The 4th Lancashire Artillery Volunteers, later renamed to the 4th West Lancashire Brigade, known as 'The Old 4th', was a part-time unit of the British Army's Royal Artillery founded in Liverpool in 1859. It served on the Western Front during World War I, one of its members winning the Victoria Cross at Cambrai. Between the world wars the unit pioneered mechanical traction methods. During World War II it formed three regiments that saw action at Dunkirk, in East Africa, on Crete, at Tobruk (where one of its regiments was captured), in Burma, and in the final campaigns in Italy and North West Europe. It continued in the post-war Territorial Army until 1973.
Volunteer force Origin The enthusiasm for the Volunteer movement following an invasion scare in 1859 saw the creation of many units composed of part-time soldiers eager to supplement the Regular British Army in time of need.Beckett.Anon, History, pp. 1–4. One of the first and largest such units was the 4th Lancashire Artillery Volunteers, raised by the Liverpool shipowner James Walter and drawing its recruits from clerks and office personnel of firms in that city. Six hundred Volunteers marched from Birchfield Barracks to St George's Hall, Liverpool, on 22 November 1859 to take the oath of allegiance. The unit officially came into existence on 5 December and its first headquarters (HQ) was at the Liverpool and London Insurance Company office in Dale Street, with a store in a private house at 51 Salisbury Street. The first commanding officer (CO) was Lieutenant-Colonel James Bourne (appointed 7 January 1860), a local merchant and colliery owner who was also Lt-Col Commandant of the Royal Lancashire Artillery Militia. The corps had an establishment of a brigade of eight companies, termed batteries from 1861.Anon, History, Appendix I.Litchfield & Westlake, pp. 107–12.Beckett, p. 63.Beckett, Appendix VIII.Anon, History, p. 11.Army List.Lancashire Record Office, Handlist 72.
By 1862 the 4th Lancashire AV had accepted 50–60 mechanics 'of the highest class' to supplement the middle-class clerks of the original recruits.Beckett, p. 74. In 1861 the unit's arms store was moved to 49 Mason Street, and by 1872 its HQ was at 52 Mason Street, where there was a large storage shed. In 1880 it was in Nos 21, 23 and 25 Mason Street and by 1890 at 22 Highgate Street, Edge Hill, Liverpool.
When the Volunteer corps were consolidated in 1880, the unit was offered a more senior number, but chose to retain the proud title of 'The 4th Brigade'.
Equipment The 4th Lancashire AVC began their gun drill using chairs, a stove-pipe and mops, then graduated to wooden models. In September 1861 the War Office (WO) ordered that the unit should be issued with eight 24-pounder guns. These weapons were unserviceable and apparently did not arrive until a year later. The WO refused to supply traversing platforms, so Major George Melly (who became CO in 1863) had two guns mounted on sliding carriages and traversing platforms, and presented them to the unit. An organisation called the Mount Vernon Green Syndicate provided money for the unit to purchase four brass 9-pounder field guns, without carriages or limbers. Equipment varied during the corps' history: in 1878 it had eight 24-pdr and two 32-pdr smooth-bore muzzle-loading (SBML) guns on upright carriages, and one 40-pdr Armstrong rifled breech-loader (RBL). In 1885 it possessed an additional 64-pdr rifled muzzle-loader (RML) converted from a bored-out 8-inch gun and fitted with an inner 'A' tube.Anon, History, pp. 5–6.
The AVCs were intended to serve as garrison artillery manning fixed defences, but a number of the early units manned semi-mobile 'position batteries' of smooth-bore field guns pulled by agricultural horses. However, the WO refused to pay for the upkeep of field guns and the concept died out in the 1870s. It was revived in 1888 when some Volunteer batteries were reorganised as 'position artillery' with 16-pounder RML guns to work alongside the Volunteer infantry brigades. The 4th Lancashire AVC was issued with four of these guns in 1889, and the experiment was so successful that within three years the corps had four such batteries.Beckett, pp. 178–9.Litchfield and Westlake, pp. 3–6.
Royal Garrison Artillery In 1882 all the AVCs were affiliated to one of the territorial garrison divisions of the Royal Artillery (RA) and the 4th Lancashires became part of the Lancashire Division. In 1889 the structure was altered, and the corps joined the Southern Division. In 1899 the RA was divided into separate field and garrison branches, and the artillery volunteers were all assigned to the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA). In 1902 their titles were changed, the Liverpool unit becoming the 4th Lancashire Royal Garrison Artillery (Volunteers), designated as heavy artillery. The following year the position batteries were redesignated as heavy batteries.
In 1900 the 4th Lancashires found a permanent HQ at The Grange, on the corner of Edge Lane and Botanic Road, Liverpool. This was a large old farmhouse to which the unit added a large covered drill shed.
Territorial Force When the Volunteers were subsumed into the new Territorial Force (TF) under the Haldane Reforms of 1908,Dunlop, Chapter 14.Spiers, Chapter 10. the unit transferred to the Royal Field Artillery (RFA) and as the senior West Lancashire unit it was offered the title of I (or 1st) West Lancashire Brigade. Once again it chose to be the IV (or 4th) West Lancashire (Howitzer) Brigade, with the following organisation:London Gazette 20 March 1908.Litchfield, pp. 127–8.Conrad, British Army 1914.
