Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, 1923: a group of soldiers from 1st Battalion The Lincolnshire Regiment pose for a formal photograph with three of their officers.
Always known as ‘The Poachers’, The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was the epitome of a thoroughly decent English county regiment – unassuming, solid and intensely proud of its long history and traditions. It took the nickname from the regimental quick march ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’, which itself is one of England’s best-known and best-loved folk songs, rightly regarded as an unofficial anthem for Lincolnshire, the county that supplied the regiment with the bulk of its recruits. The regimental museum is housed in Lincoln’s City Barracks, built in 1857 for the Loyal North Lincoln Militia, and now the Museum for Lincolnshire Life. The Lincolnshire Regiment started life in 1685 as Granville’s Regiment of Foot, named after its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath, a Privy Councillor and a Royalist supporter in the civil war of 1642–49. In 1751 it became the 10th Foot and thirty years later it was accorded the territorial title of North Lincolnshire. In common with most infantry regiments of that period it recruited heavily in Ireland and the regiment was present at the action at Carrickfergus in February 1760 which thwarted an attempted French invasion during the Seven Years War.
In the aftermath the regiment spent most of its life abroad, fighting in North America during the War of Independence and in the Peninsula during the war against Napoleon. From these experiences came the memoirs of Jeremy Lister, who was born at Shibden Hall, near Halifax in West Yorkshire, and who joined the regiment as an ensign in 1770. He was present at Lexington at the outbreak of hostilities and his narrative of events pulls no punches in its descriptions of the brutality of some of the early battles. On coming across bodies of the men of his regiment killed at Concord Bridge, Lister found that they had been ‘afterwards scalp’d their Eyes goug’d their Noses and Ears cut off, such barbarity exercis’d upon the Corps could scarcely be paralelld [sic] by the most uncivilised Savages’. With its unflinching descriptions of British ineptitude, Lister’s narrative enjoyed considerable success and in 2003 inspired the equally successful silent comedy art house film The Deserter, which follows the misadventures of a drummer in the 10th Foot during the war.
In the middle of the nineteenth century the regiment spent several years in India and saw action in the First Sikh War, where it won the battle honour ‘Sobraon’ for its role in taking part in the defeat of a Sikh army 30,000-strong in the Punjab. During the fighting in the Sikh entrenchments at Sobraon the 10th joined forces with the 29th Foot, later The Worcestershire Regiment, and the camaraderie forged in the bloody close-quarter fighting led to the introduction of a custom whereby officers and sergeants of both regiments addressed each other thereafter as ‘My Dear Cousin’. When new barracks and a depot were opened in Lincoln for the regiment in the late 1870s they were named after the battle and most of the buildings and the impressive brick-built keep of Sobraon Barracks are still in existence as a centre for Territorial Army and Cadet forces.
Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, 1923: a group of soldiers from 1st Battalion The Lincolnshire Regiment pose for a formal photograph with three of their officers.
Perhaps the most unusual deployment came in 1868 when the regiment spent three years in Japan guarding the international district in Yokohama. A relatively undemanding assignment, it none the less changed the life of the bandmaster John William Fenton, born in Kinsale, Ireland. One day a group of Japanese naval cadets heard the band practising and were so impressed that they persuaded their superiors to invite Fenton to become their instructor. Brass instruments were duly ordered from London and Japan’s first naval band was formed. Two years later Fenton added to his laurels by writing the music for the original version of Japan’s national anthem ‘Kimi ga Yo’ with words from a tenth-century poem. When the 10th Foot returned to Britain in 1871, Fenton stayed on in Japan for a further six years, first as a naval bandmaster and then as the bandmaster of the Imperial Court. After their return the 10th Foot became The Lincolnshire Regiment with two Regular battalions and one Militia battalion.
The outbreak of the First World War posed several challenges to the Lincolns, which, like every other regiment in the country, had to increase its manpower. Although a large county, Lincolnshire is not heavily populated, yet the regiment still managed to raise thirteen battalions in addition to its two Regular battalions. One of the more unusual sources of recruits was the island of Bermuda where the 2nd Battalion was based before the outbreak of hostilities. In December 1914 a contingent of volunteers from the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps arrived in England and served with the Lincolns on the Western Front as the first colonial volunteer unit. The connection is still maintained by the succeeding regiments, The Royal Anglians and The Bermuda Regiment.
The other noteworthy battalion was The 10th Lincolnshire Regiment, the ‘Grimsby Chums’, the only ‘pals’ battalion to be given a different title. It was raised in Grimsby from a nucleus of 250 boys at Wintringham Grammar School and the idea spread to other neighbouring towns in north-east Lincolnshire, among them Boston, Louth and Scunthorpe, so that a complete battalion of more than a thousand Lincolnshire men was quickly raised to serve in 34th Division. The Grimsby Chums undertook their training on Lord Yarborough’s estate at Brocklesbury and marched off to war full of hope and excitement, anxious to see action. Their wish was granted on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme, when they attacked the village of La Boisselle following the explosion of a huge mine known as Lochnagar. However, the attack quickly became bogged down in heavy German machine-gun fire and many of the Grimsby Chums found themselves trapped in the mine crater, the largest on the Western Front and to this day a place of pilgrimage. In total the Grimsby Chums suffered 502 casualties that day - fifteen officers and 487 other ranks. According to a contemporary newspaper report, when the news reached Grimsby a week later hardly a street in the port was left unaffected by the tragedy and most houses had their blinds drawn in mourning. John Barker, the last of the survivors of the Grimsby Chums, died in 1995 aged 101 and there is a memorial to the battalion in St James’s Church, Grimsby.
