Dionis Macnair Photo Album – 7th Division and Mountain Batteries
Dionis Macnair has very kindly granted us permission to share pages from one of her family photograph albums.
These pages, titled, 7th Division and Mountain Batteries, show the Indian troops, their camp and mules in Lyndhurst 1914. It also shows that their presence her in the New Forest had become somewhat of a visitor attraction with scores of people coming to see them.
Credit:
These files were photographed as part of the Our Past Our Future Project.
Courtesy of Dionis M Macnair. © 2021New Forest National Park Authority
The Long, Long Trail
Researching soldiers of the British Army in the Great War of 1914-1919
The 7th Division was formed during September and very early October 1914, by the bringing together of regular army units from various garrison stations around the British Empire. They were assembled in the New Forest in Hampshire before initially moving to Belgium. The division landed at Zeebrugge in the first week of October 1914, ordered to assist in the defense of Antwerp. By the time they arrived the city was already falling and the 7th was instead ordered to hold certain important bridges and other places that would help the westward evacuation of the Belgian army. Once the Belgians were through, the division was moved westwards, where the infantry entrenched in front of Ypres, the first British troops to occupy that fateful place. https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/order-of-battle-of-divisions/7th-division/
Further articles on New Forest Knowledge relating to Dionis McNair and her mother Eleanor Ruth Dent
- The Chronicles of the Belgians – Eleanor Ruth Dent
- Shappen Bottom Rifle Range at Burley – Eleanor Ruth Dent
- Memories of growing up in WWII – Dionis MacNair
- Dionis Macnair Photo Album – 7th Division and Mountain Batteries
- Dionis Macnair Photo Album – Blackmoor Convalescent Home
- Forest Figures: Eleanor Ruth Dent