7 January

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Other dates

Lonsdale Battalion events that took place on 7 January.
For events that took place elsewhere, see 7 January on The Great War wiki.

1915 (Thursday)

• Battalion is incorporated in the 5th Army.
• Letter from Cumberland County Council Health Department: "enclosing....an account for £1. 6. 4. Incurred for needles used in inoculating your men....We have most gladly given our services and will always be willing to do whatever we can, and I think you will agree that the Army ought to bear this cost."
• Copy letter from Lt-Col. Machell: "The Cumberland Infirmary at Carlisle, kindly agreed to accept a limited number of our more serious cases on payment of 1/9 per day, the amount allowed for our messing. This is by far the best arrangement that can be made. Our own ambulance takes our sick from our medical detention room in the camp, straight to the Infirmary."
• Letter from General Collings to Lt-Col. Machell: "to let you know how pleased I was with all you showed me today. When you see Lord Lonsdale will you tell him how greatly I was struck with the evidence of what he has done for the Battalion and of the interest he takes in its welfare. I shall write to Western Command informing them of my inspection and satisfaction and I shall also mention about the quality of the boots as there is a very general complaint and something should, if possible, be done in the matter."
• Officer Struck Off: "the Officer Commanding wishes to place on record his appreciation of the services rendered by Colonel Haworth....in raising and training C Company which he brought to Headquarters....feels the Westmorland Company will never lose the impression of Colonel Haworth’s personality, and thanks him for contributing this splendid contingent to the ranks of the Lonsdale Battalion."
• Order for 148 axes, 148 pick axes and 222 shovels.
• Enlistments: James Dixon Nicholson (17488 Pte.)

1916 (Friday)

• Relieves the 17th Highland Light Infantry in the F1 sector near Aveluy. During this period one man is wounded.
• For period 7–14 January:

“It is delightful how easily all the working parties can be arranged, and how satisfactorily an immense amount of work is done with a minimum amount of fatigue to the men, by careful and systematic arrangement beforehand. We do more than twice what the others do, and our men do it twice as easily. It is all very small, but it is good to see the result, both in the work and in the men themselves....I have three patrols every night. They go cautiously at first, and I get them to go a bit wider every night, so as gradually to get confidence.

“One of our patrols bumped into a German one a few night ago. Germans retired and we got our machine-gun on to them; one German got left, and was brought in in triumph, everyone much pleased. Last night patrol, under Matthews, the police sergeant, got right inside the German wire and located a big working party in the open. Got back and put a M.G. and a lot rifles on to them—groans, lights flying about, silence for half an hour, and then retaliation with whizz-bangs and rifle grenades—no effect. Quite good. It has given them a start, so much turns on the way the first things go. We have located a spot where I believe they are making a trench mortar battery, so we have arranged for our artillery to flatten this place quite out to-morrow. The new R.A. is first class. – Lt-Col. P.W. Machell

1917 (Sunday)

• B Company, C Company and D Company parade in full marching order, then leave in lorries for Bus. Afterwards they march to Courcelles. Arrive 3.30pm.

1918 (Monday)

• Tournehem: During the morning they are involved in battalion training and inspection by the Commanding Officer. Recreation during afternoon.

Notes

References

Acknowledgements

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 (7 January), 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.