Royal Gloucestershire Hussars

The Royal Gloucestershire Hussars was a volunteer yeomanry regiment which, in the 20th century, became part of the British Army Reserve. It traced its origins to the First or Cheltenham Troop of Gloucestershire Gentleman and Yeomanry raised in 1795, although a break in the lineage means that its formation is dated to the Marshfield and Dodington Troop raised in 1830. 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. Originally intended to counter insurrection and a French invasion that never materialised, the yeomanry's first deployments were ceremonial and as mounted police during times of civil unrest. Three Gloucestershire troops were deployed to Bristol on two separate occasions in the 1830s in support of the civil authorities. From the mid-19th century, the yeomanry's policing role diminished with the establishment of a civilian police force, and renewed fears of invasion turned its focus to national defence. 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. Before the First World War, all volunteer forces, including the yeomanry, were brought into the Territorial Force. On the outbreak of the war the regiment raised a second-line unit, which remained in the UK and became a cyclist unit in 1916, and a third-line unit, which served as a reserve. The first-line unit saw action as infantry at Gallipoli and as cavalry in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign; in the latter it fought both mounted and dismounted from the Suez Canal to Aleppo in modern-day Syria. Following the war, the regiment was downsized and converted to the 21st (Royal Gloucestershire Hussars) Armoured Car Company. When the United Kingdom began mobilising again in the late 1930s, the company converted to an armoured regiment and was restored to its former name. On the outbreak of the Second World War, the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars once again raised second- and third-line units. The first-line regiment remained in the UK as a training unit, seeing service overseas only after the war as part of the army of occupation in Austria, and the third-line regiment was actually a troop-sized unit acting mainly as a deception designed to disguise British armour strength and disposition. The 2nd Royal Gloucestershire Hussars fought in North Africa, initially attached to the 7th Armoured Division (the Desert Rats). The regiment suffered heavy losses during Operation Crusader and the subsequent Battle of Gazala, twice being taken out of the line for refit, and was variously equipped with Crusader, M3 Stuart and M3 Grant tanks. When it lost two commanders killed in action in quick succession, the regiment's individual squadrons were used to reinforce other units, and the 2nd Royal Gloucestershire Hussars was disbanded in 1943. Reduced back to a single regiment after the war, the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars was equipped with armoured cars and given a reconnaissance role. Repeated reorganisation of the Territorial Army in the 1960s reduced the regiment to a squadron assigned to an infantry role. In the 1990s, the squadron returned to an armour role in the Royal Wessex Yeomanry, tasked with training replacement crews for the regular army's Challenger 2 tanks.

Origins 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 government subsequently proposed a plan to all Lord-Lieutenants – the monarch's personal representative in each county – to increase the forces at the nation's disposal. This included the raising of volunteer troops of cavalry consisting of gentlemen and yeomanry. Each troop comprised 50 to 80 men, commanded by the person raising it. Commanders received a temporary rank ranging from Captain to Colonel, depending on the number of troops raised. Officers were generally appointed from among the nobility and gentry, and troops were largely recruited from landholders and tenant farmers. Members provided their own horses and were not paid except when called out. Uniforms were provided by the commanders, and weapons by the government. The yeomanry could only be called out by the Lord-Lieutenant or royal warrant to suppress civil unrest in home or neighbouring counties, or by royal warrant in the event of foreign invasion. The individual troops of the Corps of Gentlemen and Yeomanry, as the force was first called, were initially independent, and only later would they combine to form regiments. Each troop was required to conduct exercises, or 'permanent duty', initially for twelve days each year, reduced to six in 1816. 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, a gentleman of means and good position. In total, eight troops had been raised by 1798. Following the 1802 Peace of Amiens, all except the Cheltenham Troop were disbanded, but the following year Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom prompted the re-establishment of several old troops and the formation of new troops; by the end of 1803 there were thirteen troops in Gloucestershire, and in 1813 the county's yeomanry had a strength of 582 men. As well as permanent duty, the yeomanry assembled as required for ceremonial and peace-keeping purposes; the Gloucester Troop provided an escort during the visit of the Prince of Wales to the city in 1807, and in 1810 it was called out to an affray between Irish militia and citizens in a local pub. A general reduction in volunteer forces followed the defeat of Napoleon, and by 1815 all yeomanry troops in Gloucestershire except one were disbanded. Only the Gloucester Troop was retained, as a mounted police force, until it too was disbanded in 1827.

Formation and early history

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.