HISTORY OF THE SERVICES OF THE 19th REGIMENT NOW ALEXANDRA PRINCESS OF WALES OWN (YORKSHIRE REGIMENT)

This regiment is more familiarly known as The Green Howards, one of only four English and Welsh infantry regiments retaining their old title, unaffected by the various amalgamations, re-amalgamations and disbandments that have decimated the British Army since the end of World War II. It got its name from the days when regiments were known by the colonel’s name. In 1744 there were two Colonel Howard’s Regiments on active service in the War of Austrian Succession one of which wore green facings; to avoid confusion that regiment was referred to as ‘Green Howards.’ It came into existence on 19 November 1688, recruited from volunteers from Somerset and Devon, the first regiment to be raised in England after the landing of Prince William of Orange (soon to be William III) two weeks earlier. In 1751 the regiments were numbered and it became the 19th Regiment of Foot. The regiment fought in the American War of Independence and in 1796 it sailed for India but was diverted to Ceylon, where it was to spend the next twenty-four years, apart from a few short tours to India. It was involved in the Kandian War and was one of three British regiments to qualify for the Ceylon Medal. The regiment did not come home till 1820 by which time it had suffered 1,498 deaths in action and from disease. It fought in the Crimea where it won its first two VCs, at Sebastopol. The regiment was back in India during the Mutiny of 1857, and now as the 1st Battalion, it took part in the Hazara campaign of 1868, the Sudan Expedition of 1885/6, and in the Boer War where it won the regiment’s third VC. Its story ends with the battalion in Khartoum, under orders for India where it would remain throughout the Great War.
The second battalion was formed in 1858 and the last three chapters cover its history – Ireland, India, Burma, the Tirah. The account ends with the battalion back in England after an overseas tour of nineteen years, sixteen of them in India. An appendix lists the Regiment’s succession of colonels and gives casualty details for the Crimea, Egypt and the Sudan, the Tirah and S Africa. There is a good index. In this edition the colour plates have been grouped together at the beginning of the book