A further development occurred in the formation of a Headquarters Company, called in the 1/4th Londons for ease of distinction K Company. The object of this change was to separate so far as was reasonably possible the fighting personnel of the Battalion from the administrative personnel, such as transport, headquarters clerks and telephone operators; and to relieve the company commander of responsibility as regards clothing, pay and accommodation, etc., of such administrative personnel by bringing them under the direct control of a Headquarters officer, usually the Assistant-Adjutant, to whom as a rule such men were more accessible than to the company officers. This left the companies more intact as fighting units and much reduced the work of company quartermaster-sergeants in looking after large numbers of men who in practice were seldom with the company. Upon the whole the system worked exceedingly well; though, as was almost inevitable, K Company showed from time to time a tendency to assume unreasonable proportions and required a little "weeding out." At least a passing reference must be made to the 56th Division's famous concert troop, the Bow Bells. The uniform excellence of its entertainments from its inception till the end of the war was the means of providing all ranks of the Division from time to time with hours of intense pleasure and mental rest of inestimable value. Lastly, mention must be made of an institution which made its appearance in the Battalion about this time and carried out exceedingly useful work, namely, the Regimental Canteen. Thousands of 1/4th London men have happy recollections of Sergt. Plumbley and his assistant Pte. Blight, who, like the sutlers of former wars, followed the Battalion in all its wanderings with their welcome stocks of tobacco, chocolate, notepaper, newspapers and other useful articles, and, fair times or foul, were always to be found with their little shop neatly set out in a dugout or a ruined cottage not very far in rear of the most advanced troops of the Battalion.