East Lancashire Squadron of the League of Frontiersmen attended a meeting in the Territorial Drill Hall, Argyll Street. The meeting presided over by the Squadron Commanding Officer Captain A. G. Watson of Clayton-le-Moors, unanimously agreed to advertise in the ‘Accrington Observer and Times’ an offer to instruct volunteers for active service in musketry and drill. The Frontiersmen had long awaited this moment.¹

In 1914 Accrington had few military traditions and associations, unlike neighbouring Blackburn and Burnley which had permanent barracks and strong links with the East Lancashire Regiment. In spite of its large population Accrington rated just one company of the 5th East Lancashire Regiment Territorial Force. The nine Officers and 140 men of the Accrington Company, returned from Caernarvon on Monday August 3rd, recalled a week early from their annual camp. On Thursday August 6th at 8 a.m. the Company left Accrington for the Battalion H.Q. at Burnley, five miles away. In spite of the early hour a crowd of several hundreds gave them an enthusiastic farewell as they left the Drill Hall and marched through the streets. The Battalion’s intended later destination was to be Ireland, to relieve Regular troops for active service.

In the early days of the war crowds filled the streets of every town in Britain to watch the departure for active service of Reservists and Territorials. Here on August 5th, 1914 an immense crowd gathers to watch the local Reservists parade on Burnley Cattle Market before they march to the railway station.

Lancashire Library, Burnley District

G’ Section, ½ Field Ambulance RAMC (Burnley) 42 East Lancashire TF on the platform at Barracks railway station, Burnley.

L.L.B.D.

The following day a quiet, hushed, crowd watched a third march through the town. A hundred men of the Accrington St. John’s Ambulance Corps were en-route for Netley Military Hospital, Southampton. Their special train was already laden with colleagues from Colne, Nelson and Burnley as it steamed into the station. The subdued mood did not last, any momentary doubts soon pushed aside. Many townspeople echoed the Accrington Observer and Times, which, now hopes for peace gone, stated We were one of a host of newspapers which worked up to the eleventh hour for peace. War is a miserable way of settling differences. Now that England (sic) has drawn the sword in defence of our interests, we join shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the country and pray that God will defend the right. In common with many others the Accrington Observer and Times transferred its aversion to war into a support which was to become almost a crusade.²

The man who held the sword in defence of ‘England’s’ interests was Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. On August 5th Lord Kitchener, as Commander in Chief of the Army, entered the Cabinet as Secretary for War. Kitchener’s national prestige alone guaranteed him a place. Ever since his service in the Sudan, Egypt and in South Africa, the British people felt an admiration for him which verged on hero worship. Thousands of young men copied his broad martial moustache in their desire to look manly and inspiring. Wearing its bushy magnificence with an air of power, tall and broad-shouldered, he looked like a Victorian image of Richard the Lionheart except for something inscrutable behind the solemn blazing eyes.³

Kitchener immediately disagreed with the Government, War Office and Cabinet view of a short war. He believed it far more likely to last at least three years and not won at sea as many thought but only after many bloody battles on the European continent. A powerful Germany, bent on world domination, would concede defeat only when beaten to the ground. Great Britain’s contribution could not be limited to her small Regular Army. Kitchener proposed at once to raise a New Army of at least a million men. In his view the professional Regular Army would be too small and too precious to risk in a long war, and the Regular Army Special Reserve too small to maintain it in the field. Kitchener held, unjustly as it proved, the Territorial Force to be untrained amateurs who even if they were to volunteer for overseas service, would still be unfit to replace Regular troops. He undoubtedly thought the same about the National Reserve which existed to provide re-placements for the Territorials. Although all the Cabinet had doubts about his proposal, in the end, Kitchener’s ability as a professional soldier to appeal to the interest and sympathy of civilians, the knack of getting civilians with him instead of against him - as other professional soldiers were prone to do - proved his greatest asset.

Men of the St. John’s Ambulance Corps at the Ambulance Hall, Accrington, before entraining for Netley Military Hospital, Hampshire.

A.O.&T.

Kitchener’s first appeal for 100,000 volunteers went out on August 7th, 1914. From that day his recruiting poster appeared on every hoarding and in every shop window. The martial moustache, the magnetic eyes and the pointing finger demanded the attention of every man in the country.

Field Marshall Lord Kitchener on August 5th 1914 was appointed Secretary of State for War, the first serving soldier to hold the post. He was drowned on June 5th, 1916 when HMS Hampshire, in which he was travelling to Russia, sank after striking a mine.

B.C.P.L.

Burnley Borough Police reservists leaving the Police Station with the Chief Constable seeing them off.

Men of the 5th East Lancashire Regiment (Burnley) Territorial Force, 42 (East Lancashire) Division outside the Drill Hall awaiting orders. Along with the 4th Battalion (Blackburn) they served in Gallipoli.

