P.D. GRIFFIN
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN BRITISH ARMY REGIMENTS
THE DUKE OF LANCASTER'S REGIMENT
The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment (DLR) title was created in 2006 for the unification of three infantry regiments of north-west England. The King's Own Royal Border Regiment (KORBR) was formed in 1959 by the union of the King's Own, which was raised for the ailing garrison of Tangier in 1680, and the Border Regiment, whose title was created in 1881 for the merger of the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment and the 55th (Westmorland). KORBR headquarters in Carlisle Castle was the home of the Border Regiment, and the 34th Regiment since 1703.
The King's Regiment, formed in 1958, brought together the city regiments of Liverpool and Manchester. In the Cardwell Reforms of the 1870s certain regiments were located to the industrial north to draw recruits from the growing populations of the mill towns. Of those sent to Lancashire the 8th King's (raised in Derbyshire in 1685 and honoured as the Princess Anne of Denmark's) became the mainstay of the Liverpool Regiment, and the 63rd and 96th the Manchester Regiment.
A subaltern of the King's Regiment dressed for public duties in London, 1994. His green colour belt shows the regiment's fleur-de-lys badge, the arms of the City of Manchester and the arms of the City of Liverpool (lower). (Grenadier Publishing)
The Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) represents the three former county regiments of Lancashire, basically the East, South and the North Lancashires. It was formed in 1970 by the amalgamation of the Loyal Regiment (North Lancashires) and the product of the 1958 merger of the East and South Lancashire Regiments: simply named the Lancashire Regiment. The Queen's title is not traditional in any of these regiments; it was inspired by the Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment, and of the Loyals since 1953, HM Queen Elizabeth II. QLR headquarters and regimental museum at Fulwood Barracks in Preston was the location of the regimental depot of the Loyals from 1873.
The blue peaked cap with scarlet band was common to all three regiments. The DLR cap badge combines the red rose and crown of the QLR with the wreath of the KORBR and the motto of the King's Regiment. The Lancaster rose was worn in one form or another by most Lancashire regiments through their 1881 links with the Royal Lancashire Militia. The laurel wreath was awarded to the 34th Regiment after the disastrous Battle of Fontenoy in 1745 to mark its gallantry in saving the army with a disciplined rearguard action. It distinguished badges and buttons of the 34th (Cumberland) until 1881, and badges of the Border Regiment after that date. The motto Nec aspera terrent (Nor shall difficulties deter us) came from the Hanover badge conferred on the King's Regiment in 1716 in recognition of its loyalty during the recent Jacobite Rebellion and its heavy losses at Dunblane. When worn on the khaki beret the DLR badge is pinned to a red diamond-shape patch formerly worn by the KORBR. The QLR badge (except officers) was worn on a primrose yellow diamond, the facing colour of the old 30th taken up again by the 1st East Lancashires during the First World War with a yellow diamond helmet flash.
The Lion of England collar badge came from the uniforms of the KORBR. and originally the King's Own Lancasters. It was bestowed on the Queen's (later the King's Own) by William III for the regiment's support when he landed at Torbay for the throne of England. The lion appeared on the regimental colour in 1751, on belt plates from 1774, officers' caps from 1834, collars from 1874 and on other ranks' caps from 1896.
The band and drums of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment on Arroyo Day, with five members dressed as drummers of the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment of 1811
DLR buttons are graced with the badge of the King's Regiment - a fleur-de-lys with a rearing horse on its centre. The fleur-de-lys was adopted by the 63rd Regiment after taking the French West Indian island of Guadalotipe in 1759. By wearing this French emblem, the shape of which closely resembled a mosquito indigenous to the Caribbean, the 63rd proudly became known as 'The Bloodsuckers'. The Manchesters used the badge to replace their Arms of the City of Manchester in 1923, not least because the latter had been unflatteringly likened to a tram conductor's badge. The Horse of Hanover, which stands on the fleur-de-lys today, was part of the Hanover emblem allowed to the King's in 1716. Men of the King's Liverpool wore the horse prancing on a scroll labelled 'The Kings' in old English script.
The glider badge worn at the top of the right sleeve was awarded to the Border Regiment and the South Staffords in 1950 for their air landing at the invasion of Sicily in 1943. It was the army's first major assault by gliders, remembered for the many that fell into the sea and the soldiers who drowned.
