18 December

Lonsdale Battalion events that took place on 18 December.
For events that took place elsewhere, see our sister project The Great War On This Day

1914 (Friday)

1259 men are inoculated against typhoid.^[1]
Lonsdale's Alston route march: train to Haltwhistle then march to Alston, Nenthead, Garrigill, Alston for recruiting meeting. "The Battalion Ambulance with pair of horses, all presented by the Earl of Lonsdale, will accompany....carrying the necessary food, forage and blankets." ^[2]
Weekly denominational roll: Church of England 656, Roman Catholic 94, Wesleyan Methodists 38, Presbyterians 18, Baptists 3, Primitive Methodists 11, Congregationalists 6, Scotch Nationalists 3. (Total 829) ^[3]

Bouzincourt. Battalion relieves garrison companies.^[a]
Lt-Col. Machell: "All will be more comfortable when our division takes over. C.O.’s are well enough off always apparently, having pretty good dug-outs and a chance of drying up, but I feel very bad about the men, and one can’t do enough for them." ^[4]

Battalion situated at Puchevillers.
Battalion bombers parade under Bombing Officer. Remainder of Battalion prepare new training ground.

Battalion situated at Wurst Farm involved in working parties etc. Casualties 2 other ranks.

↑ The right half Battalion relieves two companies of garrison in the F1 sub-sector; left half relieves two companies of garrison in the F2 sub-sector.

Sources: Various sources contemporary to the war have been used to compile the Lonsdale Battalion on this day... (hover to read more)

Various sources contemporary to the war have been used to compile The Lonsdale Battalion On This Day. The majority of the events shown on this day (18 December), including any supplementary notes, enlistments and statistical data etc., have been primarily sourced from the Lonsdale Battalion War Diary (November 1915 to June 1918), Record of the XIth (Service) Battalion (Lonsdale) and abridged material from Timeline and Chronology of the Lonsdale Battalion (September 1914 - May 1915), which are sourced from the original DLONS/L/13/13 Lowther Estate Archives. Events from that chronology are reproduced here with kind permission of Jim Lowther (2016). They are identified and referenced separately by their unique DLONS numbers. Please do not publish these events without prior permission from the Lowther Estate. All casualty names, numbers, ranks, date of deaths and places of burial/commemoration have been sourced from Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-19, Volume 39, The Border Regiment and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database respectively.