The Lothians and Berwickshire Yeomanry

 

 

Other Ranks, The Lothians and Berwickshire Yeomanry

Walking Out Dress, c. 1890

In 1798 The East Lothian Yeomanry Cavalry, The Berwickshire Yeomanry Cavalry, The Midlothian Yeomanry and The Royal Edinburgh Volunteer Light Dragoons (the Princess Street Lancers) were raised to provide a defense against the armies of Napoleon. In 1800 the last two of these amalgamated to form The Royal Midlothian Yeomanry Cavalry. A reduction in strength of all three at the end of the Napoleonic Wars was followed by an increase in recruitment during the unemployment and social unrest of the early nineteenth century.

All had been disbanded by 1838, only for the Midlothians to be formed again in 1843, followed by the East Lothians in 1846. In 1888 they became The Lothians and Berwickshire Yeomanry, consisting of two troops from East Lothian, one from Berwickshire and one from Midlothian, and, in 1892, a West Lothian Troop was added.

In the Second Boer War, the regiment sponsored the 19th (Lothians and Berwickshire) Company, which served in the 6th (Scottish) Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry, in South Africa from 1900 until 1902.

 

The Lothians and Berwickshire Yeomanry Resting on Belhaven Sands by R. Payton Reid, 1891.

---

 

Departed the collection in 2022.