The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army regiments and named the 10th Regiment of Foot. After the Childers Reforms of 1881, it became the Lincolnshire Regiment after the county where it had been recruiting since 1781.
After the Second World War, it became the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, before being amalgamated in 1960 with the Northamptonshire Regiment to form the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester's Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire) which was later amalgamated with the 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk), 3rd East Anglian Regiment (16th/44th Foot) and the Royal Leicestershire Regiment to form the Royal Anglian Regiment. 'A' Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglians continues the traditions of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment.
History
Early wars
The regiment was raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. Prior to the Glorious Revolution, it formed the garrison of Plymouth and defected to William III shortly after his landing at Torbay on 5 November 1688. After the outbreak of the Nine Years War in 1689, the regiment remained in Plymouth until the end of 1691, when it embarked for Ostend and saw action at the Battle of Steenkerque in August 1692, suffering 50 dead or wounded. During the 1693 campaign, it was detached from the main Allied force prior to the Battle of Landen in July, then served at the Siege of Namur in July 1695 before returning to England in 1696. It escaped disbandment in 1698 by being posted to Ireland.
During the 1701 to 1714 War of the Spanish Succession, the regiment fought at Blenheim in August 1704, Ramillies in May 1706, and Malplaquet in September 1709. Following the 1751 reforms, when all British regiments were identified by numbers rather than their Colonel's name, it became the 10th Regiment of Foot. It then took part in the 1759–60 action to repel Thurot at Carrickfergus during the Seven Years' War.Norman Vance, ‘Vallancey, Charles (c.1726–1812)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004.
The regiment would next see action in the American Revolutionary War, fighting at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, the New York Campaign in winter 1776, the Battle of Germantown in October 1777, the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778 and the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778. In 1778, the 10th returned home to England after 19 years of service overseas. In 1782, the regiment was linked to the county of Lincolnshire for recruiting.
Napoleonic Wars The regiment embarked for Egypt in 1800 for service in the French Revolutionary Wars, arriving too late to take part in the Battle of Alexandria in March 1801 but being encamped at Al Hamed at the surrender of the city in September. The 2nd battalion then took part in the disastrous Walcheren Campaign in the autumn 1809. Meanwhile, the 1st battalion embarked for Spain in 1812 for service in the Peninsular War and took part in the Battle of Castalla in April 1813 and the Siege of Tarragona in June 1813.
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Booth, KH, JP, a Peninsular War veteran and the last of his ancient family to be seated at Killingholme, served as commanding officer from 1830 until his death in 1841.
The Victorian era
In 1842, the 10th Foot was sent to India and was involved in the bloody Battle of Sobraon in February 1846 during the First Anglo-Sikh War. The 10th would also see action at the Relief of Multan in January 1849 and the Battle of Gujrat in February 1849 during the Second Anglo-Sikh War. In 1857, at the outbreak of the Indian Rebellion, the Regiment was stationed at Dinapore, taking part in the failed first relief of the Siege of Arrah and going on to play an important role in the relief of Lucknow where Private Denis Dempsey won the Victoria Cross.
The 1st Battalion, 10th Foot served in Japan from 1868 through 1871. The battalion was charged with protecting the small foreign community in Yokohama. The leader of the battalion's military band, John William Fenton, is honoured in Japan as "the first bandmaster in Japan" and as "the father of band music in Japan". He is also credited for initiating the slow process in which Kimi ga Yo came to be accepted as the national anthem of Japan.
The regiment was not fundamentally affected by the Cardwell Reforms of the 1870s, which gave it a depot at the "old barracks" in Lincoln from 1873. The regiment moved to the "new barracks" further north on Burton Road in 1880. Nor was the regiment affected by the Childers reforms of 1881 – as it already possessed two battalions, there was no need for it to amalgamate with another regiment. The depot was the 30th Brigade Depot from 1873 to 1881, and the 10th Regimental District depot thereafter Under the reforms, the regiment became The Lincolnshire Regiment on 1 July 1881.
The Royal North Lincolnshire and Royal South Lincolnshire Militia regiments became the 3rd and 4th Battalions, and the 1st and 2nd Lincolnshire Rifle Volunteer Corps became the 1st and 2nd Volunteer Battalions (a 3rd Volunteer Battalion was added in 1900).Army List The 1st Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment was posted at Malta from 1895, and took part in the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898 during the Mahdist War. It was then stationed in British India, where it was in Bangalore until late 1902 when it transferred to Secunderabad. The 2nd Battalion embarked for South Africa in January 1900 and saw action during the Second Boer War.
The 3rd (Militia) battalion, formed from the Royal North Lincoln Militia in 1881, was a reserve battalion. It was embodied in May 1900, disembodied in July the following year, and later re-embodied for service in South Africa during the Second Boer War. 17 officers and 519 men returned aboard , arriving in Southampton on 5 October 1902.
