The Hampshire Battery RHA was a Territorial unit, stationed in Southampton. In 1914 it became 1/1st Hants after the formation of a second line unit, 2/1st Hants (which went to France in 1916).
In January 1916 the 1/1st Hants Battery joined with two other Territorial batteries RHA, Essex and West Riding, to form 1/5th Lowland Brigade RFA in Leicester. In Egypt, it joined the 52nd (Lowland) Division, which had recently returned from the Gallipoli campaign.
In May 1916 the Brigade was re-designated 263rd Battery RFA with 1/1st Hants becoming 'A' Battery. The battery served with the division on the Suez Canal and at the Battle of Romani in the Sinai campaign and in the advance into Palestine and at First and Second Battles of Gaza, March/April 1917. In 1917 the battery transferred to the 20th Brigade RHA TF.
The battery's history is recorded in P C D Mundy's 'History of the I/1st Hants Royal Horse Artillery' (1922).