L.L. Burnley District

The Territorials, however, were more enthusiastic and anxious to serve than Kitchener gave them credit. In East Lancashire at least, they preceded him by one day. On the morning of Thursday August 6th, Colonel Richard Sharpies, an Accrington solicitor and Commanding Officer of the National Reserve Battalion of the 5th East Lancashire Regiment, called an emergency meeting of the Officers in the National Reserve Club in Burnley Barracks. The meeting, immediately and unanimously, requested the Lancashire county Territorial Association to obtain permission from the War Office to form a battalion of infantry, not less than 600 strong, with further necessary sections for signalling, machine-guns and cyclists, etc. A guarantee fund was promised towards such necessaries as may be required if the battalion were formed.⁴

The resolution anticipated by one day not just the recruiting posters, but a letter from Lord Kitchener to the Lords Lieutenants of Counties and Chairmen of Territorial Force County Associations on August 7th, inviting their co-operation in raising the first 100,000 men. Col. Sharpies and his fellow officers’ individual offer to recruit and pay for a volunteer battalion received no support from the County Association, his idea over-taken by Kitchener’s recruiting campaign. The original idea of an East Lancashire raised and trained battalion of volunteers must go to the credit of Col. Sharpies. Although unsuccessful, the idea nonetheless stayed in Col. Sharpies’ mind.

At the outbreak of war ex-regular Company Sergeant Major Renham of Blackburn, retired after 27 years service, re-enlisted to the Colours. On Monday August 10th, newly promoted Lieutenant, he became Recruiting Officer for North and East Lancashire. He at once installed a recruiting Sergeant and staff into an office hurriedly converted from an empty cafe in Union Street, Accrington. When the recruiting office opened its doors men rushed to volunteer. Encouraged by families, employers and even magistrates, lured by prospects of regular pay and allowances and afraid the war might be over soon, men flocked to the Colours. 250 such enrolled in the first week. Indeed the press of volunteers often forced the recruiting staff to close the office door periodically in order to peacefully enroll those already inside. By the end of the month Lt. Renham and his staff gained more than five hundred recruits for Kitchener’s first and second 100,000. A good beginning.

At the War Office on August 27th Kitchener received a proposal from Lord Derby that he wished to raise a battalion of ‘Comrades’ in Liverpool. Kitchener accepted, stipulating only that the battalion should subsequently be taken over by the War Office and enjoy no special privilege other than the men be kept together. Lord Derby’s offer helped resolve three import-ant recruiting considerations: firstly, to take the strain of the rush of volunteers off an understaffed and inadequate War Office recruiting organisation; secondly, to co-ordinate and expand isolated efforts by local authorities and individuals to assist recruiting; thirdly, and most importantly, to sustain the energies of the British public in the urgent task of attracting men to the New Army, while at the same time providing for their requirements until the hard-pressed War Office could assimilate the new recruits.

Sunday, August 9th, the 5th East Lancashire Regiment T.F. attended St. Peter’s, Burnley. Lord Shuttleworth, the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire takes the salute.

Accompanied by the Mayor of Burnley, Alderman Sellers Kay, Lord Shuttleworth inspected the men.

L.L.B.D.

In Liverpool on Friday August 28th, Lord Derby put to the young men of the city’s commercial interests his proposals to raise a comrades battalion. By Friday September 4th a Brigade of four infantry battalions had been formed of four thousand volunteers. Clerks from the White Star and Cunard Lines, the Cotton Association, the Stock Exchange, brokers from the fruit, wool and sugar trades, insurance and bank workers, formed separate platoons or squads within their battalions. Later the War Office allocated them the titles of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th (Service) Battalions, The Kings (Liverpool) Regiment but the men always regarded themselves as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th ‘Liverpool Pals.’

Lord Derby’s success excited the imagination of mayors and corporations of many towns in Great Britain. The idea of citizens of the same town recruited, equipped and serving together greatly appealed to their patriotism and civic pride. The Mayor and Corporation generally constituted themselves recruiters for their towns, and the inhabitants took a personal interest in the rapid raising of their own battalions, business men lent their warehouses as stores, orderly rooms and drill-halls, and spent much time and money in perfecting the organisation for the purchase of supplies or the erection of huts to shelter the men.⁵

There were other, smaller, sections of the public who raised ‘local’ battalions. In Glasgow the Tramways Department formed most of the 15th (Service) Battalion, Highland Light Infantry, the Glasgow Boys Brigade, most of the 16th (Service) Battalion. In Grimsby the headmaster of a local grammar school started recruitment of the 10th (Service) Lincolnshire Regiment (the Grimsby Chums). Sheffield raised a battalion representing the ‘City and University of Sheffield’ the 12th (Service) Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment. Following quickly on their rival, Liverpool, the clerks and warehousemen of Manchester formed the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th (Service) Battalions. The Manchester Regiment. There were many such examples.