The Flags of Our Fighting Army: Including standards, guidons, colours and drum bannersJohnson, Stanley C. (Stanley Currie)
History
The Flags of Our Fighting Army: Including standards, guidons, colours and drum banners
Johnson, Stanley C. (Stanley Currie)
Flags -- Great Britain
The exhibit bears the following inscription: Colours of the 33rd
Regiment, 1832-54, then known as the 1st Yorkshire (West Riding), which
were presented to the battalion in 1832, at Weedon, by General Sir
Charles Whale, K.C.B., colonel of the regiment. The first is the
ordinary Royal colour of the great Union; and the second, or regimental
colour, the Red Cross of St. George on a white field, and only two
honours are attached, those of “Peninsula” and “Seringapatam.” They have
never been on active service, but they are associated with two
interesting military events. From 1838 to 1840 the 33rd were at
Gibraltar, and there under these colours H.R.H. the late
Commander-in-Chief, then Prince George of Cambridge, was attached for
duty to the battalion on his first introduction to the British Army. The
33rd, as is well known, monopolised most of the regimental service of
the great Duke of Wellington, and at his funeral on the 18th November,
1852—to attend which the regiment was brought to London from
Glasgow—these colours proved a conspicuous mark. The colours were
retired from service at Dublin in 1851, prior to the 33rd proceeding to
the Crimea.
=The Border Regiment.=—Facings, white.
R.C.—A laurel wreath. The Dragon, superscribed “China.”
This regiment is a combination of the old 34th Cumberland and the 55th
Westmoreland; it now possesses the former’s laurel wreath, gained for
admirable services rendered on the fatal held of Fontenoy, and the
latter’s dragon, awarded in recognition of its work in China, 1842.
The honorary distinctions are: Havannah; St. Lucia, 1778; Albuhera;
Arroyo dos Molinos; Vittoria; Pyrenees; Nivelle; Nive; Orthes;
Peninsula; Alma; Inkerman; Sevastopol; Lucknow; South Africa,
1899-1902; Relief of Ladysmith.
This regiment is the only one with “Arroyo dos Molinos” as a battle
honour. In the Peninsula, by a surprise move, the old 34th took
prisoners almost all of the 34th regiment of French Infantry. As a
reward, they were allowed to wear a red and white ball in the front of
their shakos. When, later, this appointment became general among
infantry regiments, the Borders showed their displeasure at losing this
distinctive sign. By way of compensation, the battle honour of “Arroyo
dos Molinos” was granted to them.
“The colours which were carried in this fight became so tattered and
dilapidated in after years that the officers at length decided to have
them preserved under glass in order to lengthen their existence, and
they were sent, accordingly, to a tradesman in the Opera Colonnade,
London. While in his keeping, however, the building was, unfortunately,
burnt to the ground, and the charred remains of the colours were all
that was ever recovered from the ruins. Even these were thought worthy
of preservation, and now rest confined in a silver urn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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