[2][4][5][6][7][8] He was replaced as CO by Major Henry Penton (1817–1882) of the 3rd (Royal Westminster) Middlesex Militia, a local landowner in Clerkenwell whose grandfather had developed the district of Pentonville.

[2][5][4][13][14] The Stanhope Memorandum of December 1888 proposed a Mobilisation Scheme for Volunteer units, which would assemble in their own brigades at key points in case of war.

[15][16] Under this scheme the Finsbury Rifles formed part of the North London Brigade which would assemble at Caterham under the command of the CO of the Coldstream Guards.

[2][4][5][11][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] Annual training for 1st London Division had just started when war was declared on 4 August 1914, and the Finsbury Rifles promptly mustered at Pentonville for mobilisation.

[2][23][25][26][27] Several battalions of the division were soon posted away to relieve Regular Army garrisons in the Mediterranean or to supplement the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front.

The Landing at Suvla Bay on 6 August had been a flank attack designed to manoeuvre the Turks out of their defences, but it too became bogged down in trench warfare.

[35] The battalions breasted the gully-riven slopes of the ridge, and ultimately advanced the left of the line to the south-western shoulder of Kidney Hill[36] but they were unsupported, and withdrew that night to positions in Lone Tree Gully.

162nd Brigade, with 1/11th Londons as support battalion, formed the division's left, with its flank on the point where Wadi Mukkademe crossed the Gaza-Beersheba road.

It was a holding attack but the leading brigades made such good progress that 162nd Bde was able to pass through by 06.00 to move on to the final objective, Sheikh Hasan, which it secured after a 15-minute bombardment.

[31][32][49] Their charge was preceded by a five minute bombardment by three field batteries, during which the enemy put down a counter-barrage along the edge of Bald Hill and manned their trenches.

At dawn on 12 March, 162nd Brigade assaulted behind a creeping barrage, 'The infantry – Londons and Bedfords – were seen to disappear into the wadis in the pale light and then to reappear scrambling up the steep hillsides like lines of ants'.

[29][30][59] After a period of trench holding near Arras, the 58th Division moved to the Ypres Salient in late August 1917, with 2/11th Battalion being one of the first units going into the line, taking over positions at St Julien.

As it arrived, the weather broke, and the division was forced to jump off from a line of flooded craters in the Poelcapelle area and struggle forward behind a barrage that advanced too quickly.

Opportunities for action were rare during the Phoney War, but on the night of 22/23 November 1939 the Thames North guns combined with those of 28 AA Bde on the other bank of the river ('Thames South') to engage at least two enemy mine-laying aircraft that had strayed into the mouth of the Estuary.

On 7 September heavy raids up the estuary attacked oil wharves at Thameshaven, Tilbury Docks and Woolwich Arsenal: a total of 25 aircraft were destroyed by AA guns and fighters.

[86][89] After 15 September the intensity of Luftwaffe day raids declined rapidly, and it began a prolonged night bombing campaign over London and industrial towns (The Blitz).

The tasks allotted to 8th AA Bde were defence of the Basra base area, RAF Habbaniya, Mosul and the oil installations at Kirkuk.

[94] The German threat to the Persian oilfields never materialised, but Tenth Army found a secondary role in acclimatising units before they went on active service in North Africa.

[96] By September 1942, with Rommel's Panzerarmee Afrika at El Alamein, just 66 miles (106 km) from Alexandria, Luftwaffe reconnaissance raids over Suez Bay and the docks and oil refinery at Port Tewfik became common.

[96] Later that month, 61st HAA Rgt was relieved at Suez and in October, at the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein, it was part of 17th AA Bde, assigned to Eighth Army and held in reserve for the breakthrough and advance into Libya.

[84][97] In January 1943, as Eighth Army swept westwards, 17th AA Bde, including 61st HAA with all three of its batteries, was defending the port of Tobruk and its airfields at El Adem and Gambut.

[99] 61st HAA Regiment crossed to mainland Italy in September 1944 and joined 25 AA Bde, which was responsible for defending the ports of Bari, Barletta, Brindisi and Manfredonia in Apulia.

61st HAA Regiment was sent across Italy to join 66th AA Bde (in which 12th (Finsbury Rifles) LAA Rgt was serving in an infantry and field artillery role, see below).

Beach Groups consisted of a mixture of sub-units from different Arms and Services to secure, defend and control the landing points over which the assault units would pass.

Each beach group was allotted one HAA and one LAA battery, commanded by a small AA HQ in radio contact with a control ship.

Over the next two days the AA HQs and the batteries' equipment came ashore, but confusion continued and there were many cases of 'friendly fire' incidents against Allied aircraft over the beaches.

After the breakout from the Anzio beachhead and the capture of Rome in June, it joined 66th AA Bde supporting the advance of the US Fifth Army up the west coast to Livorno.

At the end of the war 12th LAA Rgt became a holding regiment on 22 November 1945, with A to D Btys, before being placed in suspended animation at RAF Gosfield, Essex, on 14 April 1946.

[75][76] During the Second World War, the 61st HAA Rgt bore an embroidered arm title '61 MIDDX RA' in gold on maroon, worn on the sleeve of the battledress blouse.

[121] A memorial plaque to Jock Christie, VC, was unveiled on 28 March 2014 at Euston Station where he had worked as a parcels clerk for the London and North Western Railway.