One question which received much attention and gave rise to much discussion was that of a Divisional Artillery. It was reluctantly decided not to raise one in Ulster, though this meant losing many an Ulsterman to other Divisions. The U.V.F. had no artillery and consequently no partially trained force upon which to draw. It was thought that the raising and training of artillery in Ulster would take so long that it might delay the departure to the front of the Division for several months. In those days, it will be remembered, the one feverish anxiety of the men of the New Armies was lest the war should be over ere they were able to play their part in it! In the event, as will later be explained, the Division went to France in advance of the Artillery that had been raised for it, with a Territorial Artillery attached.
The 36th Divisional Artillery was raised, six months after the rest of the Division, in the suburbs of London, though from quarters stranger to one another than towns fifty miles apart in Ireland. The 153rd and 154th Brigades R.F.A. were formed by the British Empire League, of which one of the moving spirits was General Sir Bindon Blood. They were recruited chiefly from Croydon, Norbury, and Sydenham. The 172nd and 173rd Brigades, on the other hand, came from North-east London. They were formed on the initiative of the Mayors of East and West Ham and recruited from those districts.
The first date recorded in the Artillery annals is that of May the 5th, 1915, when sixty recruits of the 153rd Brigade assembled at 60, Victoria Street, the headquarters of the British Empire League, and marched to Norbury, where they were billeted in private houses. Londoners from South and North did not meet until July, when the four Brigades and the 36th Divisional Ammunition Column were moved to Lewes. It was within a few days of the arrival of the rest of the Division, already at a high standard of efficiency, in England, that serious training of the Divisional Artillery really began.
To the great regret of all Ulster, it was ruled that Sir George Richardson, owing to the seniority of his rank, could not take command of the Division. He remained in Belfast, working for the good of the cause, and none can speak more highly of his efforts and his loyalty than Sir James Craig and General Hickman, the chief organizers of those early days. "Trusted by every class," writes an officer who had long worked on his staff, "he was able to induce employers to permit those of their workmen to enlist who were not indispensable, and to perform the much more difficult task of making the skilled craftsmen of the shipyards realize that their duty to their country called them to remain at work, helping the Navy and Merchant Service to hold command of the sea, on which our success depended equally with our victory on land." How they and others, notably the makers of linen for aircraft, who were, for the most part, women, played their part, cannot be discussed here, though it is a record worthy the pen of a eulogist. What is less generally known to the people of Great Britain is that in Ulster not a strike occurred throughout the course of the war.
Major-General C. H. Powell, C.B.,[9] an officer with a distinguished record in the Indian Army, was appointed to the command of the Division. Colonel Hickman, after remaining in Belfast till the three Brigades had been formed, went to Finner to take command of the 109th.
The following is the formation of the Division as finally constituted:—
Commander:
Major-General C. H. Powell, C.B.
Assistant Adjutant and Quarter-Master General:
Lieut.-Colonel James Craig.