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Hi guys,im trying to find some info on 1st Battalion Royal Scots,i had an ancestor who was in 1st Regiment of Foot with this battalion.
All i know about his time in the military is the above,his number was No.966 private Robert Wood,born in Halsted in Essex in 1848-50.i have a document that i think is his discharge paper,its dated 20th September 1876,he joined them in 1863 aged 15 yrs.The discharge paper was sighned in Fort George N.B in Edinburgh..i would love to hear from anyone who may kmow how i can find out more regarding where the battalion may have served or if there are any records nameing soldiers in this regiment.any help gratefully excepted,kind regards Lisa xx
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[edit] History
[edit] Seventeenth century
The regiment was first raised in 1633 as the Royal Regiment of Foot[1] by Sir John Hepburn, under a royal warrant from Charles I, on the Scottish establishment for service in France. It was formed from a nucleus of Hepburn's previous regiment, formerly in Swedish service, which had been in existence since 1625. When in France it absorbed the remnants of a number of other Scottish mercenary units which had fought in Swedish service, and by 1635 had swelled to some 8,000 men.[2] Sir John Hepburn, was killed at the siege of Saverne in 1636; it was then taken over by his nephew, Sir John Hepburn who was killed in action the following year.[citation needed] Lord James Douglas was appointed the new colonel, and the name of the corps was altered to the Régiment de Douglas, numbering some 1200 Scotsmen. The regiment fought with distinction, under Douglas, until he was killed in a skirmish near Douai in 1645, in attempt to take the city from the Habsburgs. His elder brother Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus was appointed in his place.[3] In all the regiment served in France from 1633 to 1661, when it was recalled to England.[4]
Because the regiment had been formed by Royal Warrant, it was legally part of the Crown's armed forces, even though it had been out of the country for three decades. As such, it was recalled to help secure the coronation of Charles II, and helped provide a model for the other regiments founded after the collapse of the New Model Army.[2] The regiment returned to France from 1662-6 and 1667-78, seeing English service again during the Second Anglo-Dutch War;[4] soldiers of the regiment responded to the Raid on the Medway, when Pepys recorded that Here in the streets, I did hear the Scotch march beat by the drums before the soldiers, which is very odde.[5]
1678 marked the final end of French service, with the regiment placed permanently on the English establishment, and in 1680 the regiment was sent to the Tangier Garrison, where it won its first battle honour.[4] In 1684, the regiment was titled His Majesty's Royal Regiment of Foot,[1] and withdrawn to England.[4] In 1685 they fought for James II in the Monmouth Rebellion, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, and the following year a second battalion was raised. In 1688, they were the only regiment of the army to remain loyal to James in the Glorious Revolution;[4] both battalions of the regiment mutinied and were disarmed.[citation needed]
During the War of the Grand Alliance, the regiment fought at the Battle of Walcourt (1689), the Battle of Steenkerque (1692), the Battle of Landen (1693) and the Siege of Namur (1695).[4] They spent the late 1690s on garrison duty in Ireland.[6]
[edit] Eighteenth century
During the War of the Spanish Succession, the regiment fought at the Battles of Schellenberg and Blenheim (1704), the Battle of Ramillies (1706), the Battle of Oudenarde (1708) and the Battle of Malplaquet (1709).[4] Both battalions spent 1715 to 1742 on service in Ireland, but after this point the battalions were normally separated;[2] the 1st went to Flanders,[7] with the 2nd being sent to the Caribbean as a garrison for Puerto Bello.[8] The 1st saw service in the War of the Austrian Succession at the Battle of Fontenoy (1745), whilst the 2nd was engaged in the Second Jacobite Rising, fighting at the Battle of Falkirk and the infamous Battle of Culloden (1746),[4] after which it returned to Ireland.[8]
In 1751, the regiment was titled the 1st (Royal) Regiment of Foot,[1] ranked as the most senior of the line regiments of infantry. The 2nd Battalion was sent to Nova Scotia in 1757,[8] and saw service in the Seven Years' War, capturing Louisburg in 1758, Guadeloupe in 1762 and Havana in 1763,[4] returning home in 1764.[8] Both then served as garrisons in the Mediterranean, the 1st in Gibraltar from 1768-75,[7] and the 2nd in Minorca from 1771-75.[8]
The 1st Battalion was sent to the West Indies in 1781, fought in the capture of Sint Eustatius that year, and was itself captured at St. Kitts in January 1782 but exchanged later in the year.[7]
[edit] The French Revolutionary Wars & Napoleonic Wars
The 1st Battalion had returned to the West Indies as a garrison in 1790, and served there until 1797,[4] with a brief period of combat in the Haïtian Revolution.[7] The West Indies were hotbeds of disease, and the battalion lost more than half its strength to disease in this period.[2] It was reformed from militia volunteers in Ireland in 1798: This year saw a major rebellion erupt in Ireland after years of simmering tension. The Lothian Fencibles fought with distinction at the Battle of Vinegar Hill, one of the more important engagements of the rebellion. Subsequently, the regiment gained a new regimental song:
Ye croppies of Wexford, I'd have ye be wise
and go not to meddle with Mid-Lothian Boys
For the Mid-Lothian Boys they vow and declare
They'll crop off your head as well as
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continued
as your hair
derry, down, down.
