what does it say under gunner ? is it gun meaning the same (gunner)
It's not gun it's gnr, so yes short for gunner.
by the way do you know where 4depot is ? I'm assuming its somewhere in woolwich where he joined
He joined (as in enlisted) at Whitehall. I think there used to be a recruiting office there. And I meant to mention previously that the figures in the left column represent the authority for the event listed in the Promotions, Reductions, Casualties column, so I'm not clear what 4 might mean in this context. Or maybe it's not a 4 but an H, meaning the RHA Depot. Up until 1924 what we now consider to be the Royal Regiment of Artillery (the Gunners) was in fact 3 separate Corps: the RHA, The Royal Field Artillery and the Royal Garrison Artillery. As you will have seen on that first line, after Depot it says RFA so I suspect he may have been sent to the RFA depot on the 18th November
1 then on to the combined RFA/RHA depot two days later. The RHA alone was not large enough to have 4 separate depots, but the combined RHA, RFA and RGA might have had the numbers of recruits to warrant more than one depot. That said I did try to find out where the RHA depot was, and had no luck. It could have been Woolwich, Larkhill or possibly even St John's Wood Barracks as that was the London 'home' of the RHA at that time
2.
As you've probably worked out by now, the RHA considered themselves (and still do to some extent) to be the elite Royal Artillery branch although by the end of World War One their role was nearly identical to the rest of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, that is to say the RFA and RGA. It's little like the relationship between the Brigade of Guards and the rest of the Infantry. So I wouldn't be surprised if the RHA trained their own recruits at that time and avoided sending them to the School of Artillery at Larkhill
3.
Footnotes.
1. The 18th November 1919 was a Monday, so the 29th when he was posted to 'G' was a Saturday, and his posting to 'O' occurred on a Tuesday. I feel fairly sure a recruit course would not have started that close to Christmas, so he was probably still in some sort of holding troop awaiting the forming up of the full course in early January. This makes his detention over Christmas even more strange. Maybe he left the barracks without permission and came back drunk, or some similar minor infraction because he was bored and the punishment was intended to teach him a sharp lesson about Army life.
2. Wikipedia says "Before World War II, Royal Artillery recruits were required to be at least 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) tall. Men in mechanised units had to be at least 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) tall. They initially enlisted for six years with the colours and a further six years with the reserve or four years and eight years. They trained at the Royal Artillery Depot in Woolwich." However it's not clear whether that was the situation immediately after the First World War. The reference cited for that statement is just the Wikipedia entry for the War Office which makes no reference to Gunner recruit training, so it seems to be a mistake. The MOD(Army) website includes this detail under the School of Artillery (Larkhill): "1897 There has been a Military presence in Larkhill since 1897 when the War Office purchased several thousand acres of Salisbury Plain. This land was to be used by the Army – principally the Artillery. 1899 The first practice of firing took place. 1915 The School of Instruction for Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery was established. 1920 Several smaller schools were combined to form a new joint school at Larkhill".
3. I am distinguishing between recruit training which concentrates on turning a civilian into a soldier and which is largely the same across the whole army irrepective of which Corps or Regiment someone joins, and the special-to-arm or trade training which teaches the skills which differentiate between a gunner (of example) and an infantryman.