Wellington Barracks, London, 16 August 1929: men of 1st Battalion The Lincolnshire Regiment rehearse to mount the King’s Guard at Buckingham Palace. These duties are normally performed by a Foot Guards battalion.
Thankfully the pals concept was not tested again in the Second World War but The Lincolnshire Regiment still played a full part in the conflict. The regiment’s two Territorial Army battalions, 4th and 6th, were mobilised immediately on the outbreak of war and the latter was sent to France together with the Regular 2nd Battalion. Both were evacuated after the retreat to Dunkirk in May 1940. Subsequently the 2nd and the 4th Battalions served in North-West Europe 1944–45 while the 6th Battalion served in North Africa and Italy and the 1st Battalion saw service in Burma on the Arakan front. During the fighting in the Ngakyedauk Pass in February 1944, Acting Major Charles Ferguson Hoey MC attacked a Japanese machine-gun position and silenced it despite being mortally wounded. For his outstanding courage he won the Victoria Cross, one of eight awarded to the regiment.
After the Second World War the regiment was granted a royal title, becoming The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, but it was a relatively brief accolade. In 1960 it amalgamated with The Northamptonshire Regiment to become the 2nd Battalion of the newly formed East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester’s Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire) but that too was short-lived, for in 1964 it became the 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment. To maintain the links with the past the battalion retains the nickname ‘The Poachers’ and A Company is the Royal Lincolnshire Company. On losing its separate identity, the Colours of The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment were laid up in Lincoln Cathedral.
Steenkirk, Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet, Bouchain, Lexington, Bunker’s Hill, Peninsula, Sobraon, Mooltan, Goojuarat, Punjab, Lucknow, Atbara, Khartoum, Paardeberg, South Africa 1900–02
Those in bold carried on the Queen’s Colour
Mons, Le Cateau, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, 18, La Bassée 1914, Messines 1914, 17, 18, Armentières 1914 Ypres 1914, 15, 17, Nonne Bosschen, Neuve Chapelle, Gravenstafel, St. Julien, Frezenberg, Bellewaarde, Aubers, Loos, Somme 1916, 18, Albert 1916, 18, Bazentin, Delville Wood, Pozières, Flers-Courcelette, Morval, Thiepval, Ancre 1916, 18, Arras 1917, 18, Scarpe 1917, 18, Arleux, Pilckem, Langemarck 1917, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Cambrai 1917, 18, St. Quentin, Bapaume 1918, Lys, Estaires, Bailleul, Kemmel, Amiens, Drocourt Quéant, Hindenburg Line, Èpéhy, Canal du Nord, St. Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir, Selle, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914–18, Suvla, Landing at Suvla, Scimitar Hill, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1916
Those in bold carried on the Queen’s Colour
Vist, Norway 1940, Dunkirk 1940, Normandy Landing, Cambes, Fontenay le Pesnil, Defence of Rauray, Caen, Orne, Bourguébus Ridge, Troarn, Nederrijn, Le Havre, Antwerp-Turnhout Canal, Venraij, Venlo Pocket, Rhineland, Hochwald, Lingen, Bremen, Arnhem 1945, North-West Europe 1940, 1944–45, Sedjenane I, Mine de Sedjenane, Argoub Selah, North Africa 1943, Salerno, Vietri Pass, Capture of Naples, Cava di Terreni, Volturno Crossing, Garigliano Crossing, Monte Tuga, Gothic Line, Monte Gridolfo, Gemmano Ridge, Lamone Crossing, San Marino, Italy 1943–45, Donbaik, Point 201 (Arakan), North Arakan, Buthidaung, Ngakyedauk Pass, Ramree, Burma 1943–45
Private Denis Dempsey, 10th Regiment, Indian Mutiny, 1857
Private John Kirk, 10th Regiment, Indian Mutiny, 1857
Lieutenant (later Lieutenant General Sir) Henry Marshman Havelock-Allan, 10th Regiment, Indian Mutiny, 1857
Captain (later Brigadier) Percy Howard Hansen, 6th Battalion, First World War, 1915
Corporal Charles Richard Sharpe, 2nd Battalion, First World War, 1915
Corporal (later Sergeant) Arthur Evans, 6th Battalion, First World War, 1918
Major Charles Ferguson Hoey, 1st Battalion, Second World War, 1944
Captain John Henry Cound Brunt, The Sherwood Foresters, attached 6th Lincolnshire Regiment, Second World War, 1944