Remember at Ross and at Vinegar Hill
How your heads flew about like chaff in a mill
For the Mid-Lothian Boys when a croppy they see
they blow out his daylights and tip him cut three
derry, down, down.[9]
After the the rebellion was over in Ireland they were used in minor raids on the coast of Spain in 1800.[7] Meanwhile, from 1793 to 1801, the 2nd Battalion was based in the Mediterranean.[4] It fought at the Siege of Toulon (1793) and the capture of Corsica (1794),[8] returning briefly to Northern Europe for the Battle of Egmont op Zee in the 1799 Helder campaign, before fighting in the 1801 Egyptian campaign at the Battle of Aboukir and the Battle of Alexandria.[4]
Both battalions were subsequently dispatched to the West Indies, the 1st from 1801 to 1812, and the 2nd from 1803 to 1806. The 1st fought at the capture of Saint Lucia, as well as of Demerara and Essequibo in 1803, and the capture of Guadeloupe in 1810. The 2nd then moved to India, where it would remain until 1826, whilst the 1st was sent to Quebec with the outbreak of the War of 1812.[4] It fought in the battles of Sackett's Harbor and Buffalo & Black Rock, as well as the capture of Fort Niagara (1813), the battles of Longwoods, Chippawa, and Lundy's Lane, along with the Siege of Fort Erie and the battle of Cook's Mills (1814).[10] In February 1812, the regiment was retitled as the 1st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots), the first official appearance of the popular name.[1]
Two new battalions were raised in late 1804, at Hamilton, the 3rd and 4th Battalions. The 3rd served in the Peninsular War from 1808 to 1809, fighting at the Battle of Corunna in 1809 before being withdrawn by sea and sent to the Walcheren Campaign[4] with the 1st Division.[11] It returned to Portugal in 1810 with the 5th Division,[12] fighting at the Battle of Buçaco (1810), the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro (1811), the battles of Badajoz, Salamanca and Burgos (1812), the Battle of Vitoria, capture of San Sebastián, Battle of Nivelle, and the Battle of Nive (1813),[13] before advancing into France in 1814. It was sent to Belgium during the Hundred Days, and fought in Picton's Division (the 5th) at the Battle of Waterloo (1815). After two years in the Army of Occupation, it was disbanded at Canterbury in 1817.[12]
The 4th was deployed to the Baltic in 1813, being involved with the recapture of Stralsund, and fought in the Netherlands in 1814, where it was captured and exchanged. It was then dispatched to Canada as part of the War of 1812, where it served as a garrison. It was withdrawn to England with the end of the fighting and disbanded at Dover in 1816.[14]
[edit] Nineteenth century
The 1st battalion was sent to Ireland after the end of the Napoleonic wars, and stationed there from 1816 until 1825, when it was moved to the West Indies, where it remained until 1835. The 2nd battalion, however, had a more active time; based in India, it was involved in the Third Anglo-Maratha War, where it fought at the Battle of Nagpore (1817) and Battle of Mahidpur (1818), and in the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-26. It moved to Scotland in 1830, and to Canada in 1836, where it was involved in the Rebellions of 1837.[4] A move to the West Indies in 1843 was complicated by half the regiment being shipwrecked and delayed several months, but was successful, and the regiment finally returned to Scotland in 1846.[8]
Both battalions saw active service in the Crimean War, with the 1st fighting at the battles of Alma and Inkerman (1854), and both fighting in the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-5),[4] where the regiment's first VC was won.[15] After the war, the 1st battalion moved to Ceylon in 1857[7] and thence to India, returning home in 1870, whilst the 2nd battalion moved to Hong Kong, and saw action in the Second Opium War, fighting at the capture of the Taku Forts (1858) and Pekin (1860), and returning home in 1861.[4]