Regimental badges that will appear on the regimental colour in addition to the above are the sphinx and the China dragon. The sphinx on a tablet inscribed EGYPT was granted to the 8th, 30th, 40th and the Queen's Germans for their part in the 1801 campaign to drive Napoleon from Egypt. The Queen's Germans were ranked as the 96th Regiment before disbanding in 1818. A new 96th, formed at Salford Barracks in 1824, was allowed to bear the honours of the former 96th in 1874 and took their sphinx as its collar badge, a distinction passed on to the Manchester Regiment in 1881. The East and South Lancashire Regiments had the sphinx incorporated into their cap badges. The dragon with CHINA superscribed, a campaign honour awarded to the 55th Regiment for its part in the Opium War of 1841, was shown on buttons in the KORBR. The smaller buttons of the officers' caps and mess waistcoats were embossed with the Bath Star to commemorate the fact that the first three colonels of the 34th held rank in the Order of the Bath.
Stable belts and lanyards are maroon as in the QLR.
The Corps of Drums of the three regiments currently parade in infantry full dress with differences. The King's drummers are the most conventionally dressed, their scarlet tunics with the deep green facings of the 63rd returned to the Manchesters in 1937. Queen's drummers have blue facings and inverted sleeve chevrons not seen on infantry drummers since the Crimean War, an idiosyncrasy of the 1958 Lancashire Regiment. KORBR drummers are the most conspicuous in full dress because of the white marine helmets issued to the regimental band and drums in 1970 to highlight an episode in the history of the regiment. The King's Own served as marines in the Mediterranean between 1703 and 1710, and the 34th served with the fleet on a few occasions between 1708 and 1740.
L'Attaque/The Red Rose, the QLR quick march, is made up of the East Lancashires' quick march L'Attaque (learned from the French by the 30th in the Crimea) and Red, Red Rose, adopted by the Loyals in 1885 to complement the Lancashire rose in their badge.
Drummers of the Queen's Lancashires in 2000, their scarlet tunics archaically distinguished by sleeve chevrons. (Grenadier Publishing)
Long Live Elizabeth, the QLR slow march, from Edward German's Merrie England, was adopted on the formation of the regiment in 1970 to honour its Colonel-in-Chief, Elizabeth II.
Roger Fenton's photograph of men from the 30th Regiment in the Crimea. It shows (from the left) a private of a battalion company, a sergeant of the Light Company, a captain in undress and a sergeant major. (National Army Museum)
John Peel/Corn Riggs, the KORBR quick march, combines the famous Cumbrian hunting song Dye Ken John Peel (as adapted for the Border Regiment) and Corn Riggs Are Bonny, a Scottish air from the time of the formation of the King's Own in 1680. The march opens with a few bars of the 34eme Regiment March, a parody of the French regiment captured in the Peninsular War by the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment.
Trelawney, the KORBR slow march (ex-King's Own), tells of the sad fate of Bishop Trelawney, brother of the regiment's colonel in 1685, who was imprisoned on the orders of James II for upholding the Protestant faith in the face of the King's Roman Catholic policies. A similar incident occurred in the Princess Anne of Denmark's Regiment, where six captains were brought to trial for refusing to accept Catholics into their companies.
The Kingsman, the regimental march of the King's, contains the Liverpools' Here's to a Maiden of Bashful Fifteen (from incidental music composed by Thomas Linley in 1777) and The Manchester, an adaptation of the popular Neapolitan songs La Luisella and Fenesta Vascia. The rank of kingsman in the King's (and now the DLR) and volunteer in the Prince of Wales's Volunteers, both introduced around the time of the Second World War, are rare examples in the infantry of alternative forms of the rank of private.
Lord Ferrers' March, the King's regimental slow march, combines the Liverpools' English Rose with an arrangement from the opera Merrie England and Farewell Manchester, which was based on Felton's Gavotte, a piece written for harpsichord in 1728. Lord Ferrers of Chartley was given command of the King's Regiment when it was first raised, in 1685.
The King's Are Coming Up the Hill, the regimental song of the King's Regiment, dates from 1958.
