The Leicester Town Rifles was an early unit of the British Volunteer Force raised in 1859. It went on to become the parent unit of the Territorial Army battalions of the Leicestershire Regiment, which served on the Western Front during World War I. Their successor unit served in the air defence role during and after World War II.
Origin The enthusiasm for the Volunteer movement following an invasion scare in 1859 saw the creation of many Rifle Volunteer Corps (RVCs) composed of part-time soldiers eager to supplement the Regular British Army in time of need.Beckett. One such unit was the Leicester Town Rifles, formed in the East Midlands town (later city) of Leicester. Mansfield Turner was appointed captain of the new unit; his commission dated 31 August 1859 was considered to be the founding date of the company, which was designated the 1st Leicestershire RVC.London Gazette, 20 September 1859.Beckett, Appendix VII.Frederick, p. 236.Westlake, pp. 154–156.
On 10 July 1860, all ten RVCs that had been raised in Leicestershire were consolidated into a single administrative battalion:4th Bn Leicester Regt at Regiments.orgArmy ListMacDonald, pp. 11–12.
1st Administrative Battalion Leicestershire RVC 1st (1st Leicester Town Rifles) Leicestershire RVC 2nd (Duke of Rutland's Belvoir Rifles) Leicestershire RVC 3rd (Melton Company) Leicestershire RVC 4th (2nd Leicester Town Rifles) Leicestershire RVC 5th (3rd Leicester Town Rifles) Leicestershire RVC 6th (Loughborough) Leicestershire RVC 7th (Lutterworth) Leicestershire RVC (disbanded in 1873) 8th (Ashby-de-la-Zouch) Leicestershire RVC 9th (Leicester Town) Leicestershire RVC 10th (Hinckley) Leicestershire RVC
Turner was promoted to Lieutenant-colonel to command the battalion on 10 July 1860; he was succeeded in command of the 1st Corps by Sir Henry St John Halford, Bt.London Gazette, 24 July 1860. Halford in turn succeeded Turner as Lt-Col in 1863 and was in command for most of the next three decades.
In 1880, the Administrative Battalion was consolidated as the 1st Leicestershire RVC, of two battalions, and on 1 July the following year, as part of the Childers reforms, it became the Volunteer Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment, changing its title in February 1883 to 1st Volunteer Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment. An additional company had been formed at Market Harborough in 1882, and in 1900 four more were added at Leicester (two), Wigston and Mountsorrel, after which it operated as a double-battalion unit.
The battalion provided detachments of volunteers to serve alongside the Regulars during the Second Boer War, earning the Battle honour South Africa 1900–1902.Leslie.
Territorial Force When the Volunteer Force was subsumed into the Territorial Force in 1908 as part of the Haldane Reforms, the double-battalion 1st Volunteer Bn formed both the 4th and 5th Battalions of the Leicestershire Regiment. The 5th Battalion had the companies from the country towns, while the 4th Battalion was recruited entirely from Leicester itself, with the exception of detachments at Anstey and Syston in Charnwood, and H Company at Wigston on the south side of the city. The headquarters of the 4th Battalion was at the Magazine in Oxford Street, Leicester, which it shared with the Leicestershire Yeomanry and the Leicestershire Royal Horse Artillery. The 4th and 5th Battalions both formed part of the Lincoln & Leicester Brigade of the North Midland Division of the TF.Becke, Pt 2a, pp. 61–7.James, p. 60.Leicester at The Drill Hall Project.Milne, p. 1.
World War I
Mobilisation On the outbreak of war in August 1914, the battalion mobilised at the Magazine (enlisting many old soldiers from the National ReserveNational Reserve at Long, Long Trail.) and on 12 August entrained for the war station of the Lincoln & Leicester Brigade at Belper. The battalion was seen off by its Honorary Colonel, the Duke of Rutland, whose son and heir, the Marquess of Granby was a subaltern in the battalion.Milne, pp. 1–3.Simpson, p. 49.
While at Belper, the battalion was invited to volunteer for foreign service. This was accepted by the majority of the men. During September, a 2nd-Line TF battalion designated the 2/4th was formed at Leicester from the Home Service men and new recruits, the original battalion becoming the 1/4th. Later, a 3/4th or Reserve Battalion was formed to provide drafts to the battalions serving overseas.Leicesters at Long, Long Trail.
1/4th Battalion The Lincoln & Leicester Bde only stayed a few days at Belper before moving to Luton, where the Division was concentrating. It later moved to Bishop's Stortford to train for deployment overseas with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The 1/4th Bn embarked from Southampton and landed at Le Havre in France on 3 March 1915. By 8 March, the North Midland Division had completed its concentration – the first complete TF formation to arrive on the Western Front. It was numbered the 46th (North Midland) Division in May, when the Lincoln & Leicester Brigade was numbered 138th (Lincoln and Leicester) Brigade.Milne, pp. 4–13.
Beginning on 26 March, a company at a time of the battalion went into the trenches under the instruction of the 1st Bn King's Own and 2nd Bn Essex Regiment, and on 4 April, facing Spanbroekmolen on the Messines Ridge, the complete battalion took over its own sector of the line for the first time.Milne, pp. 18–24. Thereafter, it participated in the round of reliefs, rotating trench-holding with fatigues, in the Sanctuary Wood and Hill 60 sectors in the Ypres Salient. The battalion suffered a steady trickle of casualties, but was not engaged in any serious fighting.Milne, pp. 25–50.