The regiment was not fundamentally affected by the Childers Reforms of the 1870s, which gave it a depot at Glencorse from 1873, or by the Childers reforms of 1881 - as it already possessed two battalions, there was no need for it to amalgamate with another regiment.[16] However, as it had become the county regiment of the Edinburgh area, it was retitled The Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment),[17] and it took on a militia battalion and seven battalions of Volunteers from the local area.[18] The regimental district was reorganised in 1887, with Berwickshire being transferred to the recruiting area of the King's Own Scottish Borderers[19] along with the country; the remaining volunteers were reorganised in 1888, for a total of eight volunteer battalions.[20]
In 1881, the 1st was in the West Indies; it moved to South Africa in 1884, when it saw action in the Bechuanaland campaign, and remained there until 1891, when it moved back to the UK to serve as the depot battalion and the 2nd moved out to India, where it remained until 1909. With the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War, the 1st was quickly earmarked for service in South Africa, and sailed in late 1899. It remained there until 1903, being joined by the 3rd from 1900 to 1902[4] - the first time a non-regular unit of the regiment had been activated. The bulk of the time in South Africa was spent patrolling and in mobile columns, with neither battalion engaged in any major battles.[2]
In 1908, the Volunteers and Militia were reorganised nationally, with the former becoming the Territorial Force and the latter the Special Reserve; the regiment now had one Reserve and seven Territorial battalions.[21] The 1st moved back to India in 1909, relieving the 2nd, which moved back to the UK; they remained stationed there until 1914.[4]
[edit] First World War (1914-1919)
At the outbreak of the First World War, the 1st was in India, and returned to the UK in November; the 2nd was immediately deployed with the British Expeditionary Force, arriving in France on August 14[22] and seeing action on the afternoon of the 23rd.[23] The Special Reserve had been mobilised, with the 3rd Battalion activated at Weymouth, and all seven battalions of the Territorial Force had mobilised and raised an additional second-line battalion by the end of 1914.[24] A further seven battalions of the New Army were formed in 1914, including two Pals battalions[25] By the end of 1914, the regiment stood at a strength of 24 battalions;[26] another six Territorial battalions and three New Army battalions (one of bantams) were formed in 1915.[27] In 1916, one service and one reserve battalion were formed by merging depleted Territorial battalions,[28] and in 1917 a labour battalion was formed.[29] In total, the Royal Scots raised some thirty-five battalions of infantry and over 100,000 men during the course of the First World War, of which fifteen battalions saw active service. 11,000 soldiers serving in the regiment were killed, and over 40,000 wounded.[2] Among other decorations and honours, the regiment won six Victoria Crosses.[30]
The 1st, on returning from India, was placed in the 27th Division, a division made up of regular units which had been recalled from garrison duty, and arrived in France in December 1914. It saw combat in the Action of Saint-Éloi and throughout the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, before the division was withdrawn and moved to Salonika in November, where it spent the rest of the war It was sent to Georgia in December 1918 for operations against the Bolsheviks, and returned to Edinburgh in May 1919.[31] The 2nd was part of the 3rd Division, one of the first units of the British Expeditionary Force to be sent to France. It first saw action in the Battle of Mons, and thence at almost all of the major actions on the Western Front, before returning to Scotland in 1919.[31]
The 1/4th and 1/7th mobilised in Edin
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thanks so much guys,its much appreciated,im not a member of findmypast,would anyone out there mind taking a look for me.
also,does anyone know if ancestry millitary records go back that far & what i would need to look for him under,thank you all,kind regards Lisa xx
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