The 42nd (East Lancashire) Infantry Division was an infantry division of the British Army. The division was raised in 1908 as part of the Territorial Force, originally as the East Lancashire Division, and was redesignated as the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division on 25 May 1915. It was the first Territorial division to be sent overseas during the First World War. The division fought at Gallipoli, in the Sinai desert and on the Western Front in France and Belgium.
The division was embodied upon the outbreak of war. The war station was intended to be Ireland, but due to its pacific state, the intended move did not materialise. After a brief period at their drill halls, the various units proceeded to large tented camps at Turton Bottoms (near Bolton), Chesham (near Bury) and Holingworth Lake, Littleborough (near Rochdale). The personnel were asked to volunteer for overseas service, and the overwhelming majority did so.
In 1914 the East Lancashire Division was one of 14 infantry divisions and 55 mounted regiments called the Yeomanry which made up the Territorial Force. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, described these divisions and regiments of mainly white–collar workers as "a town clerk's army." Their junior officers were trained at the Officer Training Corps set up at the universities and large public schools such as Eton and Harrow and Kitchener sent these forces to the peripheral campaigns; to the Sudan, Mesopotamia, Egypt, to the Caucasus to release Regular British Army soldiers for duty on the Western Front because he thought these amateur soldiers 'might not be able to hold their own with the German Army.'
The East Lancashire Division arrived in Egypt on 25 September 1914 and served in the interior, around Cairo (with some elements stationed in Cyprus and the Sudan) together with some Yeomanry units, and the Australian and New Zealand contingents before going to Gallipoli.
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