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The Robin Hood Rifles or the 'Robin Hoods', as they were popularly known, were a territorial force that recruited almost exclusively from Nottingham. They formed the 7th Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters and as the 1/7th (Robin Hoods) fought on the Western Front from 1915 to 1918, suffering so many casualties the unit was disbanded before the Armistice.

Like all members of the Territorial Army, the Robin Hoods were ordered to mobilise immediately after the outbreak of war and within a week crowds gathered from the Market Square to Canning Circus to watch them march to their Brigade Assembly. Most of the men came from the poorer parts of the city, the Broadmarsh and Narrowmarsh, slum areas that have since been pulled down.

John Cotterill, who's a founding member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides, says: "Almost to a man they volunteered for overseas service" and in 1915 they were among the first soldiers to endure a liquid flame attack by the Germans.

They took heavy casualties at Loos in 1915, Gommecourt on the Somme in 1916 when only 90 returned from a fighting force of 627 and in the Kaiser's Spring Offensive. On 21 March 1918 the 1/7 (Robin Hood) Battalion, explains John Cotterill, had the 鈥渟ad distinction鈥� of suffering the largest number of dead and wounded than other British battalions, because they kept fighting. The survivors absorbed in to other units until the end of the war.

Two more battalions of the Robin Hood Rifles (The 2/7th and 3/7th Battalions of the Sherwood Foresters) were raised during the war. The 2/7th deployed to Dublin in 1916 to fight the Easter Uprising and then fought on the Western Front in 1917, suffering particularly heavy losses at the Battle of Third Ypres (Passchendaele) in September. The 3/7th remained in the UK training reinforcements for the 1/7th and 2/7th.

Location: St Mary鈥檚 Church, High Pavement, Nottingham NG1 1HR
Image: Bronze Relief Monument in St Mary鈥檚 Church, Nottingham

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