The 20th (Service) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (Shoreditch) (20th Middlesex) was an infantry unit recruited as part of 'Kitchener's Army' in World War I. It was raised in the spring of 1915 by the Mayor and Borough of Shoreditch in the East End of London. It served on the Western Front from June 1916, seeing action against the Hindenburg Line and at Bourlon Wood. It then fought through the German spring offensive and the Battle of the Lys. Reduced to a training cadre following heavy casualties, the battalion was sent back to England to be reconstituted, returning to take part in the final victorious Hundred Days Offensive. It was disbanded in 1919.
Recruitment and training
On 6 August 1914, less than 48 hours after Britain's declaration of war, Parliament sanctioned an increase of 500,000 men for the Regular British Army. The newly appointed Secretary of State for War, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, issued his famous call to arms: 'Your King and Country Need You', urging the first 100,000 volunteers to come forward. Men flooded into the recruiting offices and the 'first hundred thousand' were enlisted within days. This group of six divisions with supporting arms became known as Kitchener's First New Army, or 'K1'.War Office Instructions No 32 (6 August) and No 37 (7 August).Becke, Pt 3a, pp. 2 & 8. The K2, K3 and K4 battalions, brigades and divisions followed soon afterwards. But the flood of volunteers overwhelmed the ability of the Army to absorb them, and the K5 units were largely raised by local initiative rather than at regimental depots, often from men from particular localities or backgrounds who wished to serve together: these were known as 'Pals battalions'. The 'Pals' phenomenon quickly spread across the country, as local recruiting committees offered complete units to the War Office (WO). Encouraged by this response, in February 1915 Kitchener approached the 28 Metropolitan Borough Councils in the County of London, and the 'Great Metropolitan Recruiting Campaign' went ahead in April, with each mayor asked to raise a unit of local men.McCue, pp. 10–1.20th Middlesex War Diary, 1 June 1916–31 May 1918, The National Archives (TNA), Kew, file WO 95/2615/4.
One such unit was raised on 18 May 1915 by the Mayor and Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch as the 20th (Service) Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) (the 'Die-Hards'). The battalion was also known as the 'Shoreditch Pals' and the 'Boxers' Battalion'.Frederick, p. 216.James, p. 94.Middlesex Regiment at Long, Long Trail.War Office Instruction No 56 of September 1915, Appendix IX.Burnand obituary, The Die-Hards, Vol V, No 2, November 1934, p. 128.
The Mayor, Henry Busby Bird, had formed the Shoreditch National Reserve in 1911, which reached a strength of 1200 men, of whom about 1000 had already joined up on the outbreak of World War I. When he received Kitchener's letter he quickly obtained the borough council's agreement to raise the new battalion. Recruiting began at offices in Shoreditch, Hoxton and Hackney, with battalion headquarters (HQ) in Shoreditch Town Hall. Shoreditch Borough Council obtained permission from the London County Council to use Victoria Park, Hackney, as a drill ground for the battalion, and Columbia Market in Bethnal Green was used as a temporary barracks. Lieutenant-Colonel Montagu Berthon Burnand (a retired Special Reserve officer, formerly of the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Suffolk Regiment) was appointed as the first commanding officer (CO) on 15 June. The recruits were formed into four service companies and two depot companies and training got under way.Sir Henry Busby Bird at Abney Park Trust.London Gazette, 29 June 1915.
The battalion was assigned to 118th Brigade of 39th Division. 118th Brigade began to form in London in July. Initially it comprised two service battalions of the Middlesex Regiment (the 20th (Shoreditch) and 21st (Islington)) and two of the Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) (the 10th (Kent County) and 11th (Lewisham)). 39th Division began to assemble early in August 1915, but it was not until the end of September that 118th Bde joined it at Aldershot. 20th Middlesex sent an advanced party down from London on 24 September to begin taking over Albuhera Barracks, and the main body, 1065 strong, entrained at Waterloo Station on 30 September for Farnborough, from where it marched into Aldershot. However, on arrival 118th Bde was reorganised, the Royal West Kent battalions moving to 41st Division and being replaced by 13th East Surrey Regiment (Wandsworth) from 41st Division and 14th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. In November the division moved to Witley Camp in Surrey, where it continued its training, returning to Aldershot from 2 to 12 February for musketry training, even though the rifles had only been issued a few days before.Becke, Pt 3b, pp. 91–100.39th Division at Long, Long Trail. On 10 March Lt-Col Burnand left 20th (S) Bn Middlesex to command 27th (Reserve) Bn in 23rd Reserve Brigade (see below) and was replaced on 14 March by Lt-Col Frank Dunlop (Worcestershire Regiment), who had recently returned from a staff posting at Gallipoli.Dunlop at Worcestershire Regiment site. At the end of the month the first large draft of 160 non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and men arrived from the 28th (Reserve) Bn to replace those who were unfit for overseas service.
