Researching Highland Light Infantry Service, 1914–18

The Highland Light Infantry became a remarkably large and layered organisation during the First World War, and an individual soldier’s place within that expansion can leave clues in unexpected parts of his surviving record. The distinction between Regular, Territorial and newly raised Service battalions matters particularly here, because each branch developed its own structure and could lead a man towards a very different wartime experience. Even the format of a service number deserves close attention: a seemingly insignificant prefix may provide evidence about where a volunteer fitted within the regiment’s rapid expansion and, in some cases, connect him with one of Glasgow’s distinctive wartime formations. Territorial service raises a different set of questions, as battalions carrying the same HLI identity were divided between markedly different duties and destinations. The regiment’s two established Regular battalions likewise cannot be assumed to have shared a common campaign. This hub therefore allows researchers to work outwards from number format, battalion type, recruiting context and surviving geographical evidence, gradually separating the many different strands hidden beneath the HLI title. For a regiment expanded on such a scale, identifying a man simply as Highland Light Infantry is only the outer layer of the story: determining how he entered that enlarged wartime structure and precisely where he fitted within it can open the route towards reconstructing his individual service.

Eight Service Battalions — But Not One Numbering Pattern

The Highland Light Infantry underwent enormous wartime expansion, ultimately fielding eight Service Battalions. Even within this single branch of the regiment, however, the numbering arrangements were far from uniform.

The 10th, 11th, 12th and 14th Battalions broadly followed the more conventional pattern of Service Battalion recruitment. The later formations provide the more distinctive evidence. The 15th, 16th and 18th Battalions belonged to Glasgow’s Pals battalions, recruiting men through the concentrated civic enthusiasm that produced locally connected formations during the opening period of the war. Their service numbers could preserve a direct clue to that battalion identity through prefixes such as 15/ for the 15th Battalion.

The 17th Battalion complicates the picture further. Although it did not sit within the same Glasgow Pals grouping, the 17/ prefix was nevertheless used extensively among its personnel.

The result is an unusually interesting Service Battalion numbering landscape. Within the HLI, a prefix can sometimes do considerably more than distinguish a wartime volunteer from the regiment’s established soldiers: 15/, 16/, 17/ and 18/ can provide evidence pointing towards particular battalion groupings. The regiment’s sheer scale makes those surviving prefixes especially significant.

A Large Territorial Force with Sharply Divided Wartime Roles

The HLI also entered the conflict with a substantial Territorial Force presence. The wartime experiences of these battalions divided geographically, however, rather than following a single HLI Territorial route.

Of the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Territorial Battalions, only the 9th Battalion served on the Western Front. The 5th, 6th and 7th Battalions instead served in the Eastern Mediterranean, creating a sizeable HLI Territorial contribution to operations far removed from France and Belgium.

The 8th Battalion provides the third strand, remaining a Home Service battalion. Within this one part of the regiment there were therefore three substantially different wartime experiences: Western Front service, Eastern Mediterranean operations and service at home.

This is particularly striking given the size of the HLI Territorial establishment. A reference simply to a soldier being a Territorial Highland Light Infantryman leaves a substantial question unanswered. The battalion determined whether his wartime experience belonged to the familiar fighting in France and Belgium, operations much further east, or duties within Britain itself.

The HLI’s Territorial Force was consequently not merely large; it was geographically fragmented, with its battalions fulfilling markedly different wartime roles.

The Two Regular Battalions Followed Different Wars

The Highland Light Infantry’s two pre-war Regular battalions also separated into distinctly different operational stories during the First World War.

The 1st Battalion served in the Eastern Mediterranean, placing it outside the Western Front campaign that dominates so much of the popular memory of British infantry service during 1914–18. Its experience therefore shared a broad geographical direction with several of the regiment’s Territorial battalions rather than with its fellow Regular formation.

The 2nd Battalion, by contrast, became heavily involved on the Western Front. Its major battle experience included Loos, the Somme and Passchendaele, giving it a wartime chronology running through some of the largest British operations of the middle years of the conflict.

The contrast is important because Regular status alone provides little indication of what an HLI soldier’s war actually looked like. Two men could both belong to the regiment’s established Regular Army component yet experience campaigns in entirely different theatres.

Combined with the varied destinations of the Territorial battalions and the regiment’s eight Service Battalions, the two Regulars complete a remarkably diverse organisational picture. The wartime HLI was not simply a large regiment: its Regular, Territorial and Service elements divided into numerous distinct paths, making precise battalion identification particularly significant.

Explore similar units:

1. Black Watch: The most famous of the Scottish Highland regiments
2. Gordon Highlanders: Another highland regiment in WWI with a similar composition
3. Highland Light Infantry: View the similarities and differences in the regiment between WWI & WWII

Click here to explore similar infantry regiments in the main WWI Infantry Regiment Library.

Click here to explore regiments from the same geographical region.