Later it transferred to the Territorial Force as a brigade of heavy artillery, and its batteries fought in many of the great battles on the Western Front during the First World War.

In April 1864 it absorbed the 25th (Liverpool) Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps also formed on 9 January 1860 and recruited mainly from the Mersey Steel & Iron Company.

The 8th Lancashire AVC's headquarters (HQ) was at the Mersey Steel & Iron Co in 1869, but from 1870 it was in Toxteth Park, Liverpool.

[3][4][6][7][8][9] When the Volunteers were consolidated into larger units in 1880 the 8th Lancashire AVC was large enough to retain its identity: it had 10 batteries by 1864 and 12 by May 1885, when it was reduced to eight.

[22] The West Lancashire Division had just begun its annual training when war broke out on 4 August 1914 and the units immediately returned to their peacetime HQs to mobilise.

The East Lancashire Division, having volunteered en masse, moved into camps for battle training on 20 August.

[19][16] On 15 August 1914, the War Office (WO) issued instructions to separate those men who had signed up for Home Service only, and form these into reserve units.

[13][23] On 5 September the East Lancashire Division was ordered to Egypt to relieve the Regular Army garrison there for service on the Western Front.

[30][31] When the infantry launched their assault on 1 July, XIII Corps had considerable success (certainly compared to most of the rest of the attack) and most of its casualties were caused by machine gun and rifle fire from strongpoints, instead of by artillery, as was usually the case.

The sector was reported to be eerily quiet by the late afternoon, with only a single German 5.9-inch gun shelling Montauban Alley at extreme range, slowly and inaccurately.

[26][28] First Army was preparing for participation in the Arras Offensive, and 84th HAG was assigned to I Corps for the attack on Vimy Ridge on 9 April.

The artillery preparation began on 20 March, with the batteries of 84th HAG firing from around Bois de Bouvigny on the north flank of the attack, from where they could virtually enfilade the German lines in support of I Corps.

The only hold-up on 9 April was at Hill 145, near the north end of the Canadian attack, and the capture of this position was completed the next day.

Apart from a temporary attachment to 79th HAG from 24 December to 28 January 1918, 1/1st Lancashire Hvy Bty remained with 46th Bde until the end of the war.

Efficient flash spotting and sound ranging ensured 90 per cent accuracy of the CB fire, and the combination of tanks and artillery on III Corps' front overwhelmed the Hindenburg Line defences.

[26][43][44] When the German counter-attacks broke through on 30 November, the battery prepared for withdrawal before 10.00, calling up the horse teams from the wagon lines.

One gun situated in a sunken road south of Marcoing was damaged by shellfire and had to be abandoned as the rest got away.

The section commander, Lt N. Roberts, with some gunners manhandled some ammunition wagons to provide flank protection against the fire, and then got his teams up and 'snatched his two heavies from under the very noses of the enemy, a most gallant and courageous act'.

[26][38] The 2/1st Bty trained at Blackpool until 26 November 1915, when it joined 57th Division at Canterbury (just before the 1st Line battery left for France).

[23][26][27] The battery was thrown straight into supporting a disastrous diversionary attack at Fromelles made by II ANZAC Corps with raw troops (the Official History emphasises the inexperience of the heavy artillery available for this operation, some of whom 'had never fired in France').

Although the bombardment appeared to have been effective, when the infantry attacked on 19 July they found much of the German parapet and barbed wire undamaged.

The artillery effect was as great as the huge mines that were fired under the German front line at Zero hour on 7 June, and the attack was an outstanding success.

[26][28] This began on 16 July, but did not have the advantages of Messines: the Ypres salient was overlooked, and the guns suffered badly from German CB fire.

The opening attack on 1 August was only a partial success, and the offensive quickly bogged down as the weather broke.

[13] The 2/2nd Hvy Bty joined 66th (2nd East Lancs) Division after it concentrated for home defence with Second Army, Central Force, in Kent and Sussex in August 1915.

The brigade went on to win the prestigious King's Cup on two occasions in the 1930s, and spun off three medium regiments that fought with distinction at Dunkirk, Crete, East Africa, Tobruk and North West Europe during the Second World War.