Royal Leicestershire Regiment


The Leicestershire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, with a history going back to 1688. The regiment saw service for three centuries, in numerous wars and conflicts such as both World War I and World War II, before being amalgamated, in September 1964, with the 1st East Anglian Regiment, the 2nd East Anglian Regiment and the 3rd East Anglian Regiment to form the present day Royal Anglian Regiment, of which B Company of the 2nd Battalion continues the lineage of the Royal Leicestershire Regiment.

History

Early wars

On 27 September 1688 a commission was issued to Colonel Solomon Richards to raise a regiment of foot in the London area. In its early years, like other regiments, it was known by the name of its various colonels. Following a failed attempt to break the siege of Derry in 1689, Richards was dismissed and replaced by the Irishman George St George. The regiment embarked for Flanders in 1693 for service in the Nine Years' War and took part in the attack of Fort Knokke in June 1695 and the siege of Namur in summer 1695 before returning home in 1697.
In 1701 the regiment moved to Holland for service in the War of the Spanish Succession and fought at the siege of Kaiserswerth in 1702,the siege of Venlo later that year and the capture of Huy in 1703. It transferred to Portugal in 1704 and took part in the sieges of Valencia de Alcántara, Alburquerque and Badajoz in 1705 as well as the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1706. It also saw action at the Battle of Almansa in April 1707 before returning to England in 1709. In spring 1713, the regiment was ranked 17th in seniority. It went to Scotland to suppress the Jacobite rising of 1715 and fought at the Battle of Sheriffmuir in November 1715.
In 1726 the regiment moved to Menorca, assisting the garrison at Gibraltar during its siege in 1727. The regiment remained on duty in the Balearic Islands until 1748, where it moved to Ireland.
On 1 July 1751 a royal warrant assigned numbers to the regiments of the line, and the unit became the 17th Regiment of Foot.
The regiment embarked for Nova Scotia in 1757 for service in the French and Indian War; it fought at the siege of Louisbourg in June 1758, at the Battle of Toconderoga in July 1759. The following year, the regiment took part in the successful three-pronged attack against Montréal in September. It also saw engagements in the West Indies in 1762 and during Pontiac's Rebellion before assignment to Ireland in 1763 and then a return to England in 1767.
By 1769, the regiment was back at full strength and declared "fit for service" at its annual inspection, and was augmented in 1771 with 20 men added to each company, and the addition of a dedicated light company, ordered by the King on December 25, 1770.

American War of Independence

After the outbreak of hostilities at the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the regiment embarked for Boston from Ireland in the fall of 1776. Rough seas saw its companies separated: its first four companies landed in November, and the remaining six after Christmas 1776. Along with the rest of the garrison, the regiment was evacuated after the Siege of Boston to Halifax, Nova Scotia. At this time, Lieutenant-Colonel John Darby was superseded by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Mawhood, formerly Lieutenant-Colonel of the 19th Regiment of Foot, on April 4, 1776. The regiment set sail from Halifax with the army on June 29 for the invasion of New York, landing unopposed on Staten Island in July. It saw action at the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, was part of the reserve at the Battle of White Plains in October 1776 and the Battle of Fort Washington in November 1776.

Heroes of Princeton

The regiment also took part in the Battle of Princeton in January 1777. Not knowing that he was facing a superior force, Mawhood ordered an attack, Captain William Leslie was killed, but the regiment routed a militia division, and killed rebel General Hugh Mercer. However, the rest of the rebel army was brought up and the regiment quickly found themselves surrounded. With superior rebel numbers, the regiment was forced to retreat. Mawhood ordered a desperate bayonet charge to break out of their encirclement, which succeeded. At the same time, Captain William Scott of the 17th Regiment, with just 40 men, successfully defended the 4th Brigade's baggage train against superior numbers of rebel attackers. Thomas Sullivan of the 49th Regiment of Foot remarked:
Performance in the battle was mentioned in dispatches. Later, the regiment was lauded as "The Heroes of Prince-town" in British recruiting adverts.
It went on to fight at the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, the Battle of Germantown in October 1777, and the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. In September 1778, the regiment took part in Grey's raid at New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard, destroying rebel stores and making off with forage and plunder.
Several companies and the regimental colours were captured at the Battle of Stony Point in July 1779 by a daring night-time bayonet charge by "Mad" Anthony Wayne. The remaining companies of grenadiers and light infantry were detached to composite flank battalions, while the remaining men, drafts, and recruits from England were formed into the "17th Company" under Captain-Lieutenant George Cuppaidge, who was on business in New York during the action at Stony point. The 17th Company was tasked with fighting partisans in South Carolina in 1780.
The reformed regiment was in action again at the Battle of Guilford Court House in March 1781 and surrendered with the rest of Cornwallis's army at the siege of Yorktown in September 1781.
The 17th Company, still in South Carolina during the events of Yorktown, fought in the last major action of the war at the Battle of the Combahee River, where the famous rebel Colonel John Laurens lost his life.