God Bless the Prince of Wales, the march of the South Lancashire Regiment, is played at the end of band programmes in the QLR mess in the tradition of the 1st East Lancashires, whose custom it was to have the march played on guest nights after 1871, when the Prince of Wales had suffered an illness.
The last survivors of the 1st Manchesters at Caesar's Camp during the siege of Ladysmith in 1900. (Trustees of the Kings Regiment Collection )
Somerset Poacher, a traditional English air used by the 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment, and the 1st South Lancashires after 1881, is played on Waterloo Day when the battalion has formed a battle square.
Lancashire Witches was adopted by the 2nd South Lancashire Regiment. It became the regimental slow march in 1931.
Lancashire Lad, an old folk tune played in the 59th, was given its Lancashire title when the 59th became 2nd Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment in 1881. The Lancashire Lad was the name given to the QLR's regimental journal.
Lincolnshire Poacher was adopted by the 81st Regiment in 1820, when it carried a Lincoln title.
Mountain Rose was adopted by the 47th Regiment and played long after 1885, when the march was officially superseded by The Red Rose. The regiment also marched to Quebec and The 47th.
Zakhmi Oil is an old Pa than tune collected by the 2nd Liverpools on the India/Afghanistan border, probably after the First World War. It was the custom for this 'Wounded Heart' to be played on guest nights in the mess in memory of days on the North-West Frontier.
Rawtenstall Annual Fair is a bawdy traditional county song and QLR march.
The Young May Moon, a traditional air and march of the Manchester Regiment, is played in quick and slow time.
The Border Regiment Slow March, adopted in 1950 but never published, unites the Chinese Airs, arranged by Maj Geary when the 1st and 2nd Battalions were at Shanghai in 1927, with The Horn of the Hunter and Soldier Will You Marry Me? When playing in the officers' mess the band of the Border Regiment would always render the regiment's Spanish and Chinese airs with Rule Britannia. The KORBR further honoured its marine history by including A Life on the Ocean Wave in its repertoire.
The Prince was written for the Prince of Wales's Volunteers at the time of the 1930 Tidworth Tattoo.
Regimental days vary in importance and observance, and are therefore listed by date order.
Kimberley Day (15 February), marked by the Loyals' Regimental Association in Preston every year, commemorates the battle honour 'Defence of Kimberley', which took place in 1899. The townspeople expressed their gratitude with great silver centrepieces for both the officers' and the sergeants' messes.
Ladysmith Day (27 February) celebrates the relief of the long siege in 1900.
In Warrington the South Lancashire Regiment Association relive their 1st Battalion's sweep of the Boer trenches at the bayonet, and in the King's a sergeants' mess ball celebrates the end of the trials of the Manchester and Liverpool battalions that were caught up in the siege. Ladysmith is the principal day of the King's, as it was the Manchesters.
Italy Day (16 March) remembers the 2nd Liverpools and 9th Manchesters in the Italian campaign of 1944.
Francilly-Selency Day (2 April) commemorates the 2nd Manchesters' capture of a battery of German 77mm guns in 1917.
Ahmed Khel Day (19 April) is the 2nd East Lancashires' commemoration of its fierce battle of 1880 in the Second Afghan War.
St George's Day (23 April), celebrated in the KORBR by the wearing of a red rose in the cap, was first observed by the King's Own in 1908 to mark its connection with Lancaster.
Burma Day (15 May) remembers the Chindits of the Liverpool and the Manchester regiments in their hot battles with the Japanese around the Kohima Ridge in 1944.
Guadaloupe Day (10 June), the Manchesters' celebration of the capture of the island in 1759, was perpetuated with a corporals' mess dinner in the King's Regiment.
Hooge Day (16 June) was kept by the 4th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment to commemorate the battle of 1915.
Waterloo Day (18 June) is observed in the way of the South Lancashire Regiment, now to honour the services of the 30th and 40th Regiments in the great victory of 1815. A wreath of laurel leaves is fixed to the top of the colours and the companies on parade are ordered to form a hollow square, as their forebears did on the field of battle to repel Napoleon's cavalry charges. The junior subaltern then reads out the Waterloo Citation, after which laurel leaves are given out for the cap.
