Lieutenant Colonel Sir Arthur Pelham Heneage, DSO MP

 

 

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Arthur Pelham Heneage, DSO MP

 1881-1971

 Dress Jacket, c. 1903

 

 Heneage graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 1900 and was gazetted to the Royal Horse Artillery on August 18, initially assigned to S Battery at Aldershot. He was promoted to lieutenant in July of 1903. Heneage accompanied S battery to South Africa in 1904, first to Krugersdorp and then to Pretoria. He was transferred to J Battery in 1907 and posted to Rawal Pindi, Punjab; the battery returned to England the following year. Heneage obtained his captaincy in January of 1912 and was transferred to the 70th Battery of the Royal Field Artillery. He was made a Staff Captain in early 1915 and then promoted to major, becoming a Brigade Major in 1916. During this period, Heneage served in Serbia and was awarded the Serbian Order of the White Eagle, 4th Class in April of 1917 for operations in November and December of 1915. Subsequently, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in June of 1917. Heneage was made a Deputy Assistant Adjutant General that August and promoted to acting lieutenant colonel in May of 1918. He returned from his staff position to the Royal Field Artillery in 1919 as a supernumerary major. Heneage retired from the service in May of 1924 and was granted the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was elected to Parliament in 1924 for the Louth Division of Lincolnshire, remaining a Member of Parliament until 1945. Heneage was made Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Lincolnshire in March of 1936, knighted by the King on February 16, 1945, and served as High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1947. He was made Honorary Colonel of the 529th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery of the Territorial Army in December of 1947 and served in that role until 1956.

 

Regimental Sergeant-Major Alfred C. Batchelor

 

 

Regimental Sergeant-Major Alfred C. Batchelor

 Walking Out Dress, c. 1911

 

 Batchelor enlisted in the Imperial Yeomanry on the 15th of November, 1895. He joined the 1st County of London Imperial Yeomanry (Rough Riders) when the regiment was formed in July of 1901. In 1902 the Lord Mayor of London and other influential City people successfully petitioned for the regiment's name to be changed to City of London Imperial Yeomanry (Rough Riders). Batchelor had risen to Acting Sergeant-Major by 1911 (the position this tunic is an example of). When the rank of warrant officer was introduced across the Regular Army in 1881, it was not extended to the Volunteer Force. As Regimental Sergeant-Majors were afforded the rank of warrant officer in the Regular Army, those in the Territorial Force were given the rank of Acting Sergeant-Major. Batchelor remained with the regiment as the Great War began. In 1915 warrant officers were permitted in the Territorial Force and Batchelor was then elevated. He was discharged from the army on the 3rd of September, 1918.

16th (The Queen's) Lancers

 

 

Other Ranks, 16th (The Queen's) Lancers

 Chapska, c. 1912

The regiment was raised in 1759 by Colonel John Burgoyne as the 16th Regiment of (Light) Dragoons, being the second of the new regiments of light dragoons; it was also known as Burgoyne's Light Horse. In 1766 the regiment was renamed after Queen Charlotte as the 2nd (or The Queen's) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons, the number being an attempt to create a new numbering system for the light dragoon regiments. However, the old system was quickly re-established, with the regiment returning as the 16th (The Queen's) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons in 1769. The regiment arrived in New York in October 1776 for service in the American rebellion.

The regiment was dispatched to Ireland in March 1816 where it was re-designated as a lancer regiment in September 1816, becoming the 16th (The Queen's) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons (Lancers). The regiment was sent to India in 1822 and saw action, using lances, against the Marathas at the siege of Bharatpur in January 1826. The regiment's title was simplified to the 16th (The Queen's) Lancers in 1861. It served in India between 1865 and 1876 and again between 1890 and 1899.

The regiment landed at Cape Colony in January 1900 for service in the Second Boer War and took part in the relief of Kimberley in February 1900. The regiment, which had been based at The Curragh at the start of the First World War, landed in France as part of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade in the 1st Cavalry Division in August 1914 for service on the Western Front. The regiment was retitled as the 16th The Queen's Lancers in 1921 and amalgamated with the 5th Royal Irish Lancers to form the 16th/5th Lancers in 1922.

