Sunday 17th September 1916

Billets at Millencourt

Training continued. In the evening orders were received that 23^rd Division was to relieve 15^th Division next day, with 10DWR relieving 8^th/10^th Gordon Highlanders in support trenches south-west of Martinpuich.

L.Cpl. George Richard Goodchild (see 17^th August) and Ptes. Alfred Rose Botterill, William Henry Harris, Edgar Johnson, Willie Kershaw and John Richard Thornton were posted to France and would join 10DWR, although the exact date when they joined the Battalion has not been established. Pte. Botterill was a 20 year-old textile worker from Huddersfield. Pte. Harris was was a 23 year-old textile worker from Todmorden; Pte. Johnson was 20 years old and from Settle, where he had worked as a gardener’s assistant; Pte. Kershaw was a 20 year-old French polisher from Bradford; Pte. Thornton was a 27 year-old boot maker from Bradford.

L.Cpl. George Richard Goodchild

Image by kind permission of Henry Bolton

Capt. John Atkinson (see 5^th September), who had left the Battalion twelve days earlier, suffering from trench fever, was evacuated to England, travelling overnight from Boulogne to Dover.

Pte. James Edward Simpson (see 5^th July), who had been in England since having been wounded on 5^th July, was discharged from Wharncliffe Military Hospital in Sheffield and posted to 83^rd Training Reserve Battalion, based at Gateshead.