Men of 1st Battalion The Royal Fusiliers march through Wiesbaden in December 1929 during their service with the British Army of the Rhine, which had been created ten years earlier to implement the British occupation of the Rhineland.
London, the nation’s capital, is synonymous with Britain’s military traditions. It is home to the Horse Guards, once the headquarters of the British Army, and nearby Wellington Barracks houses the headquarters of the five regiments of Foot Guards – Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh. The city also has its own infantry regiment, The Royal Fusiliers, which was founded by James II on 11 June 1685 as Our Royal Regiment of Fuzileers under the command of George Legge, later Lord Dartmouth, Master General of the Ordnance. Four decades earlier, the regiment’s origins can be traced back to the Trained Bands of the Tower of London and its Hamlets, which had been raised in 1648 at the command of Oliver Cromwell to form the Tower Guard and to guard the Ordnance Train as part of the New Model Army. That specialist role was continued in the new regiment which was also known for a short time as Our Ordnance Regiment: each man was armed with a ‘fusil’, a recently developed French design of musket with a covered flash-pan which made it safer to use near ammunition carts containing open barrels of gunpowder. The Fusiliers were the first English regiment of foot to be granted the title ‘Royal’ and its badge was adopted from the traditional royal emblem marked upon all the king’s or queen’s ordnance of war - the united red and white rose within the Garter and surmounted by the Crown. The Tower of London was its original headquarters and the historic building was always associated with the regiment – it houses the modern regimental museum – although the depot was moved to Hounslow in west London at the time of the Cardwell/Childers reforms in the 1870s.
As was the case with all line infantry regiments of the period, the Royal Fusiliers spent much of its time fighting abroad, firstly in France and Flanders and then in North America during the American War of Independence where the regiment was all but wiped out in the disastrous Battle of Cowpens in 1781 - the first time British Regular forces were beaten in a set battle by American Irregular soldiers. Better fortune followed in the war against Napoleon where the regiment gained ten battle honours during the Peninsular War and, by the time of the Crimean War, Sergeant Timothy Gowing was able to record with pride that he had joined ‘one of the smartest regiments of our army … I selected this regiment for its noble deeds of valour under Lord Wellington in the Peninsula.’ Gowing’s memoirs are among the most vividly realised of the Victorian period and the type of man he admired in the Fusiliers must have included Lieutenant William Hope, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his courage in bringing in wounded men during the attack on the Redan at Sevastopol, all the while under heavy enemy fire. The son of the Lord Chief Justice Clerk of Scotland, Hope was a natural soldier who reached the rank of Colonel, but he retired from the army and became an enthusiastic supporter of the Volunteer movement, becoming in time the commanding officer of the 1st City of London Artillery Volunteers. He was also the inventor of the shrapnel shell for rifled guns.
Men of 1st Battalion The Royal Fusiliers march through Wiesbaden in December 1929 during their service with the British Army of the Rhine, which had been created ten years earlier to implement the British occupation of the Rhineland.
Throughout its existence the City of London was important to the life of The Royal Fusiliers and to its successor, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. It enjoys close links with the Lord Mayor, providing a detachment for the procession to mark his installation, and by tradition Fusilier officers have entertained the Lord Mayor at the ‘City Luncheon’ towards the end of his mayoralty by way of thanks for the City’s support for its regiment. The regimental chapel in London is the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower of London and it is here that the Regimental Colours hang. Other sites devoted to the regiment include the regimental Memorial Chapel situated in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Holborn Viaduct, London, and the Garden of Remembrance on the north side of the church. Also in Holborn is the striking memorial to the 21,941 fusiliers who died in action during the First World War; this takes the form of a pedestal of Portland stone below a bronze figure of a Royal Fusilier standing with rifle as if defending the entrance to the city. Executed by the sculptor Albert Toft, the model for the fusilier was Sergeant Cox, who had served in the regiment throughout the war.
During the conflict the Royal Fusiliers raised forty-seven battalions for service in addition to four Fusilier-badged battalions of the Territorial Force which served with the London Regiment. Many of the battalions were specially raised for war service and had business, sporting or educational affiliations, such as the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st battalions which formed the University and Public Schools Brigade at Epsom at the beginning of the war. Within eleven days, 5,000 young university and public school men had joined its ranks and onlookers remarked on their ‘soldierly appearance, splendid marching and soldierly physique’. Among their number was Hopkin Maddock, an Old Boy of Christ College Brecon who played rugby for London Welsh and had won six international caps for Wales. The brigade crossed over to France in November 1915 and immediately suffered heavy casualties, the 20th Battalion being virtually wiped out during the fighting at High Wood during the Battle of the Somme. It was a noble and patriotic undertaking but old regular soldiers such as Frank Richards were not always impressed. ‘They were very decent chaps, but hopeless as soldiers,’ he noted in his autobiography. ‘The only thing they ever became proficient in was swearing.’ Other specialist battalions were the 10th Stockbrokers’ Battalion and the 23rd and 24th Sportsmen’s Battalions, but the most singular of the war-raised battalions must have been those numbered 38th to 42nd which later served as the Jewish Legion in Palestine.
Both the 1st and 2nd Battalions saw service in the Second World War, fighting in North-West Europe, the Middle East and Italy. Perhaps the most unusual Fusilier of this war was Johnny Ramensky, a Scot of Lithuanian extraction and an infamous burglar and safe-breaker known for never resorting to violence in his ‘trade’. In 1943 while doing time in Peterhead Prison, ‘Gentleman Johnny’ was given an option: stay in prison or join the army. He chose the latter. After serving in the Royal Fusiliers he joined the Commandoes as an instructor and conducted a number of daring raids, behind enemy lines, including one on the headquarters of General Rommel in North Africa to capture sensitive documents.
