“When the Ponies and mules reached our transport lines next morning, it was noticed that ten had been hit, three so badly they had to be destroyed, some with wounds big enough to put ones fist in.”
So wrote Edgar Loveland, Company Quarter Master Sergeant of the 1/16th Battalion Queens Westminster Rifles (London Regiment) while serving in Flanders. Edgar, from a middle class Sussex family, had enlisted in the Territorial Force in 1912 while living in London, he paid the princely sum of £1 and 5 Shillings to join the QWRs at Buckingham Gate Drill Hall.
In 1914 the Battalion spent several months training in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, which is how this story now comes to be in print. Steve Hammond, a Battle Honours stalwart and member of the famed ORASOT group hails from Hemel and came across the little known account of the Westminsters after he saw a stained glass window dedicated to the Battalion in Leverstock Green Church, and his curiosity grew from there.
Steve has been studying the men of the QWR for over 10 years now and began collecting associated memorabilia too. So when a unique private collection of related papers came up for sale he had to have it! The lot contained the private diary of Edgar Loveland, (above) and Steve says “what a goldmine of fascinating insights into life, and death, on the Western Front it has proved to be.”
Steve has researched the Battalion and the Diary entries meticulously and has spent many days visiting the areas Edgar mentions in the text, identifying sites of camps, trenches, rest areas and of course cemeteries which today host the many fallen of the Battalion.
Steve continued, “even Edgars familiar light hearted writing style could not shroud the pain of Gommecourt (1st July 1916) when the Battalion suffered over 600 casualties out of 750 in the battle.” Loveland wrote “stunned into shock, we learned the extent of the sacrifice. We had lost the flower of our splendid Regiment”
Edgar survived the War and the numerous engagements the Battalion fought in and went on to have a family while living in Harrow. Edgar served again in the next war, in the Home Guard and also became an active member of the Old Contemptibles Association for which he wrote articles for the magazine, signing off as “Quarter Bloke”.
In 1938 Loveland returned to the old frontlines with some of his old pals on what was an early battlefield tour, here (below) they gather at Towy Post, Gavrelle the scene of the Battalions’ heroic stand in the great German Spring Offensive of 1918.
This book is a limited edition private publication detailing life in the Queen’s Westminster Rifles. Mixed with many other previously unseen photographs and tales researched by the editor, it gives a fascinating insight into life in a Territorial Battalion during the First World War.
Copies are available direct from the author (below) but we are happy also to give away a signed copy for the correct answer to be submitted to us to a question posed by the author himself.
Q: The First Battalion QWR, who arrived in France in 1914 became known as the “Maidaners”, where did this nickname originate?
{answers via email to Battle Honours, winner to be picked out of a Tin hat }
Copies can be obtained direct from the author hammond.steve@btopenworld.com
Priced at £25 including UK First Class Postage.
