Men of 1st Battalion The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire), board the troopship Nevasa at Penang following service in Malaya, 1960.
With the prominent red rose in its cap badge and its depot in Preston, The Loyals were the epitome of a Lancashire regiment, and to underline that connection its regimental district included the towns of Bolton, Chorley, Farnworth and Hindley. But for all that it spent much of its life as the county regiment of north Lancashire it owed its main title to the junior 81st Regiment which was raised in 1793 as the Loyal Lincoln Volunteers and which later became the 81st (Loyal Lincoln Volunteers) Foot. In 1881 it amalgamated with the much older 47th (Lancashire) Foot to form The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire), which also included the part-time 3rd Duke of Lancaster’s Own Royal Lancashire Militia and the 11th and 14th Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps.
Men of 1st Battalion The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire), board the troopship Nevasa at Penang following service in Malaya, 1960.
Known as ‘The Lancashire Lads’ The Loyals were one of seven infantry regiments which recruited inside the county and from the very beginning the regimental depot was at Fulwood Barracks in Preston; this is still standing today and is home to the Lancashire Infantry Museum. Built in the 1830s in the wake of the Chartist riots, Fulwood Barracks is considered to be one of the finest surviving examples of early Victorian military architecture. It is also thought to be the most haunted. In 1861 a young soldier named Patrick McCaffery serving in the 32nd (Cornwall Light Infantry) Regiment deliberately shot two officers in cold blood as they were crossing the square outside the East Wing (since demolished). Both men were wounded but died a day later and McCaffery was sent to Liverpool for trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged at the beginning of January 1862. A crowd of 30,000 witnessed the execution and according to the Liverpool Mercury they were much affected by the fate of the twenty-year-old soldier from County Kildare: ‘When the bolt was drawn, shrieks burst from many of the spectators, and several of the females left the ground weeping and wringing their hands, apparently suffering intense agony at the spectacle they had witnessed.’ Within days the event had been commemorated in a penny ballad which still enjoys wide currency, thanks largely to the poignancy of the story:
So come all you officers take advice from me
And go treat your men with some decency
For it’s only lies and a tyranny
That have made a martyr of McCaffery.
To this day the ghost of Patrick McCaffery is supposed to haunt the Officers’ Mess in the old Block 57 while another unquiet spirit has been sensed or seen in the Garrison Chapel of St Alban, which is still in use by the British Army.
Unlike most English line infantry regiments, the 47th was raised in Scotland, in this case in 1741 by Sir John Mordaunt, a young colonel and a Whig supporter who had served with the Duke of Cumberland in Flanders and would continue to serve under him in the campaign against the Jacobite rebels in 1745 and 1746. Ten years after its foundation it was numbered 47th and was sent to Canada to join the forces led by Major General James Wolfe in his campaign to drive the French from the eastern seaboard. It was present at the siege of Louisburg in 1758 when it was given the nickname of ‘Wolfe’s Own’ for its part in the amphibious operations which led to the capture of the huge fortress. Before embarking for Canada a sergeant in the 47th’s Grenadier Company called Ned Botwood composed ‘Hot Stuff’, a ballad that quickly became hugely popular throughout the army. Botwood was killed in action at an inconsequential skirmish at Montmorency shortly before the decisive battle at the Plains of Abraham which led to the capture of Quebec in 1759, but the stirring words of his ballad lived on:
Come, each death-doing dog that dares venture his neck,
Come, follow the hero that goes to Quebec;
Jump aboard of the transports, and loose every sail,
Pay your debts at the tavern by giving leg-bail [running away];
And ye that love fighting shall soon have enough;
Wolfe commands us, my boys, we shall give them Hot Stuff.
The 47th went on to serve with distinction in North America and in the wars against Revolutionary France, where they took part in the siege of San Sebastian in 1813. Emerging from the battle the regiment had lost most of its officers and was left under the command of a wounded subaltern. During the Crimean War the regiment was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Hely who was badly wounded and unhorsed during the Battle of Inkerman. He would have fallen into Russian hands but for the courage and determination of Private John McDermond, a Scot from Glasgow, who rescued him and was later awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions, the only one to be made to a soldier of the 47th. A painting depicting his bravery hangs in Fulwood Barracks.
