1 Heritage
This chapter is drawn entirely from secondary sources. The formal regimental history up to 1914 is Colonel H.C. Wylly, History of the 1st & 2nd Battalions The Sherwood Foresters, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment, 1740-1914 (1929), while the early history of the 45th Regiment is also covered by Philip Hugh Dalbiac, History of the 45th: 1st Nottinghamshire Regiment (Sherwood Foresters) (1902). The regular battalions in the Great War are covered in another volume by Wylly, The 1st and 2nd Battalions The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) in the Great War (n.d), and there are several books on the territorials and service battalions particularly L.W. de Grave, The War History of The Fifth Battalion The Sherwood Foresters, Notts and Derby regiment 1914-1918 (1930) on the 5th Battalion and W.G. Hall,Green Triangle: Being The History Of The 2/5th Battalion The Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derby Regiment) in the Great European War, 1914-1918.(1920) on the 2/5th. The interwar period is covered in Brigadier C.N. Barclay The History of the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) 1919-1957 (1959), pp. 1–29. There are also a number of useful short books and pamphlets which give a summarised history, notably The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derby Regiment), a Regiment of the Mercian Brigade: The Sherwood Foresters Regimental History and Recruiting Handbook.
Notes
p. 15 The original title of 45th foot had been held by the second of ten ‘marine regiments’ formed in 1738 and disbanded in 1747, Coincidentally the old 45th Regiment had also had green facings.
p. 18 Mike Briggs’ website <https://derbyshireterritorials.wordpress.com/ > [accessed 9 May 2020] has a lot of information on the Volunteers and Territorials prior to the First World War although it focusses on the 6th Battalion. It also has an image of ‘Short History of the 5th Battalion The Sherwood Foresters (Notts And Derbyshire Regiment)’ taken from the Regimental Annual (1910). <http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/military/dbyreg_v4.pdf > [accessed 9 May 2020] shows the various militia and volunteer units up to the Haldane reforms.
p. 21 Potters DSO citation was gazetted on 4 October 1919. Potter was an officer in the 1/5th Foresters, but he was attached to the 1/6th Foresters on 3 October.
pp. 21-22 For operations of the territorial battalions on the Western front see Major R.E. Priestley, Breaking the Hindenburg Line: The Story of the 46th (North Midland) Division (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1919), Simon Patrick Peaple, ‘The 46th (North Midland) Division T.F. on the Western Front, 1915–1918’, (Thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2003) and Alan MacDonald, "A lack of offensive spirit?": The 46th (North Midland) Division at Commecourt 1st July 1916 (n.l.: Iona Books, 2006)
p. 22 The Long, Long Trail website <https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-british-infantry-regiments-of-1914-1918/sherwood-foresters-nottinghamshire-derbyshire-regiment/> [accessed 7 May 2020] lists the battalions of the regiment during the First World War. These comprised two Regular battalions; two Reserve battalions, four First Line Territorials, four Second Line Territorials, four Reserve Territorials, eleven Service battalions, a Labour battalion, a Garrison battalion, and the 21st Battalion which was formed from home service Territorials. Of these, three New Army battalions, the 21st Battalion, and the six reserve battalions did not leave the UK. There were also the 51st, 52nd and 53rd battalions, but these were existing training battalions previously without regimental affiliation attached to the Regiment in October 1917. Most notable of these was the 53rd (Young Soldier) Battalion, formed from the 13th Young Soldier Battalion, which itself had previously been the 14th Sherwood Foresters.
pp. 22-23 The inter-war history of the regiment comes from Barclay.