When 59th Division were at St Albans a School of Cookery was set up with courses running in November and December 1915. This may be linked to the 309 Company Army Service Corps that were based at St. Albans for quite some time. As a base it seemed to fall out of favour when what was known as Central Force was amalgamated with Eastern Command in March 1916. However, it was used to train Canadian recruits brought over to avoid the harsh Winter (back in Canada) in late 1916. [Ref: David Porter]

 

The 23rd Training Reserve Battalion at St Albans 1916/17

Orderlies, 23rd T.R.B. published by L. L. Christmas, St Albans   As these soldiers are clearly concerned with cooking this was posted here because they might have been on a course at the School of Cookery.   Peter has kindly drawn my attention to the page on the Training Reserve Battalions on The Long, Long Trail Web Site.

The Training Reserve Battalions were created in September 1916 as part of a significant reorganisation of the infantry reserve battalions. "The TR units dropped the cap badges and shoulder titles of their former regiments and instead wore a large General Service button on a red disc on the cap and the letters TR as a shoulder title. " An examination of the picture shows that one of the soldiers has a "TR" shoulder title. The 23rd Battalion was formed out of the 10th (Reserve) Battalion, the Royal Sussex Regiment, which was based at Shoreham. In May 1917 there was another reorganisation and the Battalion became the 25th Young Soldier Battalion.

 

February 2013		Page Created
March 2014		Orderlies picture added?