Monday 21st December 1914

The detachment of ‘A’ Company (including the recruits from Ilkley and Earby) who had remained in training at Camberley along with other men from the Battalion, returned to barracks at Aldershot. News of their progress was reported in the Ilkley Gazette:

THE ILKLEY MEN AT ALDERSHOT

The Ilkley men attached to 10^th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment are at present in barracks at Aldershot. They were billeted for a fortnight at Camberley in Surrey for field training purposes, and have now about completed their course, except musketry practice, which up to the present has been confined to indoor range shooting with the Morris Tube (the Morris Tube was an adaptation which could be added to a rifle to allow a smaller calibre round to be fired, thus allowing rifle practice to take place in more confined spaces). There are over 200,000 troops of all arms located at Aldershot and very strict military discipline prevails. Furlough is being granted for Christmas and the men of the West Riding Regiment are coming home in Companies. Corporal George Reginald Percy, the assistant surveyor for the Ilkley District Council, has recently been promoted to be scout sergeant, and Private J.B. Redfearn is also attached to the scouts, while Private Fred Turner is now one of the battalion butchers. Being close to the Farnborough aerodrome, aeroplanes are frequently seen in flight and, until a week or two ago, they were accustomed to see a good many German prisoners, both soldiers and civilians, but these have been removed to Southend.

George Reginald Percy had enlisted with the Ilkley contingent; he had been working as assistant surveyor for the local district council. He was a recent arrival in the area having been born in Windsor and had lived for some time in Twickenham. Both his father and grandfather had been piano tuners.

The photograph below, from the album kept by Capt. Dick Bolton, features Percy (in his uniform as Scout Sergeant) along with fellow NCOs, Sgts. Harry Dewhirst (see 18^th September), Samuel Collins (see 17^th December) and David Hanton (see below). None of these three were original volunteers to Tunstill’s Company but all had been posted to the Company whilst in training at Frensham; Collins and Hanton appear in Capt. Bolton’s list of his platoon (see 1^st November).

David Hanton was 29 years old and from Peterborough; in the absence of a surviving service record I am unable to establish exactly when he had been promoted.

For details on J.B. Redfearn (see 2^nd October)

The appointment of Fred Turner to be one of the battalion butchers would come as no surprise. Before enlisting at Ilkley he had been working as a district manager for the River Plate Meat Company. Aged 37, he was one of the oldest of the original recruits and had married only at the age of 34, to Maud Elizabeth Wood.