The Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry was a Yeomanry Cavalry regiment of the British Army with its origins in 1798. The regiment provided troops for the Imperial Yeomanry during the Second Boer War and served on the Western Front in the First World War, latterly as infantry. The regiment converted to artillery in 1920 and served as such in the early years of the Second World War, before becoming part of the Chindits in Burma. Postwar, it served as a gunner regiment until 1971, when the title disappeared.
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars After Britain was drawn into the French Revolutionary Wars, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger proposed in 1794 that the counties should form a force of Volunteer Yeoman Cavalry (Yeomanry) that could be called on by the King to defend the country against invasion or by the Lord Lieutenant to subdue any civil disorder within the county. By the end of the year, 27 counties, mainly in the invasion-threatened South and Midlands of England, had raised Yeomanry.Rogers, p. 145. In the spring of 1798 the threat of invasion seemed more acute, and the government encouraged the formation of local armed associations of cavalry and infantry for purely local defence. The first independent Yeomanry Troops now appeared in Cumberland: Eskdale Five Kirks Yeomanry Cavalry, 16 October 1798 Cumberland Yeomanry Cavalry, 25 October 1798 Penrith Yeomanry Cavalry, 15 October 1801
All the Volunteer Cavalry were disbanded after the Treaty of Amiens, but the peace was short-lived, and on the resumption of war a new cavalry troop, the Cumberland Rangers, was raised on about 18 May 1803. The Eskdale Five Kirks and Cumberland Cavalry troops were reformed in 1806.
19th century After Waterloo the main role for the Yeomanry was to suppress civil disorder (they were paid while on duty).Spiers, pp. 79–80. In 1819 (the year of Peterloo) six independent troops of Westmorland Yeomanry Cavalry were raised at his own expense by Colonel the Hon Henry Lowther, MP. These were formed from 22 October 1819 across both Westmorland and Cumberland:Frederick, p. 56.Mileham, pp. 115–6.
Westmorland Kendal Shap Appleby
Cumberland Edenhall Dalemain Milnthorpe
By 1826 the Westmorland Yeomanry troops had been reduced to just two, and in 1828 the government withdrew funding for the yeomanry. However, in many counties, the Yeomanry continued without pay: the independent troops across Westmorland and Cumberland combined as a single force, the Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry (WCY). Pay for duty was restored in 1831 when there was further civil unrest.Frederick, pp. vii–viii. When Col Lowther retired from the command to become colonel of the Royal Cumberland Militia, Edward Williams Hasell of Dalemain took command of the yeomanry on 30 May 1830 and remained its lieutenant-colonel commandant for 46 years.Army List, various dates. The Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry were called on to suppress chartist riots at Penrith and Carlisle in 1839 and in 1846 to halt fighting between English and Irish labourers working on the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway at Lowther Park, which spilled over into Penrith town centre.
The WCY troops usually assembled for annual training at Kendal, Penrith or Appleby, but when a new troop was raised in Wigton in 1840 Kendal and Appleby were deemed too far away, and thereafter training was concentrated at Penrith. This was usually held at Penrith Racecourse with the men billeted in inns in the town. The WCY troops were formally regimented in 1843.
Following the Cardwell Reforms a mobilisation scheme began to appear in the Army List from December 1875. This assigned Regular Army and Yeomanry units places in an order of battle of corps, divisions and brigades for the 'Active Army', even though these formations were entirely theoretical, with no staff or services assigned. The Westmorland & Cumberland, Lanark, and East Lothian Yeomanry constituted the Cavalry Brigade of VIII Corps based at Musselburgh. This was never more than a paper organisation, but from April 1893 the Army List showed the Yeomanry regiments grouped into brigades for collective training. They were commanded by the senior regimental commanding officer but they did have a Regular Army Brigade major. The Westmorland & Cumberland Yeomanry together with the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry formed the 14th Yeomanry Brigade. The Yeomanry brigades disappeared from the Army List after the Second Boer War.
Lieutenant-Col Hasell was succeeded in command by Lt-Col Richard Burn (26 September 1876) and then Sir Henry Ralph Fletcher-Vane, 4th Baronet was promoted to the command on 24 December 1879. He remained in command until 1891 when he was appointed the regiment's Honorary Colonel. Hugh Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale was appointed Lt-Col in command of the regiment on 3 March 1897. His elder brother St George Lowther, 4th Earl of Lonsdale had also been an officer in the regiment before his early death in 1882.
Imperial Yeomanry
Following a string of defeats during Black Week in early December 1899, the British government realised that it would need more troops than just the regular army to fight the Second Boer War. On 13 December, the decision to allow volunteer forces to serve in South Africa was made, and a Royal Warrant was issued on 24 December. This officially created the Imperial Yeomanry (IY). The force was organised as county service companies of approximately 115 men signed up for one year, and volunteers from the Yeomanry and civilians (usually middle and upper class) quickly filled the new force, which was equipped to operate as Mounted infantry, armed with a Lee–Metford infantry rifle and bayonet instead of a cavalry carbine and sabre.Rogers, p. 228.Ryan.Spiers, p. 239.Dunlop, pp. 104–18.IY at Anglo-Boer War. The Westmorland & Cumberland Yeomanry raised the 24th (Westmorland & Cumberland) Company, which landed in South Africa on 5 March 1900 and served in 8th Battalion, IY.Frederick, p. 370.IY Companies at Roll of Honour.Imperial Yeomanry at Regiments.org. From February 1900 to 1901, during the first part of the war, the Earl of Lowther was Assistant Adjutant-General for the Imperial Yeomanry.