IV West Lancashire (Howitzer) Brigade, RFA HQ: The Grange, Edge Lane, Liverpool 7th Lancashire (H) Battery 8th Lancashire (H) Battery 4th West Lancashire (H) Ammunition Column
The unit formed part of the TF's West Lancashire Division. Its batteries were each equipped with four 5-inch howitzers.Anon, History, pp. 12–4.Becke, Pt 2a, pp. 133–9.55th Division at Long, Long Trail.
World War I Mobilisation When war broke out on 4 August 1914 the IV West Lancashire Bde was at its annual practice camp at Larkhill under Lt-Col S.Heywood Melly, the fourth member of his family to command it. The brigade was immediately ordered to return to Liverpool to mobilise.Anon, History, p. 22.Coop. p. 21. Mobilisation equipment was scarce for all units: the IV West Lancs solved its shortage of draught animals by requisitioning tram horses from the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man.Anon, History, p. 16.
The TF was intended for home service, but on 10 August its members were invited to volunteer for overseas service. Almost the whole of the IV West Lancs brigade did so. On 15 August 1914, the WO issued instructions to separate those men who had signed up for home service only, and form these into reserve units. Recruits were also pouring in and on 31 August, the formation of a reserve or 2nd Line unit was authorised for each 1st Line unit where 60 per cent or more of the men had volunteered for overseas service. The titles of these 2nd Line units would be the same as the original, but distinguished by a '2/' prefix. In this way duplicate batteries, brigades and divisions were created from the recruits, mirroring those TF formations being sent overseas.Anon, History, p. 15.Becke, Pt 2b, pp. 1–7.
1/IV West Lancashire Brigade Immediately after mobilisation the brigade moved into camp at Allerton for training. On 26 October it went with the West Lancashire Division to Kent and was billeted in villages near Sevenoaks. Between November 1914 and April 1915 all the division's infantry units were posted away to reinforce the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fighting on the Western Front. The Brigade Ammunition Columns were absorbed into a Divisional Ammunition Column at Ightham, which was then sent to reinforce the troops in Egypt. The rest of the divisional artillery then joined the 2nd West Lancashire Division, which was forming round Canterbury. The 1/IV Bde moved to Thanington Without in May.Anon, History, p. 17.Coop, p. 22.
In September 1915 the brigade was re-equipped with modern 4.5-inch howitzers (handing the old 5-inch howitzers over to its 2nd Line unit) and ordered to proceed overseas with the rest of the 1st West Lancashire Divisional Artillery, which was to become the divisional artillery for the 2nd Canadian Division. The brigade embarked at Southampton on 28 September, the guns and horses aboard an Elder Dempster liner and the men aboard the Isle of Man packet boat SS Mona's Queen. They disembarked at Le Havre the following day.Anon, History, p. 18.
Western Front The brigade took up old gun positions in the Kemmel sector of the line, with Bde HQ at Locre, 1/7th Bty at Vierstraat and 1/8th Bty at Lindenhoek at the foot of Mont Kemmel. The brigade fired its first rounds on 7 October, though ammunition was restricted to 50 rounds per battery per week. The brigade remained in this 'quiet' sector, suffering only a few wounded, until 12 December when it went into reserve near St Omer before moving to Pont-Remy in the Somme sector on 3 January 1916. The West Lancashire Division (now the 55th (1st West Lancashire) Division was being reformed in France, and its former units concentrated at Pont-Remy.Anon, History, pp. 20–2.Coop, p. 23.
The 1/IV West Lancs Bde was brought up to a strength of three batteries on 9 February when B (H) Bty joined from LXXXV Bde ('Kitchener's Army' volunteers from 18th (Eastern) Division) to become C (H) Bty. Then the field artillery of the BEF was reorganised in May 1916: 1/IV West Lancs Bde was numbered CCLXXVIII Bde (278 Bde) and its batteries became A, B and C on 15 May. The three batteries were then distributed to the other brigades within the divisional artillery, so that each had a D (Howitzer) battery: A (1/7th Lancashire) went to CCLXXVI (1/II West Lancs), B (1/8th) to CCLXXV (1/I West Lancs) and C to CCLXXVII (1/III West Lancs). They were replaced in CCLXXVIII by the D batteries of the respective brigades, giving the following organisation:Anon, History, p. 23.Coop, pp. 28–9.
CCLXXVIII Brigade, RFA A Bty – former D/CCLXXV B Bty – former D/CCLXXVI C Bty – former D/CCLXXVII
These three batteries were recently formed within their respective brigades, and each was equipped with four 18-pounder guns.
Somme From February, 55th Divisional Artillery had been deployed in the Crinchon Valley, a quiet sector, but on 20 July the brigades marched south to join in the Battle of the Somme. They went into action on 1 August around Maricourt Wood facing Guillemont village while the front line was under a heavy German bombardment. The batteries found themselves assigned patches of ground devoid of any cover or concealment, except a few captured German dugouts. For two weeks the firing was almost continuous, the gun detachments working in shifts relieved by gunners from the waggon lines. The observation posts (OPs) in the infantry positions were very dangerous and one Forward Observation Officer (FOO) was killed getting to his OP.Anon, History, pp. 23–8.