national gratitude.

Their earlier history hardly emerges from parochialism. Founded in 1859
and recruited mainly from the southerly suburbs of Manchester, the
Battalion lived through the common vicissitudes of the English Volunteer
unit. It knew the ridicule and disparagement of the hypercritical and
cosmopolitan, the too easy praise of the hurried inspecting general, the
enthusiasm of the camp fire, the chill of the wet afternoon on a wintry
rifle range at Crowden. The South African War gave many a chance of
active service, and infused more serious and systematic training in the
routine of the yearly Whitsuntide camps. At that time everything
depended on the Regular officer who acted as adjutant, and officers and
men owed much to the inspiring energy of Captain (now Colonel) W.P.E.
Newbigging, C.M.G., D.S.O., of the Manchesters, whose adjutancy
(1902-1907) meant a great step in their efficiency. The letter "Q,"
which signifies success in all examinations required by the War Office,
figured in the Army List after most of our officers' names during this
vivid and strenuous phase. For the rest, the pre-War period turned
mainly on the fortnightly camps and occasional Regimental exercises.
Salisbury Plain, the Isle of Man, Aldershot and a few North Country
areas are full of memories of manoeuvre and recreation in a peaceful
age. Regimental exercises filled weekends in Cheshire or the West
Riding.

Volunteering served many purposes in England. It kept alive in luxurious
times a sense of discipline and a cultivation of endurance. Its
comradeship brought classes together so closely that the easy
relationship between officers and men in the 1st line Territorial unit
of 1914-1915 was the despair of the more crusted Regular martinet. Its
joyous amateurism freed it from every trace of the mental servitude
which is the curse of militarism, and stimulated initiative and
individuality. Long before the War, most Territorials believed in
universal training, not so much on account of the German peril, which to
too many Englishmen seemed a mere delusion, as on account of its
social value. It is pleasant to remember how solidly Lord Roberts
received local Territorial support when he made the most prophetic of
all his speeches in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on the 22nd October
1912.

[Illustration: _Jerome, Southport._

Lieutenant-Colonel H.E. GRESHAM.]

Lord Haldane's conversion of the Volunteers into the Territorial Force