From early May 1900 23rd and 24th Companies of the 8th Bn and 19th (Paget's Horse) Bn were serving under the Earl of Erroll with Sir Charles Warren's Column operating in Griqualand West. Warren began his advance before all the troops had assembled, and entered Douglas on 21 May. The Boers were at Campbell, blocking the route up onto the Kaap Plateau. On 26 May the column camped at Faber's Put, a farmstead a few miles south of Campbell. 23rd and 24th Companies and a small detachment of Paget's Horse were in camp. Warren had placed insufficient pickets and before dawn on 30 May a force of Boers surrounded the camp, infiltrated into the garden and prepared to attack. Spotted by a Yeomanry sentry who fired on them, the Boers fired back and a furious firefight ensued, while the Boers stampeded the Yeomanry's horses and shooting down gun crews. The two IY companies advanced to support their picket on the southern ridge and brought their two Colt machine guns into action. Leaving a party to keep down enfilading fire from the garden, and the Paget's Horse detachment to protect the machine guns, the rest of the IY advanced by rushes over open ground towards the ridge. Themselves under enfilade fire from the picket in the rocks, the Boers retired from the ridge before the Yeomanry arrived with their bayonets. The rest of the Boers in the garden ran back to their horses and rode off before the Yeomanry could recover their own horses. After the action at Faber's Put Warren was able to clear Griqualand West without further trouble.Amery, Vol IV, pp. 229–35; Appendix to Chapters I-XIV, pp. 503–14.Rose-Innes, pp. 74–82, 89–90.Warren's report of 29 June 1900, London Gazette 8 February 1901, pp. 906–9.Faber's Put at Canadian War Museum.
The First Contingent of the Imperial Yeomanry completed their year's term of service in 1901 and 24th Company went home in May, having earned the regiment its first Battle honour: South Africa 1900–01.Leslie.
The Imperial Yeomanry were trained and equipped as mounted infantry. The concept was considered a success and before the war ended the existing Yeomanry regiments at home (including the WCY) were converted into Imperial Yeomanry, with an establishment of Regimental Headquarters (RHQ) and four squadrons with a machine gun section. It was based at Portland Place in Lowther Street, Penrith.Penrith at Drill Hall Project. In 1900 the WCY carried out its annual training on Brackenber Moor near Appleby, and later the Earl of Lonsdale made available the 'Elysian Fields' at Lowther Park.
Territorial Force When the Imperial Yeomanry were subsumed into the new Territorial Force (TF) in the 1908 Haldane Reforms (under the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 (7 Edw. 7, c.9),Dunlop, Chapter 14.Spiers, Chapter 10. the WCY transferred to the new force, dropping the 'Imperial' from its title and administered by the Cumberland and Westmorland Territorial Association under the chairmanship of the Earl of Lonsdale, now the regiment's Hon Colonel. It was now distributed as follows:WCY at Long, Long Trail.Burke's, 'Lonsdale'. London Gazette 20 March 1908. RHQ at Lowther Street, Penrith A Squadron at Queen Katherine Street Drill Hall, KendalKendal at Drill Hall Project.Westmorland at Great War Drill Halls. Detachments at Carnforth; Tran Road, Kirkby Lonsdale;Kirkby Lonsdale at Drill Hall Project. Ulverston; and WindermereWestmorland drill stations at Drill Hall Project. B Squadron at Penrith Detachments at Penrith Road, Keswick;Cumberland at Great War Drill Halls. Temple Sowerby; and St Helen's Street, CockermouthCockermouth at Drill Hall Project. C Squadron at 20 Catherine Street, WhitehavenWhitehaven at Drill Hall Project. Detachments at Workington; 51 Curzon Street, Maryport;Maryport at Drill Hall Project. and Barrow-in-Furness D Squadron at Riding School, Swift's Row, CarlisleCarlisle at Drill Hall Project. Detachments at George Street, Wigton;Wigton at Drill Hall Project. and Alston
The WCY, together with the two yeomanry regiments in Lancashire, was attached to the TF's Welsh Border Mounted Brigade for peacetime training, but would be assigned to other formations in the event of war.Lancashire Hussars at Long, Long Trail.Duke of Lancaster's Yeomanry at Long, Long Trail.James, Appendices II & II to Pt I.James, p. 36. For the 1911 annual manoeuvres one of the regiment's squadron commanders, Major (Brevet Lt-Col) C. Beddington, provided his squadron with portable wireless equipment at his own expense.
First World War Mobilisation On the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914 the TF mobilised at its drill stations. The WCY had been commanded by Lt-Col S.R. Fothergill since 9 February 1911. The second-in-command was Sir Bryan Baldwin Mawddwy Leighton, 9th Baronet. Leighton had seen active service in Bechuanaland in 1897, in the Spanish–American War in 1898, and in the Second Boer War, and had worked as a war correspondent. He commanded the WCY later in the First World War.Burke's, 'Leighton'.
Under the 1907 Act, the TF was intended as a home defence force and could not be compelled to serve overseas. However, on the outbreak of war TF units were invited to volunteer for Overseas Service and the majority of individuals did so. The units were thereupon split into 1st Line (liable for overseas service) and 2nd Line (home service for those unable or unwilling to serve overseas) units. Later, a 3rd Line was formed to act as a reserve, providing trained replacements for the 1st and 2nd Line regiments.
1/1st Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry