Trainloads of local ‘Terriers’ left Chesterfield in August 1914 to train for war. Four years later, 423 of what became the 1/6th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, had died in the trenches. Scott Lomax tells their poignant story.
THE SOLDIERS OF THE 6TH TERRITORIAL BATTALION of the Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment), left Chesterfield on August 10, 1914, less than a week into the Great War, and headed, via Ripley and Alfreton, to Derby; where they were among 16,000 men who boarded 36 long trains to take them on their way to camps where they would train for war. As they left Derbyshire, reserve battalions were formed in anticipation of what was euphemistically termed ‘natural wastage’, and the original battalion came to be known as the first 6th, abbreviated to 1/6th…