Mobilisation orders had been received during February and advance parties of the division had already left for the Western Front. However, the Pals battalions of 118th Bde had not completed their training, so it was decided to leave them behind to join 40th Division when the rest of 39th Division left for France. 40th Division had originally been a 'Bantam' formation, composed of men below the normal regulation height for the British Army. However, the supply of strong, fit men of this description had dried up, so some of the battalions were amalgamated, the gaps being filled by the normal height battalions of 118th Bde. 20th and 21st Middlesex were transferred to 121st Bde to serve alongside the Bantams of 12th Suffolk Regiment (East Anglian) (which had just absorbed the 22nd Middlesex) and the 13th Green Howards. 20th Middlesex marched to join the brigade at Pirbright Camp on 3 April.Becke, Pt 3b, pp. 101–8.40th Division at Long, Long Trail.Whitton, pp. 9–10.
This reorganisation had held up the training process, but once it was completed 40th Division intensified the training, specialists such as snipers and 'bombers' were selected and trained, and all the necessary arms and equipment were issued. In mid-May the division was warned to prepare for service with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front. 20th Middlesex absorbed a few more drafts of other ranks (ORs) from the 28th and 15th (Reserve) Battalions, bringing it up to a strength of 34 officers and 995 ORs. It mobilised at Pirbright on 27 May and on 5 June entrained at Brookwood station bound for Southampton Docks. The transport and part of the battalion embarked on the transport Rossetti, and the main. body boarded the Connaught; they landed next day at Le Havre.
Back in Shoreditch Mayor Bird continued his war work in the raising of the 28th (R) Bn and later of a Volunteer battalion in the borough, and in fundraising. He was knighted in 1919.
28th (Reserve) Battalion When the battalion left for Aldershot its depot companies remained at Shoreditch under Maj E.W.C. Squire, where they amalgamated with the depot companies of the 21st Middlesex from Islington to form the 28th (Reserve) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment. Its role was to train reinforcement drafts for the two parent service battalions. By December 1915 it was at Northampton in 23rd Reserve Brigade, alongside the 24th and 27th (Reserve) Battalions of the Middlesex Regiment. On 17 February 1916 Lt-Col Benjamin Roche (Bedfordshire Regiment) took command of 28th (R) Bn. In May 1916 the brigade moved to Aldershot.London Gazette, 26 February 1916.
On 1 September 1916 the Training Reserve was established following the introduction of conscription, and 28th (R) Bn Middlesex became 102nd Training Reserve Battalion, though the training staff retained their Middlesex badges. On 27 October 1917 the battalion reverted to the Middlesex Regiment as 53rd (Young Soldier) Battalion, carrying out initial training of conscripts. After the Armistice with Germany it was converted into a service battalion on 8 February 1919 and was then sent to join the British Army of the Rhine, where it was absorbed into 23rd Middlesex Regiment (2nd Football) on 10 March.Training Reserve at Long, Long Trail.
Service By 9 June 40th Division had concentrated at Lillers, near Béthune. 20th Middlesex spent its first weeks in France on further training, for additional Lewis gunners in anticipation of the increased allocation of these guns, for anti-gas defence, for 'bombing', for wave attacks and for digging in. On 19 June it marched to Barlin, where it was billeted in mining villages close to the front line where anti-gas precautions were in effect, and where D Company's billets were bombed during a raid by German aircraft. On 24 June A and B Companies were attached to 1st Northamptonshire Regiment and C and D Companies to 1st Loyal North Lancashire Regiment of 1st Division at Maroc near Loos for their introduction to trench warfare. Here they suffered their first casualties. 40th Division then took over the front from 1st Division on 3 July, with 20th Middlesex at Maroc near the famous Double Crassier spoil-heap. 20th Middlesex alternated spells of trench duty with the 12th Suffolks, and was billeted at Les Brebis when out of the line. Both armies were concentrating on the Somme Offensive further south, but units in the Loos sector still saw casualties mount up during the summer from occasional shelling, snipers, and Trench mortars, or during patrols and trench raids. 20th Middlesex carried out its first raid on 20 July. No man's land was narrow enough for both sides to use rifle grenades, and both employed mining, resulting in numerous craters. On 25 September the Royal Engineers (REs) fired a mine close to the existing 'Seaforth Crater', and the Middlesex successfully occupied and consolidated the new crater, which was heavily bombarded by enemy artillery and mortars (this may be the crater later referred to as 'Shoreditch Crater'). On 8 October B and C Companies of the battalion and two companies of 13th Green Howards carried out a large raid, employing Bangalore torpedoes to breach the enemy wire and supported by artillery, rifle grenades and Stokes mortars. On the morning of 11 October the REs fired a camouflet to disrupt enemy tunnelling. Parties of 20th Middlesex were ready to seize the new crater. In the event the explosion did not breach the surface, but the parties went forward anyway and occupied and consolidated the ground. Lieutenant-Col Dunlop had left on sick leave on 7 October and the battalion had been temporarily commanded by Maj C.M. Morris until 21 October, then by Maj T.M. Fitch. On 27 October Maj Francis Johnson arrived from 13th East Surreys to take command.Murphy, pp. 199–200.Wyrall, pp. 19–22.20th Middlesex War Diary June 1918–June 1919, TNA file WO 95/1910/3.Taylor, pp. 78–93.Whitton, pp. 26–30, 35–9.