Saturday 3rd March 1917

Eperlecques

The weather was very mild. Training programmes began, with the Battalion given over to Company commanders for instruction.

Pte. Smith Hesselden (see 16^th January) was charged with “irregular conduct, ie gambling”; on the evidence of Maj. Charles Bathurst (see 2^nd March) and on the orders of Lt. Col. Robert Raymer (see 22^nd February) he was ordered to serve ten days Field Punishment no.2.

Pte. John William Mallinson (see 30^th October 1916) was ordered to be confined to barracks for three days having been found to have a “dirty rifle on parade”.

Pte. Richard Metcalfe (see 14^th February) was reported Cpl. Robinson (unidentified) and CSM Albert Edgar Palmer (see 13^th December 1916) as “absent off3pm parade”; on the orders of Maj. Charles Bathurst (see above) he was to be confined to barracks for five days.

Pte. Frederick William Warner joined the Battalion, having arrived in France on 10^th February he had originally been due to have been posted to 8DWR but whilst at 34^th Infantry Base Depot at Etaples had been re-posted to 10DWR. He was a 29 year-old painter from Burley-in-Wharfedale; he had married in November 1916 whilst in training.

CSM William Jones MM (see 26^th January) who had been back in England for the previous six weeks, now formally completed an application for a commission.

Pte. Joseph Chandler (see 17^th December 1916), serving with 3DWR at North Shields, was reported as having deserted.

Almost a year after having been wounded, Pte. Herbert Ridley (see 25^th November 1916) was posted to 3DWR at Tynemouth in preparation for a return to active service.

Pte. Harold Rushworth (see 18^th December 1916) who had been sent home to England almost three months earlier, having been taken ill whilst attached to 176^th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers, appeared before a Medical Board assembled at Lewisham Hospital. The Board found that he should transferred to the Army Reserve Class P. This classification of the reserve had been introduced in October 1916 and applied to men “whose services were deemed to be temporarily of more value to the country in civil life rather than in the Army”.  Rushworth’s last known occupation prior to enlisting was as a house painter, but he was to take up munitions work under his new classification.

John Widdup, younger brother of 2Lt. Harry Widdup (see 14^th February), serving with 322^nd Quarrying Company, Royal Engineers, was promoted Acting Lance Corporal.

In Idle, near Bradford, Ethel Morrell, wife of Pte. Fred Morrell (see 16^th January), gave birth to the couple’s second child; the boy would be named Fred.


A payment of £4 18s. 4d was authorised, being the amount outstanding in pay and allowances to the late Pte. Peter James Sheehan (see 6th October) who had been killed in action in October 1916; the payment would go to his father, Michael.