Does anyone know the movements of this brigade? My great uncle was a gunner in 218th in India, near Calcutta in 1916, A Battalion. Wanted to know when it went to India etc. Any help most appreciated!

The 218th Brigade, RFA began the war as the IV Wessex Brigade, RFA of the Territorial Force. It was one of the three field gun brigades of the Wessex Division and, as such, initially armed with the 15-pounder BLC field gun.

The peacetime drill halls of the IV Wessex Brigade were as follows

Brigade HQ Exeter
1st Devonshire Battery Exeter
2nd Devonshire Battery Paignton
3rd Devonshire Battery Tavistock
Ammunition Column Crediton

The IV Wessex Brigade (minus the ammunition column) embarked for India at Southampton on 9 October 1914 and disembarked at Bombay on 9 November. Soon thereafter, the component batteries of the brigade were distributed among various garrisons in the northwestern part of India.

In 1916, the IV Wessex Brigade was renamed, becoming the 218th (IV Wessex) Brigade, RFA. In 1917, the component batteries were numbered, with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Devonshire Batteries becoming 1094th, 1095th, and 1096th Batteries, RFA and the 15-pounder BLC field guns replaced with 18-pounder field guns. That same year, the 1095th battery was broken up, with one two-gun section going to each of the remaining batteries. (Thus, the three four-gun batteries were recast as two six-gun batteries.)

In 1918, a howitzer battery (1014th Battery, RFA) joined the brigade, turning it into a composite unit of twelve 18-pounder field guns and six 4.5-inch howitzers.

While many of the elements of the Wessex Division found themselves in Mesopotamia or Aden, the 218th Brigade remained in India throughout the remainder of the war.

In 1919, two batteries of the 218th Brigade, RFA - the 1096th Battery (field guns) and the 1014th Battery (howitzers) - took part in the Third Afghan War.

Wonderful, thanks for this information. My great uncle had joined up in October 1915, so must have been part of a late group that headed over to join the brigade in India, and at some stage presumably in 1917 had transferred across to the 337th Brigade RFA that headed into Meso in late 1917.

antonjdown wrote:

Anton: Record of the 3rd Devonshire Battery (Tavistock) 4th Wessex Brigade, RFA, the Great War 1914-1915 contains the following:

"1st Draft Arriving Allahabad, March, 1916, included the following men from Tavistock and District:
Name: Gunner F Down
Place of Residence: Tavistock
Remarks: Served on 4th Wessex Brigade Headquarters Staff"

Don't know if you are interested, but in the nominal roll for the 3rd Devonshire Battery, 4th Wessex Brigade, RFA there is the following listing for another man with the surname "Down":

"Name: Bombardier H. R. Down
Residence on outbreak of war: Tavistock
Remarks: Served in France or Flanders and on Afghanistan Frontier Operations in 1919. Passed a Signalling course at Kasauli; retained on the Staff at Kasauli Signalling School as an Assistant Instructor; later commissioned in the cavalry."

Regards, Dick Flory

Wow, I'm stunned, thanks!! No idea who this H R Down is, but there are a whole tribe of us Downs eminating from Devon, so undoubtedly some form of relation.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/paulnsheila

If you're interested, we've put some more of Francis Down's photos on the website. One shows A Battery, 218th Brigade, camped on the Maiadan at Calcutta 1916, and what looks to be 6 guns, with a load of horses in rows behind. It actually looks like he took hundreds of photos (one is numbered 170) but we only have these few. I would guess that Francis volunteered or was switched to the 337th Brigade RFA at some stage in 1917 as he ended up there with them in Mespotamia, dying in June 1918 of typhus fever.