When the troopship H.M.S. Empress of Britain sailed from Halifax on Aug. 14, 1916, taking Canadian troops to fight in The Great War, among those on board were the members of the 117th Battalion, Canadian Infantry which had been organised in Dec. 1915 and recruited from the Eastern Townships of Quebec while at Sherbrooke. Its colours were presented by the Eastern Townships Board of Trade at Sherbrooke on May 29, 1916, and deposited in St Peter’s Anglican Church, Sherbrooke on Oct. 19, 1919. Later it was to be absorbed into the 23rd Reserve Battalion on January 8, 1917, which became the first foreign unit to mount a King’s or Queen’s Guard at Buckingham Palace. Through the 23rd Battalion it is linked to the Royal Montreal Regiment.
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A Lennoxville World War One Soldier remembered
Submitted by Gordon Hall