Hohenzollern Redoubt
In October 1915, 1/4th Leicesters left Ypres and moved to Loos, where the 46th Division was to attack the German strongpoint known as the Hohenzollern Redoubt, briefly captured during the recent Battle of Loos but subsequently lost. The attack went in at 14.00 on 13 October behind a bombardment and gas cloud, with the 1/4th Leicesters aiming for the point of the salient formed by the strongpoint. The battalion went forward in four waves, each of which was caught by machine gun and artillery fire; few of the men got into the German line, and they were unable to maintain their position. The battalion's casualties were 20 officers and 453 other ranks; only 188 NCOs and men returned to the jumping-off trench and answered rollcall that evening.Milne, pp. 51–56.Cherry, pp. 278–293.Rawson, pp. 125–128.
After receiving drafts of reinforcements from the 3/4th Bn, the 1/4th Bn entrained for Marseille, where on 21 January 1916 it boarded HM Transport Andania bound for Egypt. However, the movement was immediately cancelled, and the troops disembarked next day. Most of the division that had already departed had to be brought back from Egypt.Milne, pp. 62–65.
Gommecourt In March and April 1916, 1/4th Bn held trenches in the Vimy Ridge sector and then went into reserve before moving into the line opposite Gommecourt in late May to prepare for the forthcoming Somme Offensive.Milne, pp. 70–78.
The 1/4th Leicesters was designated as the reserve battalion of the reserve brigade, and did not go into the attack, where the Staffordshire Brigade and Sherwood Foresters lost very heavily.Milne, p. 81. The battalion finally captured Gommecourt in February 1917 when the Germans began their withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line.Milne, pp. 92–93.
Lens and Hill 70 In April 1917, the division moved to the Lens area and became involved in 10 weeks' bloody fighting round Hill 70, during which the battalion suffered many casualties. The division handed over the line to the 2nd Canadian Division in early July, having secured the jumping-off positions from which the Canadian Corps launched the successful Battle of Hill 70 in August.Milnes, pp. 98–106.Campbell-Johnston.Edmonds, 1917, Vol II, p. 114.
46th (North Midland) Division was not used offensively again until September 1918, spending its time in tours of duty holding the front line in quiet sectors. The reorganisation of the BEF in January 1918 led to the disbandment of the 2/5th Leicesters, a draft of whom were sent to reinforce the 1/4th Bn. After the 2/4th Bn was disbanded in June (see below) the 1/4th was simply referred to as the 4th Bn.Becke, Pt 2b, pp. 17–23.Milne, p. 117.
St Quentin Canal The division was given the most difficult task in the Battle of the St. Quentin Canal on 29 September 1918: it had to cross the canal itself, where it constituted part of the Hindenburg Line. 4th Leicesters had the task of making a preliminary attack on Pike Wood and Peg Copse on the night of 27 September, supported by the guns of an Australian field artillery brigade. Unlike the rest of the carefully planned battle, this attack was hastily arranged. At sunset, A and B Companies supported by C and D advanced over 700 yards (650 m) of No man's land towards the German positions, following the creeping barrage. The barrage kept the Germans in their dugouts and the attack took them by surprise, A Company reaching their objective without a shot being fired, and only one platoon met resistance, while B Company reached their objective with just three casualties. Pike Wood was put in a state of defence and was intermittently attacked during the night, with German bombing parties trying to work their way back up trenches into the position. 4th Leicesters suffered serious casualties before they handed the position over next morning to the battalions of the Staffordshire Brigade who were to make the main attack.Milne, pp. 131–136.Priestley, p. 33.
For the main attack on 29 September, 138th (Lincoln & Leicester) Brigade was in the second phase. Before Zero Hour the battalion moved up through the morning fog, under gas shelling that caused significant casualties (No 4 Platoon losing 22 men out of 26). B Company led, with the role of mopping up after the advancing Staffords, during which they took many prisoners. The rest of the battalion passed through, crossed the canal, and reached the Brown Line. Although the battalion's CO (Lt-Col F.W. Foster) and adjutant (Capt D.W. Howarth) were both wounded, the battalion attacked towards its final objective, the Yellow Line, 1000 yards (900 m) beyond the Brown Line. There was little enemy resistance and the battalion had taken all its objectives by noon. The rest of the brigade subsequently passed through to take the next two objectives.Milne, pp. 137–143.Priestley, pp. 6, 72–73.
The pursuit 138th Brigade was once again in support during the Battle of Ramicourt (3 October), taking up the attack during the afternoon, with 4th Leicesters passing through Ramicourt itself and then advancing over open ground to reach a sunken road at Montbrehain occupied by the Sherwood Foresters and a variety of other detachments. The battalion took up position along the railway embarkment from Ramicourt to Montbrehain and held it through the night under attack by German aircraft using parachute flares.Milne, pp. 144–149.Priestley, pp. 113, 120.
On 10 October, patrols of 4th Leicesters, advancing cautiously along the Bohain–Aisonville road, were met by heavy machine-gun fire from the fringes of Riqueval Wood, and all attempts to enter it were repulsed. the battalion suffering considerable casualties. The wood held the division up for nearly a week.Priestley, pp. 132–138.Milne, pp. 150–151.