 

Corporal, 16th Lancers, in full dress uniform, 1900
By Percy William Reynolds

George Townshend, 7th Marquess Townshend of Raynham

 

 

George Townshend, 7th Marquess Townshend of Raynham

 1916–2010

 Dress Tunic, c. 1936

 

Born George John Patrick Dominic Townshend, Lord Townshend was the only son of John Townshend, 6th Marquess Townshend. Lord Townshend studied at Harrow School and was gazetted to the Suffolk and Norfolk Yeomanry on May 23, 1936. The Norfolk Yeomanry was originally a cavalry regiment, but in 1920 the regiment was converted to artillery and in 1924 was constituted as the 108th (Suffolk and Norfolk Yeomanry) Field Brigade, Royal Artillery of the Territorial Army. Lord Townshend reached his majority in 1937, taking his seat in the House of Lords. Though he had previously been serving extra duty since 1937 as an aide-de-camp to Sir W. Edmund Ironside, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for the Eastern Command of the Territorial Army, Lord Townshend was officially appointed to that role in April of 1938. He was advanced to lieutenant in May of 1939. When General Ironside was made Chief of the Imperial General Staff in September of 1939, Lord Townshend accompanied him as his personal assistant and was made an acting captain in December. General Ironside’s tenure as Chief of the Imperial General Staff ended in May of 1940 and Lord Townshend relinquished his commission in the Territorial Army on June 3 to accept an emergency commission as a second lieutenant in the Scots Guards. He had volunteered for the 5th (Special Reserve) Battalion (the ski battalion), which was formed to fight the Russians in Finland; but neutral Sweden refused permission for British troops to cross its territory, and the unit was swiftly disbanded. Lord Townshend remained with the Scots Guards until the war’s end; he was made a war substantiative lieutenant in 1941 and temporary captain in 1942. Lord Townshend returned to Raynham after the war, devoting himself to the estate and the Hall. He became the founding chairman of Anglia Television in 1959 and maintained his seat in the House of Lords until the hereditaries were expelled in 1999. Lord Townshend was a member of the United Grand Lodge of England throughout his life.

 

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Departed the collection in 2024.

Royal Gloucestershire Hussars

 

 

Other Ranks, Royal Gloucestershire Hussars

 Review Order, c. 1911

In 1794, fearing insurrection and faced with the threat of invasion during the French Revolutionary Wars, British Prime Minister William Pitt made the first ever recorded mention of yeoman cavalry when he called for an augmentation of the cavalry for internal defence. The first yeomanry troop raised in Gloucestershire was the 60-strong First or Cheltenham Troop of Gloucestershire Gentlemen and Yeomanry, formed in 1795 by Powell Snell. In total, eight troops had been raised by 1798. All except the Cheltenham Troop were disbanded in 1802 following the Peace of Amiens, and it too was disbanded in 1827.

New troops of yeomanry were raised in the 1830s in response to the Swing Riots. The first such troop established in Gloucestershire was the Marshfield and Dodington Troop, raised in 1830 by William Codrington. Six further troops – officered by nobility and gentry, and recruited largely from among landholders and tenant farmers – were subsequently raised in Gloucestershire, and in 1834 they came together to form the Gloucestershire Yeomanry Cavalry.

In 1847, the regiment adopted a hussar uniform and the name Royal Gloucestershire Hussars. The yeomanry's first deployments were ceremonial and as mounted police during times of civil unrest. The Royal Gloucestershire Hussars' first battle honour was won in South Africa during the Second Boer War, when a contingent of Gloucestershire yeomanry served as mounted infantry in the Imperial Yeomanry.

 

 

Sergeant Major, Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, 1895

By Colonel Philip Henry Smitherman

Lieutenant Colonel Richard A. Flower, OBE MC

 

 

Lieutenant Colonel Richard A. Flower, OBE MC

 1926-1993

 Service Dress Cap, c. 1943

 

 Flower joined The London Rifle Brigade of the Territorial Army in 1938 and received an emergency commission to The Rifle Brigade on August 24, 1940. He was advanced to W.S. (War Substantive) lieutenant in early 1942 and made a temporary captain by October. Whilst leading a carrier platoon at the Snipe position during the Second Battle of El Alamein, Flower was awarded the Military Cross and mentioned in despatches for overrunning an infantry position, assaulting a tank laager consisting of forty tanks and setting fire to three vehicles, dispersing an infantry attack, and destroying two enemy guns. Flower was made a W.S. captain in September of 1943 and a temporary major that December. He was attached to headquarters of the British 8th Army in 1945. Flower remained in the army after the war and was made a permanent captain in 1947 with a date of seniority commencing on July 1, 1946. The Rifle Brigade was reduced to one battalion in 1948 and brigaded with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps as the Green Jackets Brigade. Owing to this, when Flower received his majority on March 4, 1952, it was in the 2nd Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. He was assigned to General Headquarters East Africa from 1955 to 1956, during the time of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya. The Rifle Brigade was renamed the 3rd Green Jackets, The Rifle Brigade in 1958 and Flower was assigned to The Green Jackets Depot (a training barracks) as deputy commander. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on February 12, 1959. Flower retired from the army in 1961 as commander of The Green Jackets Depot and was made an Officer of the British Empire for his service in the 1962 New Year Honours.