The Winter of 1914
The departure of the 8th Division from Hursley was witnessed by the wife of Captain R. Verney of the 2nd Btn. The Rifle Brigade who was, at the time, lodging with the Hayes family in Ladwell.
"I returned to the cottage and stood by the gate as the regiment marched past on their way to Southampton. Ralph was mounted. It poured and is still pouring with rain so they didn’t leave in the best of spirits.”
The rain that accompanied their departure was only the start of what was to become one of the wettest winters on record. Barely a week later further regiments began to arrive at Hursley to form a second new Division, the 27th. However, they considered Hursley to be "uninhabitable" and mobilisation was switched to a new camp on the Downs to the east of Winchester at Morn Hill. Ironically, before their departure in late December, the conditions at Morn Hill camp proved to be even worse than at Hursley indeed their commanding officer was later to remark that the mud was
'far worse than anything we experienced in Flanders afterwards'!
The 27th Division was, like the 8th, drawn largely from regular soldiers returning from around the Empire, some returning in a convoy with soldiers who were to be assigned to Winchester’s third new Division, the 28th. Unlike the previous two Divisions they were not mobilised at a single location but dispersed around Winchester, with Hursley hosting two of the three infantry brigades, Morn Hill the third and Pitt Corner (broadly where Oliver’s Battery is today) the cyclists and cavalry. Whether this was a reaction to the problems experienced by the previous Divisions is unclear, but as the weather, and camps, continued to deteriorate it made little difference and the men suffered horrendously from the cold and wet.
For example the 1st Btn York and Lancashire Regiment arrived just before Christmas to find that
“every shop in Winchester is closed and we can't get anything of any sort in the way of food, light or anything.”
and in the Camp...
“We are up to our knees in mud and absolutely filthy”.
A few days later a squall hit the camps, blowing down the hospital at Hursley and setting in motion a dramatic chain of events.
The hospital was immediately relocated to the Guildhall in Winchester and on 1st January 1915 the decision was made to evacuate the infantry from the camps, and find billets in the city. Such an evacuation was not unique, on Salisbury Plain soldiers came close to mutiny before being billeted in Bournemouth. For Winchester the order to accommodate the 12,000 soldiers of the three infantry brigades came at literally an hour’s notice, with officers arriving at the doors of schools, municipal buildings and large stores and warehouses and informing the owners of the imminent arrival of the men they had been allocated.
“It was New Year’s Day ... at 3:30pm a charmer came ... “I’m sorry to interrupt you in your work Sir,” said the charmer, who appeared to be a Adjutant, “but I have to request accommodation for one thousand and twenty-five men who have been flooded out of camp, and they’ll be here in an hour.” So began the military occupation of our College and School premises...”
Crammed into school dormitories and class rooms, the Hyde Brewery or in the loft of Forder's wool store the men found what space they could. The respite from the weather was a welcome relief and, despite the conditions, mobilisation was completed and they were inspected by King George and Lord Kitchener on Fawley Down on 12th January, 3 days before their departure from the city, Pitt Camp and Hursley (some men including the Royal Engineers having stayed on) destined for Flanders, where they joined the 27th Division around Ypres.
"Off to the trenches again to-night, and please God we shall not lose so many men as before. ... You remember we were together last at Winchester. What a difference between that day and now! ... Then, the most stately pile in the world; here a little room in a French farmer's house, with the table pushed into the corner and a few broken chairs to sit upon.”
Meanwhile at Hursley and all around Winchester the tented encampments were being converted into hutted camps that were to become the home to many of the Divisions of Kitchener's New Army before they too left for France.