The Leicestershire Regiment

A royal warrant dated 31 August 1782 bestowed county titles on all regiments of foot that did not already have a special designation "to cultivate a connection with the County which might at all times be useful towards recruiting". The regiment became the 17th Regiment of Foot. The regiment was withdrawn from New York at the end of the war to Nova Scotia in 1783 before returning to England in 1786.
The regiment was increased to two battalions in 1799 and both battalions took part in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland, being present at the Battle of Bergen in September 1799 and the Battle of Alkmaar in October 1799, before the second was disbanded in 1802. In 1804 the regiment moved to India, and remained there until 1823. In 1825 the regiment was granted the badge of a "royal tiger" to recall their long service in the sub-continent. During this time, the regiment fought in the Gurkha War and the Third Maratha War. The Regiment was posted to New South Wales from 1830 to 1836.

Australian frontier wars

During the early years of the Moreton Bay penal colony, in the area of Australia now known as South East Queensland, the 17th Regiment was involved in two documented incidents of Aboriginal massacre.
The first was on Moreton Island, traditional home of the Ngugi people. On 1 July 1831, the then Commandant of the colony, Captain Clunie with a detachment of the 17th Regiment surrounded a Ngugi camp at dawn on the edge of the freshwater lagoon close to the island's southern extremity, killing up to twenty of them. George Watkins recorded: ‘nearly all were shot down. My informant, a young boy at the time, escaped with a few others by hiding in a clump of bushes’
The second documented massacre was the following year in late December 1832, on the neighbouring island of Minjerribah. Six members of the local Nunukul tribe were killed at the hands of Captain Clunie and the 17th Regiment in a reprisal attack for the alleged Aboriginal attack on a ship.
In the mid 1830s, the Gringai people who lived in the valleys and hills to the north of Newcastle, were at war with the European colonists. In 1835, in response to the murder of two shepherds, New South Wales governor Sir Richard Bourke ordered 50 soldiers from the 17th Regiment to proceed to the scene of the disturbance. This military operation was commanded by Major William Croker, and his directive from Bourke was to vigorously suppress the resistance. Croker's men returned after a month in the disputed area.

The Victorian era

The regiment returned to India in 1837, and then took part in the Battle of Ghazni in July 1839 and the Battle of Khelat in November 1839 during the First Anglo-Afghan War. The regiment next came under fire at the siege of Sevastopol in winter 1854 during the Crimean War. In 1858 a second battalion was raised.
An invasion scare in 1859 led to the emergence of the Volunteer movement, and within a year there were 10 Rifle Volunteer Corps in Leicestershire, with titles like the 'Leicester Town Rifles' and the 'Duke of Rutland's Belvoir Rifles'. Together these formed an administrative battalion, which became the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment in 1880. By 1900, when the unit provided a detachment of volunteers to serve alongside the Regulars during the Second Boer War, it operated as a double-battalion unit.

Childers reforms

The regiment was not fundamentally affected by the Cardwell Reforms of the 1870s, which gave it a depot at Glen Parva Barracks from 1873, or by the Childers reforms of 1881 – as it already possessed two battalions, there was no need for it to amalgamate with another regiment. Under the reforms the regiment became The Leicestershire Regiment on 1 July 1881.
The regiment also incorporated the local militia and rifle volunteers and consisted of:
The 1887 execution of a Leicestershire Regiment private for murdering a sergeant in India may have inspired Rudyard Kipling to write his poem "Danny Deever".
The 1st and 3rd battalions fought in the Second Boer War 1899 – 1902, and the 1st Volunteer Battalion provided a detachment of volunteers to serve alongside the Regulars. The 2nd Battalion was stationed as a garrison regiment in Ireland from 1896, and in Egypt from February 1900.
Following the end of the war in South Africa, the 1st battalion was in late 1902 transferred to Fort St. George in Madras Presidency, 540 officers and men leaving Port Natal on the SS Ortona arriving in Madras in late November. The 2nd battalion was stationed at Guernsey at the same time.
In 1908, the Volunteers and Militia were reorganised nationally, with the former becoming the Territorial Force and the latter the Special Reserve. The 1st Volunteer Battalion was split to form the 4th and 5th Battalions. There was a minor controversy in the same year, when new colours were issued to the 1st Battalion to replace those of the 17th foot. A green tiger had been shown on the old colours and the regiment refused to take the new issue into use. The issue was resolved when the regiment received permission for the royal tiger emblazoned on the regimental colours to be coloured green with gold stripes. The regiment now had one Reserve and two Territorial battalions.