The History of the Rifle Brigade (the Prince Consort's Own) Formerly the 95thCope, William Henry
History
The History of the Rifle Brigade (the Prince Consort's Own) Formerly the 95th
Cope, William Henry
Great Britain. Army. Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own)
The Head-quarters of the Service companies of the 2nd Battalion
embarked at Corfu for Cephalonia on October 8, and landed there on
the 9th. Two companies had preceded them on June 20, and two others
on September 26. From hence detachments were furnished to Calamos, to
Ithaca, to Paxo, to Lixuri, to Fort San Georgio and Sta. Euphemia.
About March the Depôt companies removed from Dover to Guernsey.
During the year 1835 no change of quarters took place in either
Battalion or in their Depôts.
The Service companies of the 1st Battalion sailed from Halifax, Nova
Scotia, in the ‘Stakesley’ and ‘Katherine Stewart Forbes,’ on August
20 and 26, 1836, and arrived at Chatham and disembarked on September
15 and 29, and occupied quarters there.
The Depôt companies had sailed from Jersey in the ‘Katherine Stewart
Forbes’ on May 24, and arrived at Gosport on the 28th, where they
disembarked, and were quartered in Fort Monckton till June 17; when
they crossed to Portsmouth, and occupied Forehouse barracks, with
detachments at Tipner and Hilsea.
On August 1 the Depôt companies marched from Portsmouth, through
Chichester, Petworth, East Grinstead, and arrived at Chatham on the
8th to await the arrival of the Service companies; and on their
landing on September 15 and 29, they were again reunited into a
Battalion of ten companies.
No change took place in the quarters of the Service companies of the
2nd Battalion, except the occasional relief of the many detachments
they furnished from Cephalonia. But the Depôt companies in September
embarked at Guernsey for Dover, where they awaited the arrival of the
Service companies, and were reunited with them on their arrival in
June following.
Early in the year 1836 Lieutenant Wilbraham,[188] then Adjutant of
the 1st Battalion, was selected to proceed to Persia, with eight
sergeants of the Rifle Brigade, in charge of two thousand stand of
rifles, intended by the Foreign Office as a present to the Shah on
his accession to the throne. Four of these sergeants, belonging
to the 1st Battalion, were sent out from England; the other four,
belonging to the 2nd Battalion, joined the expedition at Cephalonia,
where their Battalion was then stationed.
Lieutenant Wilbraham was promoted in July 1836 to an unattached
company, and subsequently the local rank of Lieutenant-Colonel was
conferred upon him. For nearly three years he and the eight sergeants
were employed in organising and instructing the Persian troops, but
at the end of that time a rupture took place between England and
Persia, in consequence of the Shah’s advance upon Herat, and they
returned to Europe. The rifles had under one pretext or another
been withheld, as it was foreseen that they would probably be used
against ourselves, but as they were too bulky to be carried, they
were rendered useless by the removal of the locks, which were brought
away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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