The 47th Regiment re-enactment group in the uniform worn at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775
Somme Day (1 July) is remembered in Liverpool and by the East Lancashire Regiment Association in a church service for the huge losses sustained on the first day of the great battle in 1916.
The QLR laurel leaf worn on Waterloo Day. (Grenadier Publishing)
Maida Day (4 July) is the annual celebration of the 81st (and the 2nd Loyal North Lancashire Regiment) of the victory over Napoleon's army in southern Italy in 1806. After the battle Lt-Col Kempt dined on tortoise, the shell of which was later mounted in silver as a snuffbox and presented to the officers' mess.
Blenheim Day (13 August) is marked by the King's as the first on its list of battle honours. It commemorates the part played by the Queen's (later King's) Regiment in Marlborough's epic victory of 1704.
Quebec Day (13 September) is the QLR trooping the colour parade, during which the band plays The 47th Regiment Slow March and Quebec in quick time in honour of the regiment called 'Wolfe's Own'. Membership of the Wolfe Society comes by right of the 40th Regiment (at Louisburg in 1758), the 47th Regiment (at Quebec in 1759) and the 4th or King's Own, in which James Wolfe served his captaincy in 1744.
Delhi Day (14 September) commemorates the struggle to storm Delhi and its defences in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The King's lost fifty men before reaching the first breach.
Arroyo Day (28 October), celebrated by the KORBR in the manner made famous by the Border Regiment, features a parade on which drummers troop captured French drums to La Marseillaise in the yellow jackets of the 34th Regiment drummers circa 1811. In this battle of the Peninsular War the 34th overran its opposite number in the French Army and marked the coup by wearing the French soldiers' red and white pom-poms in their own shakos. In 1845, however, Queen Victoria ordered the regiment to conform to dress regulations and substituted the loss of distinction with the battle honour 'Arrovo dos Molinos'.
Inkerman Day (5 November) is observed in the tradition of the Manchester Regiment. The colours are marched to the guardroom for the day and returned without officers in memory of the officers of the 63rd who were killed in battle on this day in 1854.
Maharajpore Day (29 December), the battle anniversary of the 40th Regiment, marked its engagement with the Marathas in the Gwalior campaign of 1843.
On Tarifa Day (31 December) the 1st Loyals used to hold a sergeants' mess ball in celebration of the 47th Regiment's repulse of a strong French assault on the small British garrison of this walled Spanish town in 1811. Drums taken from the enemy in battle are regarded as legitimate trophies. Like the Arroyo drums of the KORBR, the 30th used to parade its Waterloo Drum and the 40th its Maharajpore Drum. The Magdala Drum of the King's Own, taken in the Abyssinian campaign of 1868 and split into three parts for the three regiments present, is now in the care of the 1st Battalion officers' mess.
Mess customs proliferate in the Lancashire and Border group. The loyal toast, traditionally taken seated in naval manner by the KORBR, is proposed with the sovereign's local title 'The Duke of Lancaster' added. This custom was initiated by King Edward VII after inspecting the 4th and 5th Battalions of the East Lancashire Regiment in 1909. It was restricted to toasts made within the county until Queen Elizabeth directed that it should be included on all occasions wherever Lancastrians are gathered.
Mess silver is placed according to custom: an equestrian statuette of Queen Elizabeth II, purchased by officers of the Loyal Regiment in 1958, is traditionally set before the commanding officer, who uses a silver goblet acquired by the 1st Loyals during their time in China in 1924-5. The President of the Mess Committee has a goblet decorated with hunting scenes and a silver fox (Loyal Regiment, 1928) placed before the junior subaltern. The Subaltern's Cup (47th Regiment), which stands before the senior subaltern, is a vehicle for a drinking ritual when promotion to captain takes effect. In the 1st Battalion officers' mess, Lt Maguire's beaker is placed in front of the commanding officer as a reminder of the brave actions of an officer of the 4th or King's Own in the Peninsular War.
The regiment's Black Pudding Club meets informally for lunch at Preston once a month to appreciate the North Country delicacy.
