The Sunderland Rifles was a Volunteer unit of the British Army formed in 1860. It went on to become a Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry (DLI) in the Territorial Force and saw action as infantry and pioneers in some of the bloodiest actions on the Western Front during World War I. Between the wars it became an air defence unit, serving during World War II in The Blitz and the campaign in North West Europe, when it had a special role in the Rhine crossing. Postwar it continued in the Territorial Army in the air defence role until 1975, when its successor unit reverted to infantry.
Origin
During an invasion scare in 1859, large numbers of part-time Rifle Volunteer Corps (RVCs) were formed throughout Great Britain, eager to supplement the Regular British Army in case of need. The 3rd (The Sunderland) Durham Rifle Volunteer Corps was one such unit, with the first officers' commissions being issued on 6 March 1860. By 1862 the unit had six companies under the command of Major Lord Adolphus Vane-Tempest, MP for North Durham. After the death of Vane-Tempest in 1864, Edward Temperley Gourley (later MP for Sunderland) was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in command on 10 November 1865. The 'Sunderland' title was authorised in 1867. The unit's uniform was scarlet, with blue facings. The Regimental Colour of the former Sunderland Volunteer Infantry raised in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–13) was presented to the new corps in 1860. A purpose-built drill hall was opened in Livingstone Road in 1880.
Under the scheme of 'localisation' introduced by the Cardwell Reforms in 1873, the Durham RVCs, together with the Durham Militia and the two Regular battalions (68th Light Infantry and 106th Light Infantry) that later formed the Durham Light Infantry (DLI), constituted Brigade No 3, based at Sunderland in the Durham sub-district of Northern District. While the sub-districts were referred to as 'brigades', they were purely administrative organisations and the Volunteers were excluded from the 'mobilisation' part of the Cardwell system, though they carried out joint manoeuvres.
Under the Childers Reforms the Volunteers were affiliated to their local Regular Army regiment – the DLI in the case of the Durham RVCs – as Volunteer Battalions on 1 July 1881. The Sunderland rifles changed its facing colour to white in 1884 to match the DLI (the DLI reverted to its traditional dark green at the beginning of the 20th Century) and formally became the 3rd (Sunderland) Volunteer Battalion of the DLI in December 1887. The Stanhope Memorandum of December 1888 proposed a more comprehensive Mobilisation Scheme for Volunteer units, which would assemble in their own brigades at key points in case of war. In peacetime these brigades provided a structure for collective training. Under this scheme the Volunteer Battalions of the DLI and the Northumberland Fusiliers formed the Tyne and Tees Brigade until a separate Durham Light Infantry Brigade was formed in 1902.
The 3rd VB gained an extra company in 1900, giving it a total of six rifle companies and one of cyclists, and it contributed detachments to three successive service companies of Volunteers who served alongside the Regular DLI in the Second Boer War and gained its first battle honour: South Africa 1900–1902.
Territorial Force
When the Volunteers were subsumed into the new Territorial Force (TF) under the Haldane Reforms of 1908, the 3rd VB became the 7th Battalion Durham Light Infantry. There were eight companies, six at Livingstone Road and two at South Shields that had previously formed part of the 5th VB DLI. The cyclist company transferred to the Northern Cyclist Battalion. The 7th DLI formed part of the Durham Light Infantry Brigade in the Northumbrian Division of the TF.
When war broke out in 1914, the battalion was commanded by Lt-Col Ernest Vaux, of the Sunderland-based Vaux Breweries family. He had formerly served in the 1st Durham Royal Garrison Artillery (Volunteers) and had won the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) with the 5th Imperial Yeomanry during the Boer War.
World War I
Mobilisation
The outbreak of World War I found the DLI Brigade at Conwy in North Wales at its annual training camp, which had started on 25 July. Orders to prepare for mobilisation were received on 3 August and the battalion returned to Sunderland by train, where mobilisation began the next day. The Northumbrian Division then took up its war stations in the Tyne Defences as part of Central Force. The 7th DLI was distributed around Sunderland by companies, to a roller-skating rink in Park Lane, to Hudson Road School, to Hendon Valley Road School, and to the Granary at Sunderland Docks.