The following waves of troops

and some notes on "missing" records

Unspecified Troop Encampment - August 1915

When the 2nd London Division came to Hertfordshire in August 1914, each unit was split into two. The unit preparing for active service came to Hertfordshire, while the remainder stayed in London to recruit, and start training, a second wave. When the first wave left for France units of the 2nd wave moved into the vacated training areas - leaving a recruiting third wave in London. In addition other units from other Divisions and from other parts of the country, came to the St Albans area during the following years.

However military censorship of the news makes it very difficult to keep track of such changes. In 1914 the papers included news of the troop movements, and at Christmas the celebrations were often described in some detail, with information on the location, the unit name, and the names of at least some of the officers. The Watford Illustrated felt free to publish clearly identified pictures. 

A year later the situation was completely different - and it is sometimes difficult to find evidence from the papers that troops were actually in the area, much less what units they came from. Surviving council records are also unhelpful as virtually everything relating to billeting of the troops seems to have been destroyed. The best preserved records I looked at were those of St Albans and I found some useful references in the Town Clerk's copy letter book. Quite frequently the soldiers would have problems with their horse-drawn transport - and a letter would be sent to the commanding officer of a unit (name and address given) demanding money for the repair of a lamp post! 

Of course, when a military unit went to war stations it would start a war diary - and this would confirm where it was stationed. At least for the ones I looked at the result was very disappointing. At some stage someone had decided that no-one would be interested in the UK based training period and the records for the months before embarkation had been destroyed.   If the unit went abroad in the middle of the month the diary for that month would contain some information for the days before they left - and in one case a whole wad of earlier documents had been misfiled - and hence not destroyed.

In fact, when writing The London Gunners, I gave up all hope of finding any list of which unit was billeted in the area at what dates - and I hope the reader will excuse me for not being able to the units.

Artillery at "Well Farm", Leverstock Green, January 1916
This is one of the last military pictures in Watford Illustrated that identifies anything!