Friday 7th January 1916

Billeted in huts near Rue Marle

By 7am ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies were settled in their new billets near the Erquinghem-Armentieres road west of Rue Marle, with the rest of the Battalion in the village itself. In the event of any alarm all companies were ordered to assemble by the shortest route in the fields west of Rue Marle.

Pte. George Henry Hansford (see 11^th September 1915), who had arrived in France with a draft in September 1915, but had been posted to ‘a course of transport’, finally joined the Battalion.

Maj. Harry Hildyard (see 21^st August), commanding ‘A’ Company, departed for a one week leave to England. He travelled first to Boulogne and from there to Folkestone, before travelling on to his home in Hythe. On arrival in England Maj. Hildyard requested that he be examined by an Army Medical Board which was duly convened to meet at Shorncliffe Military Hospital on 10^th January.

With the departure of Maj. Hildyard, Capt. Gilbert Tunstill (see passim) took temporary command of ‘A’ Company, which had always been known locally and colloquially as ‘Tunstill’s Compnay’. His introduction was to be a relatively quiet one as the next three days in billets passed off largely without incident in mild and fine weather, although working parties were found each day for the front line.

Sgt. Edward Hunter (see 4^th November 1915) departed for England on one week leave.

L.Cpl. Thomas Angus McAndrew (see 29^th August 1915) reverted to the rank of Private.

The weekly edition of the Craven Herald published letters from two members of Tunstill’s Company, Ptes. Tom Swales and John Dinsdale (see 15^th December 1915).

The Brighouse Echo, in an article about the receipt of parcels from the Brighouse Christmas Parcels Fund, noted that, “Pte. Charles Holgate (see below), 10^th West Riding Regiment, who received his parcel on December 28^th, returns thanks and says he has had a real good time in the circumstances”. Charles Holgate was 19 years old and from Brighouse, where he had worked as an apprentice at the Brighouse Corporation gas works. He had first gone to France with 9DWR in July 1915 and had been wounded and posted back to England in November 1915; the exact date and circumstances of his joining 10DWR are unknown.