In the post-war period the regiment served in Korea as part of the US-led operations against North Korean and Chinese forces. Among those who saw action in the front line was Maurice Micklewhite (who would become better known as the actor Michael Caine), born in Bermondsey but brought up in Southwark, south London. Far from leaving him disillusioned, the experience made him a lifelong supporter of conscription as a means of combating youth crime in Britain: ‘I’m just saying, put them in the army for six months. You’re there to learn how to defend your country. You belong to the country. Then when you come out, you have a sense of belonging rather than a sense of violence.’ Other Fusiliers who went on to enjoy successful careers in show business included band leader Billy Cotton, who also flew as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, and the actor Leslie Grantham, who played the character ‘Dirty Den’ in the television soap opera EastEnders.
On St George’s Day 1968 the regiment became part of The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers following the amalgamation of The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers, The Royal Fusiliers and The Lancashire Fusiliers. A link with the past was maintained when the Tower of London became the new regiment’s London area headquarters.
Men of 9th Battalion The Royal Fusiliers at an observation post at the window of a ruined house during the fighting in Sicily, 12 September 1943.
Namur 1695, Martinique 1809, Talavera, Busaco, Albuhera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Orthes, Toulouse, Peninsula, Alma, Inkerman, Sevastopol, Kandahar 1880, Afghanistan 1879–80, Relief of Ladysmith, South Africa 1899–1902
Those in bold carried on the Queen’s Colour
Mons, Le Cateau, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, La Bassée 1914, Messines 1914, 17, Armentières 1914, Ypres 1914, 15, 17, 18, Nonne Bosschen, Gravenstafel, St. Julien, Frezenberg, Bellewaarde, Hooge 1915, Loos, Somme 1916, 18, Albert 1916, 18, Bazentin, Delville Wood, Pozières, Flers-Courcelette, Thiepval, Le Transloy, Ancre Heights, Ancre 1916, 18, Arras 1917, 18, Vimy 1917, Scarpe 1917, Arleux, Pilckem, Langemarck 1917, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Cambrai 1917, 18, St. Quentin, Bapaume 1918, Rosières, Avre, Villers Bretonneux, Lys, Estaires, Hazebrouck, Béthune, Amiens, Drocourt-Quéant, Hindenburg Line, Havrincourt, Èpéhy, Canal du Nord, St. Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir, Courtrai, Selle, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914–18, Italy 1917–18, Struma, Macedonia 1915–18, Helles, Landing at Helles, Krithia, Suvla, Scimitar Hill, Gallipoli 1915–16, Egypt 1916, Megiddo, Nablus, Palestine 1918, Troitsa, Archangel 1919, Kilimanjaro, Behobeho, Nyangao, East Africa 1915–17
Dunkirk 1940, North-West Europe 1940, Agordat, Keren, Syria 1941, Sidi Barrani, Djebel Tebaga, Peter’s Corner, North Africa 1940, 43, Sangro, Mozzagrogna, Caldari, Salerno, St. Lucia, Battipaglia, Teano, Monte Camino, Garigliano Crossing, Damiano, Anzio, Cassino II, Ripa Ridge, Gabbiano, Advance to Florence, Monte Scalari, Gothic Line, Coriano, Croce, Casa Fortis, Savio Bridgehead, Valli di Commacchio, Senio, Argenta Gap, Italy 1943–45, Athens, Greece 1944–45
Carried on the Regimental Colour
Korea 1952–53
Private (later Corporal) William Norman, 7th Regiment, Crimean War, 1854
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Egerton Hale, 7th Regiment, Crimean War, 1855
Lieutenant (later Colonel) William Hope, 7th Regiment, Crimean War, 1855
Corporal Matthew Hughes, 7th Regiment, Crimean War, 1855
Captain Henry Mitchell Jones, 7th Regiment, Crimean War, 1855
Private Thomas Elsdon Ashford, 7th Regiment, Second Afghan War, 1880
Captain (later Brigadier) Charles Fitzclarence, 1st Battalion, Boer War, 1899
Lieutenant Maurice James Dease, 4th Battalion, First World War, 1914
Private Sidney Frank Godley, 4th Battalion, First World War, 1914
Lieutenant Wilbur Taylor Dartnell, 25th Battalion, First World War, 1915
The Reverend Edward Noel Mellish, Army Chaplains’ Department (Royal Fusiliers), First World War, 1916
Captain Robert Gee, 2nd Battalion, First World War, 1917
Corporal George Jarratt, 8th Battalion, First World War, 1917
Sergeant John Molyneux, 2nd Battalion, First World War, 1917
Lance Sergeant (later 2nd Lieutenant) Frederick William Palmer, 22nd Battalion, First World War, 1917
Captain Walter Napleton Stone, 17th Battalion, First World War, 1917
Lieutenant Colonel Neville Bowes Elliott-Cooper, 8th Battalion, First World War, 1918
Lance Corporal (later Sergeant) Charles Graham Robertson, 10th Battalion, First World War, 1918
Sergeant Samuel George Pearse, 45th Battalion, North Russia Relief Force, 1919
Corporal Arthur Percy Sullivan, 45th Battalion, North Russia Relief Force, 1919
