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
R.C.—The Royal Cypher within the Garter. The badge and motto of the
Order of the Thistle. In each of the four corners the Royal Cypher
ensigned with the imperial crown. The Sphinx, superscribed “Egypt.”
The honorary distinctions are: Guadaloupe, 1759; Martinique, 1762;
Havannah; North America, 1763-64; Mysore; Mangalore; Seringapatam;
Corunna; Busaco; Fuentes d’Onor; Pyrenees; Nivelle; Nive; Orthes;
Toulouse; Peninsula; Waterloo; South Africa, 1846-7, 1851-2-3; Alma;
Sevastopol; Lucknow; Ashantee, 1873-4; Egypt, 1882, 1884;
Tel-el-Kebir; Nile, 1884-85; Kirbekan; South Africa, 1899-1902;
Paardeberg.
=The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.=—Facings, white for
all battalions but the Buckinghamshire battalion, which are scarlet.
R.C.—The united Red and White Rose.
The battalion honours are: Quebec, 1759; Martinique, 1762, 1794;
Havannah; Mysore; Hindoostan; Vimiera; Corunna; Busaco; Fuentes
d’Onor; Ciudad Rodrigo; Badajoz; Salamanca; Vittoria; Pyrenees;
Nivelle; Nive; Orthes; Toulouse; Peninsula; Waterloo; South Africa,
1851-2-3; Delhi, 1857; New Zealand; South Africa, 1900-02; Relief of
Kimberley; Paardeberg.
The “Light Bobs,” as this regiment is nicknamed, are a combination of
the old 43rd (Monmouthshire Light Infantry) and the 52nd (Oxfordshire
Light Infantry). A retired stand of flags of the former may be seen in
the Royal United Service Museum, bearing this inscription:
“Colours of the 43rd, 1818-27, one of the regiments of the
celebrated Light Division of Peninsula fame. The first or Royal
colour is the Great Union, and the second, or regimental colour, the
Red Cross of St. George on the white field. They only bear the one
distinction, ‘Peninsula,’ the other honours shortly afterwards
authorised not having been added. They were made to replace those
carried with such distinguished honour in the Peninsula, and were
presented to the regiment in 1818 at Valenciennes. The colours were
carried on parade at the celebrated review held on 23rd October,
1818, the day before the break-up of the Army, when the whole of the
British, Hanoverian, Saxon, and Danish contingents, commanded by the
Duke of Wellington, were paraded before the Emperor of Russia and
King of Prussia, near Valenciennes. Their last public act was to
accompany the regiment to the Peninsula in 1827, when five thousand
British troops were despatched under General Sir Henry Clinton,
owing to the disturbed state of Portugal, and the hostile attitude
of Spain. A few months later the colours were retired from service,
when a new set bearing the eleven additional honours authorised in
1821 were presented by the wife of the commanding officer,
Lieutenant-Colonel William Haverfield.”
Another stand of colours, in the same museum, represent the old 52nd
regiment. Here is the record exhibited with them:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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