In 1908, the Volunteers and Militia were reorganised under the Haldane Reforms, with the former becoming the Territorial Force (TF) and the latter the Special Reserve; the regiment now had one Reserve and two Territorial battalions. These were the 3rd Battalion (Special Reserve) at Lincoln, with the 4th Battalion (TF) at Broadgate in Lincoln and the 5th Battalion (TF) at Doughty Road in Grimsby (since demolished).Monthly Army List, August 1914.
When film director James Gordon, who had been involved in filming the Edison Studios' 1912 films The Relief of Lucknow and For Valour in Bermuda using military sites as locations and soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment as extras, returned to Bermuda in 1914 with Victory Photoplay Company to film The Viking and The Mystery of the Poison Pool, both starring Betty Harte, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment, which had replaced the 2nd Battalion of the Queen's in January 1914, provided soldiers as extras for the first film.
First World War The regiment started the First World War with two regular battalions, one militia battalion and two territorial battalions. The 1st Lincolns were stationed in Portsmouth, the 2nd Lincolns on Garrison in Bermuda, and the 3rd in Lincoln. The 4th and 5th Battalions were the Territorial battalions, based throughout Lincolnshire.
Regular Army
The 1st Battalion landed at Le Havre as part of the 9th Brigade in the 3rd Division for service on the Western Front in August 1914. Notable engagements included the First Battle of Ypres in autumn 1914 and the Battle of Bellewaarde in May 1915, during which the commanding officer of the battalion, Major H. E. R. Boxer, was killed.
The Commanding Officer of 2nd Lincolns, Lieutenant-Colonel George Bunbury McAndrew, found himself acting Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial fortress of Bermuda in the absence of the Governor and General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Sir George Bullock, and oversaw that colony's placement onto a war footing. The battalion left Bermuda on 14 September aboard HMCS Canada, escorted by HMCS Niobe, which had arrived in Bermuda the day before bearing the Royal Canadian Regiment, for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they arrived on 18 September. Departing from there again to cross the Atlantic, the battalion returned to England on 3 October 1914, and was sent to the Western Front as part of the 25th Brigade in the 8th Division soon after, arriving in France on 5 November 1914. McAndrew was killed on 10 March 1915. Major engagements included the Battle of Aubers Ridge in May 1915 where the battalion incurred heavy losses and the Battle of the Somme in Autumn 1916 where the second-in-command of the battalion, Major F. W. Greatwood, was injured.
A contingent from the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps composed of Captain Richard Tucker and 88 other ranks was detached in December 1914 to train for the Western Front. It was hoped this could join 2nd Lincolns, but 1 Lincolns' need for reinforcement was greater and it was attached to that battalion organised as two extra platoons of D Company (the 2nd Lincolns had recruited three Bermudians before it left the colony, including two Constables from the Bermuda Police, Corporal G. C. Wailes (who had previously served in the Royal Fusiliers), Lance-Corporal Louis William Morris, and Private Farrier. Wailes was repeatedly wounded and returned to Bermuda an invalid in April 1915. Morris was killed in action on 7 December 1914.The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment and the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps; The Royal Anglian Regiment and the Bermuda Regiment, 1914 to 2014, by Seán Pòl Ó Creachmhaoil. Royal Lincolnshire and Royal Anglian Regiment Association Although commanders at the Regimental Depot had wanted to break the contingent apart, re-enlist its members as Lincolns, and distribute them throughout the Regiment as replacements, a letter from the War Office ensured that the BVRC contingent remained together as a unit, under its own badge. The contingent arrived in France with 1 Lincolns on 23 June 1915, the first colonial volunteer unit to reach the Western Front. The Contingent was withered away by casualties over the following year. 50% of its remaining strength was lost at Gueudecourt on 25 September 1916. The dozen survivors were merged with a newly arrived Second BVRC Contingent, of one officer and 36 other ranks, who had trained in Bermuda as Vickers machine gunners. Stripped of their Vickers machine guns (which had been collected, for the new Machine Gun Corps), the merged contingents were retrained as Lewis light machinegunners, and provided 12 gun teams to 1 Lincolns headquarters. By the end of the war, the two contingents had lost over 75% of their combined strength. Forty had died on active service, one received the O.B.E, and six the Military Medal. Sixteen enlisted men from the two contingents were commissioned, including the Sergeant Major of the First Contingent, Colour-Sergeant R.C. Earl, who would become Commanding Officer of the BVRC after the War (some of those commissioned moved to other units in the process, including flying ace Arthur Rowe Spurling and Henry J. Watlington, who both went to the Royal Flying Corps).A short study of Henry Joseph Watlington Lieutenant R.F.C. with letters from the Front The First World War, Page 105, Watlington Family Narrative, by Hereward T. Watlington. Printed and bound in Canada by The Hunter Rose Company LtdPOTSI (archived): H. Joe Watlington Those surviving contingent members who had not already been sent home as invalids or transferred to other units were returned to Bermuda in several parties over the summer of 1919.