City of London Royal Fusiliers

My Grandfather (William Henry Taylor 1891-1966) got caught up in WW1 and
is believed to have served in the trenches in France or Belgium.

squealing...

...

On a child's birth certificate of Feb 1915 he is described as a Private,
City of London Royal Fusiliers. Later in Sep 1916 he is described as a
Private 2/1 London Regiment Royal Fusiliers.

I've done a bit of searching for information on the WWW but there's such
a plethora of amalgamations of divisions that I'm lost in the mire. Can
anybody explain (simply) what he might have been up to during WW1?

Forrest Anderson...

I'll try to explain, but when it comes to the London Regiment and the
Royal Fusiliers, it's difficult to keep it simple!

Charani...

8>< mega snip

Thanks for that explanation, which I think I follow. I have a **x
cousin who was in the army in WWI and classified as City of London
(I'm going by memory). Your explanation will help me sort out more
exactly what and where and how - I think :))

In WW1, most regiments had a mixture of Regular, Reserve, Territorial,
and New Army battalions, numbered in one reasonably consecutive
sequence. As a hypothetical example, the 1st and 2nd Bns might
initially be made up of pre-war Regulars; the 3rd might be a Reserve
Bn which never left home and was used as a training depot; the 4th to
9th Bns might be pre-war Territorial battalions; and the 10th to 21st
Bns might be made up of volunteers or conscripts for the New Army
(mostly designated as Service battalions).

The number of battalions in a regiment varied widely - some regiments
had over 40 battalions, whilst others had under 10. Whilst most of
them were composed along the above lines, there were some exceptions.
For instance, the Guards regiments did not have any Territorial or New
Army battalions.

Two other exceptions were the London Regiment, which was a very large
all-Territorial regiment with no Regular or New Army battalions, and
the Royal Fusiliers which had no Territorial Battalions.

Since both the London Regiment and the Royal Fusiliers recruited from
London, it was logical for the Royal Fusiliers to have an
"arrangement" with the London Regiment, so that the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and
4th Battalions of the London Regiment were regarded as being the
Territorial Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers.

Like most Territorial Battalions in the British Army in WW1, each of
these four Territorial Battalions of the London Regiment was split
into a number of lines to cope with the influx of recruits. The 1st Bn
London Regiment was split into the 1/1st, 2/1st, 3/1st and the 4/1st.
Similarly, the 2nd Bn of the London Regiment was split into the 1/2nd,
2/2nd, 3/2nd and 4/2nd, and so on for the 3rd and 4th Bns. So what had
initially been four battalions, became sixteen, and each was deployed
independently.

Since the London Regiment recruited from London and some battalions
were "related" to the Royal Fusiliers, the full designations of these
battalions reflected this relationship, and these battalions adopted
the following style in 1916:

1/1st (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers).
2/1st (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers).
1/2nd (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers).
etc

To complicate matters, the full title of the Royal Fusiliers was "The
Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment)", so the first four
battalions of this regiment were designated:

1st Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).
2nd Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).
3rd Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).
4th Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).

So we have two different regiments, which had battalions with
confusingly similar titles.

Your man was described in Sep 1916 as being "Private 2/1 London
Regiment Royal Fusiliers", so I would say that at that point he was in
the 2/1st (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Royal
Fusiliers). This battalion was the Second Line of the 1st Battalion of
the London Regiment.

The 2/1st Bn was formed in London about Sep 1914, and was quickly sent
to Malta in Feb 1915, landing there on 11th Feb. On 27 Aug 1915 it
left for Alexandria and on 25 Sep 1915 landed at Suvla, Gallipoli.
After the withdrawal from Gallipoli in Jan 1916, it went to Egypt
where it stayed until April, whereupon it was sent to the Western
Front. It was disbanded by June, and the 3/1st Bn was renumbered as
the 2/1st!

The 3/1st (which became the 2/1st in June 1916) had originally been
formed in the UK in Jan 1915, and was still in England when it changed
its designation to the 2/1st. It landed in France in Jan 1917, and was
disbanded in Feb 1918.

The photo shows him wearing a uniform suitable for Gallipoli or Egypt,
and would nicely fit with him being in the original 2/1st. It might
have been taken in the UK before the original 2/1st left for Malta, or
perhaps taken in Malta or Egypt. I suspect that he served with the
2/1st until it was disbanded in France in June 1916, and whilst
overseas was then posted to some other unknown battalion. That leads
me to believe that your record of him being in the 2/1st in Sep 1916
might be wrong - perhaps his wife hadn't been updated that he had
changed his unit three months before Lillian's birth. As against this,
the original 2/1st had been overseas since Feb 1915, so where did the
baby (born Sep 1916) come from?

If he served overseas, he should be listed in the Medal Index Card
database for WW1 campaign medals at

Unfortunately, a search for William H Taylor of the London Regiment
comes up with 10 hits. Of these, only one man has a regimental number
belonging to the batch allocated in Jan 1917 to the 1st Bn of the
London Regiment (which includes the 1/1st, 2/1st Bns etc):

Taylor, William H
Corps Regiment No Rank
London Regiment 641 Private
London Regiment 200051 Private

Although you should *not* rely on this method to identify your man, if
you wanted to download just one MIC, then this is the one I'd suggest
you look at first.

You should really try to get to the National Archives to search for
his Service Record in the Burnt and Unburnt Documents collections. If
it has survived, then you should find information which will tie him
to your man (place of birth, next of kin, address etc), and you should
also get details of his military service (incl promotions and
postings), which would be much better then all the hypothesising I'd
done above!

A photo of William in uniform can be found at:

Jake Wade...

*******************************************************

Try "Land Forces of Great Britain" at -
to start.

In particular for the London Regiment (s) of the Royal
Fusiliers -

regards Jake

squealing...

But that's not a woollen Western front uniform he's wearing - it looks like
a cotton set of khakis, solar topee and long trousers.
Gallipoli which would be consistent if the photo was dated ~1915-6....