By way of contrast, the 81st Regiment was raised in Lincolnshire on the other side of England where most of its first soldiers had served originally as Volunteers. It came into being at the end of the nineteenth century as the Loyal Lincoln Volunteers and was the only regiment in the British Army to retain the word ‘loyal’ in its title during its 200-year existence. The regiment won battle honours at Maida, Corunna and the Peninsula and also at Ali Masjid during the Second Afghan War of 1878-80 when it was part of the Peshawar Valley Field Force, under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Sam Browne VC. Following the amalgamation, 1st Loyals (as the 47th had become) served in the Boer War under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Kekewich who also found himself in charge of the garrison at Kimberley during its lengthy siege. Described as an unassuming man with strong nerves, Kekewich soon found himself at loggerheads with the influential imperialist businessman and politician Cecil Rhodes and ended the war leading his Loyals as mounted infantry.
After the outbreak of the First World War, The Loyals raised twenty-one battalions for service on the main battlefronts. Among them was the 7th Battalion which formed a ‘Preston Businessmen and Clerks’ Company’ (D Company) for service on the Western Front. It was later joined by three other similar companies from Blackpool, Kirkham and Chorley and saw action on the Somme where the battalion’s casualties were ten officers and 213 other ranks, killed, wounded or missing. Their memorial is mounted within Preston railway station, perhaps the last sight of their home county many of the young soldiers had before they departed for the front. It was unveiled in 2012 and is a companion piece to the cenotaph designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, which was unveiled in June 1926 to commemorate Preston’s 1,956 war dead. It stands on a spot overlooking the Market Place where the ‘Preston Pals’ first paraded in late summer 1914. The names of the dead are listed on the handsome marble Roll of Honour in the nearby Harris Museum, Art Gallery and Library. In 1970 The Loyals amalgamated with The Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Volunteers) to form The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment and in turn this became part of The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment which continues to have its headquarters at Fulwood Barracks in Preston.
Bren gun carriers of 2nd Battalion The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) training in Singapore in 1941. Following the Japanese attack the following year and the collapse of the garrison, they became prisoners of war of the Japanese.
Maida, Corunna, Tarifa, Vittoria, San Sebastian, Nive, Peninsula, Ava, Alma; Inkermann Sevastopol, Ali Masjid, Afghanistan 1878–9, Defence of Kimberley, South Africa 1899–1902; Mediterranean 1900–01
Mons, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, 18, Aisne 1914, 1918, Ypres 1914, 17, 18, Langemarck 1914, Gheluvelt, Nonne Bosschen, Givenchy 1914, Aubers, Festubert 1915, Loos, Somme 1916, 18, Albert 1916, Bazentin, Pozieres, Guillemont, Ginchy, Flers-Courcelette, Morval, Ancre Heights, Ancre 1916, Arras 1917, 18, Scarpe 1917, Arleux, Messines 1917, Pilckem, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Poelcapelle, Passchendaele, Cambrai 1917, 18, St Quentin, Bapaume 1918, Lys, Estaires, Bailleul, Kemmel, Béthune, Scherpenberg, Soissonnais-Ourcq, Drocourt-Quéant, Hindenburg Line, Epéhy, Canal du Nord, St Quentin Canal, Courtrai, Selle, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914–18, Doiran 1917, Macedonia 1917, Suvla, Sari Bair, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1916, Gaza, Nebi Samwil, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Tell Asur, Palestine 1917–18, Tigris 1916, Kut al Amara 1917, Baghdad, Mesopotamia 1916–18, Kilimanjaro, East Africa 1914–16
Those in bold carried on the Queen’s Colour
Dunkirk 1940, North-West Europe 1940, Banana Island, Djebel Kess Kiss, Mediez Plain, Gueriat el Atach Ridge, Djebel Bou Aoukaz 1943, Gab Gab Gap, North Africa 1943, Anzio, Rome, Fiesole, Gothic Line, Monte Gamberaldi, Monte Ceco, Monte Grande, Italy 1944–45, Johore, Batu Pahat, Singapore Island, Malaya 1941–42
Private John McDermond, 47th Regiment, Crimea, 1854
Private (later Sergeant) Henry Edward Kenny, 1st Battalion, First World War, 1915
Lieutenant Thomas Orde Lawder Wilkinson, 7th Battalion, First World War, 1916
Lieutenant Richard Basil Brandram Jones, 8th Battalion, First World War, 1916
Lieutenant Willward Alexander Sandys-Clarke, 1st Battalion, Second World War, 1943
