LOCAL CASUALTIES: 9
Private Edward Marshall - First Battalion. Privates Wilson Harding & William Weeks - Third Battalion.  

ROLLING CASUALTY COUNT: 958
First Battalion very quiet day. Relieved by the Fourth Cameroons about 8pm.
Second Battalion heavily shelled morning, afternoon and evening. Medical Officer Lieutenant A M Smith severely wounded. Dressing station and B Companies HQ damaged, also the road leading to the village. Lieutenant RVL Johnston joined Battalion and was posted to D Company. Kept up constant machine gun fire from two positions in rear of our lines on to the German works and communications trenches from about 9.30pm till 1am accompanied also by bursts of Infantry fire.
Third Battalion relieved by Royal Irish Rifles and marched to billets. HQ and A & D Companies La Clytte, B & C Companies Dickebusch.

Worcestershire is the only county outside the London area which has four regular Battalions. Not even the hugely populated and boastful counties of York and Lancaster provide four regular Battalions; and, now the Worcestershire Fourth Battalion has left England, we are in the proud position of having more units on foreign service than any other provincial county (says “Crowquill” in “Berrow’s Worcester Journal.”) The destination of the Fourth Battalion (which came home from Malta) is still secret, as it is also that of the various units of our Territorial Force. All we know is that the Fourth have left England, and that the Yeomanry, the Artillery, and the Seventh and Eighth Battalions are “under general orders” to leave “for the Continent.” When these last-named units have gone, the county will be represented in the fighting ranks by six Infantry Battalions, one Brigade of Artillery, and one cavalry unit – the Worcestershire Queen’s Own, Hussars. After all of these have gone, there will still be left at home, ready for the eventualities of the future, the five Battalions of Kitchener’s Army, raised since the war – the Ninth, Tenth, 11th, 12th and 13th Worcestershires – the Reserve units of the Territorials (which are the duplicates of the original units), and also the Fifth and Sixth (Special Service) Battalions, from which the wastages in the firing line at the front are made good.

A cheque for £25, the proceeds of the whist drive held by the Worcester and District Butchers’ Association, in aid of the Battenhall Mount Hospital, has been forwarded to the Mayor.

It is understood that under the will of the late Mrs CJ Sale, the Art Gallery of the Victoria Institute, Worcester, will receive three of the twelve pictures which formed her own private collection. This bequest is  in addition to what they will receive under the late Mr Sale’s will, and we are pleased to hear that the Trustees of the British Museum, in the exercise of their option, will probably allow the local gallery to receive a more considerable portion of that collection than might have been expected.

Information researched by Sue Redding.