THE ROYAL REGIMENT OF FUSILIERS
The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (RRF) was formed in 1968 by the amalgamation of the four English infantry regiments that achieved a fusilier tide at various times in the three centuries of their existence. The first was created as a regiment of 'fuzileers' in 1685, each man armed with a fuzil instead of a musket to guard the artillery ordnance stored in the Tower of London. Muskets of the time had a burning match and therefore could not be carried in the vicinity of gunpowder stores. The regiment was officially connected to the City of London in 1881 and gained the Freedom of the City in 1924.
1st Volunteer Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers at Conway, 1990. (LF Regiment Museum)
The regiments that shared a common history in the force sent to fight for Holland in 1674, and subsequently returned to England with William of Orange in 1688, were assigned to more northerly areas in 1782: the 5th (Northumberland) was given the fusilier title in 1835 and the Royal Warwickshire (RWF) as late as 1963.
Fusiliers back in the trenches for the re-burial of Pte Henry Wilkinson of the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, killed on 10 November 1914. (AloD)
The 20th Regiment anticipated the fusilier title in 1813 when attached to the Fusilier Brigade on campaign and was accepted by it as 'The Young Fusiliers". They became officially transformed as the Lancashire Fusiliers (LF) in 1881.
RRF headquarters and museum are in the Tower of London.
The drummer's colour with roses on St George's Day, 1990. (Brian L. Dayis)
All ranks wear a beret with grenade badge and regimental hackle, a feature of fusilier regiments from 1946. Officers swapped caps for berets after amalgamation. The various grenade badges worn by the old fusilier regiments were adapted for the RRF, which took the Royal Fusiliers' grenade and replaced its Tudor Rose with St George and Dragon (Royal Northumberland Fusiliers (RNF)), enveloped by the Minden Wreath (LF). The red over white feather hackle comes from the RNF. It originated in the white plumes plucked from French hats by the 'Old Fifth' after the battle for St Lucia in 1778 and worn as a mark of victors' until 1829, when white plumes became standard wear in the infantry. The 5th then changed to red and white plumes to conform to the colours of St George, and when raccoon-skin caps were ordered to fusilier regiments in 1868 only the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers were permitted to wear them with a plume attached.
In 1900 the Royal Fusiliers were allowed the use of their old white plume and the Lancashire Fusiliers a plume of yellow (former facing colour) to honour their losses at the Battle of Spion Kop. The Royal Warwicks adopted a blue over deep yellow hackle in 1963, yellow to represent the facings colour of the 6th Regiment before 1832 and blue for the facings after that year.
RRF buttons are graced with an antelope within a crowned Garter belt, a design previously found on uniforms of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The ancient badge of an antelope 'gorged with a ducal coronet and a rope flexed over its back' was first borne by the 6th Regiment, though the reason has vet to be established. The animal appeared among the royal badges of Henry VI, but it has also been attributed to an antelope found on a Moorish flag taken by the regiment in battle at Saragossa in 1710. No. 1 dress 'blues' are defined by the beret and hackle, and a broad scarlet stripe on the trousers. This peculiarity of the Royal Fusiliers links the RRF with the dress of the Royal Artillery and thereby commemorates its origin as a guard for the train of artillery.
Musicians dedicated to the Northumbrian pipes, a custom of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, wear a black and white check 'Shepherd's tartan' over their uniform. Pipers are schooled in the ancient instrument by the TA battalion in Northumberland.
The regimental quick march, British Grenadiers, was ordered to all regiments badged with a grenade in 1835. The fusiliers' connection with the grenade badge came from their fur (grenadier) caps. Marches traditionally played after British Grenadiers are Blaydon Races (RNF), Fighting with the 7th Royal Fusiliers (a popular music-hall ballad used by the RF) and Minden March, an arrangement of the old hymn Lammas Day adopted by the LF in commemoration of the Battle of Minden, which was fought on Lammas Day in 1759. Warwickshire Lads was adapted from a song score written in 1769 for Shakespeare celebrations at Stratford.
The official RRF slow marches are Rule Britannia and De Normandie. The former ('Britannia rule the waves') was considered appropriate in the RNF and RF to recount seagoing expeditions of the 5th and the 7th Regiments in the eighteenth century. Other slow marches of the regiment are played when appropriate: St George in Northumberland, MacBean's (written by a lieutenant of that name in 1782) in Warwickshire and The Lancashire Fusiliers' Slow March, an adaptation of The Minden Waltzes.
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