Regimental History

The Regiment first paraded under its Colonel, the Earl of Peterborough, on Putney Heath on 14th October 1661, and it sailed for Tangier in January 1662. The Port of Tangier, was part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry when she married King Charles II. The Regiment served in North Africa until 1684. Tangier was evacuated when costs of maintaining the garrison became too high, the regiment then returned to England.

On its arrival in England under the command of Colonel Piercy Kirke the Regiment was granted the title The Queen’s Regiment, the Queen being still King Charles’s Queen, Catherine of Braganza. In 1685 on the death of King Charles II it was redesignated the Queen Dowager’s Regiment of Foot. Between 1685 and 1703 the Regiment became involved with further action at home with Sedgemoor in 1685, Ireland in 1689 and then in 1692 to Flanders to participate in the 'War of the grand alliance'. Although, in 1697, an uneasy peace was established it was not long before what became known as the War of the Spanish Succession started in 1702, and at the beginning of this The Queen’s were part of the Duke of Marlborough’s Army of English and Dutch troops in the Low Countries and Flanders. It was then, in 1703, that the Regiment specially confirmed and established its reputation for tenacity and courage, by its conduct at Tongres. It was for this battle the regiment was awarded the title “Royal”, and mottoes “Pristinae Virtutis Memor” (mindful of former glory) and “Vel Exuviae Triumphant.” (Victorious even in adversity).

In 1714 as King George I came to the throne it was renamed 'Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wale’s Own Regiment of Foot' and again in 1727 following the death of King George I it was renamed '2nd or The Queen's Own Royal Regiment of foot' when Princess Caroline became Queen. In June 1730 the Regiment embarked for Gibraltar where it was to remain until 1749 - during this time Lieutenant General Piercy Kirke (the Younger) died on 1st January 1741 having been in command of the Regiment for 30 years

1751 saw the regiment named to The Queen's (Second) Royal Regiment of Foot. This title it held for a number of years until the Childers Reforms of 1881. After Gibraltar, The Queen’s were in Ireland for 16 years, receiving new Colours at Waterford in the centenary year of 1761. In 1765 they went to the Isle of Man for 3 years and returned to Gibraltar until 1775, when at last they came home after an absence of nearly 50 years. However Gibraltar called again in 1783, and the Regiment remained there until returning to England in 1792, in time to take part in the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France that, with one interval of 19 months, were to drag on for 22 years. During its last tour in Gibraltar the Regiment was commanded for 6 months by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, who was the father of Queen Victoria, forming a link with another Queen who, in her time, took a special interest in the Regiment.

The Glorious First of June 1794
When war was declared by the French in February 1793, The Queen’s were first stationed at Dover, where amongst their duties was that of guarding the French prisoners whose inscriptions scratched on the Castle walls may be seen today. However, in the summer the Regiment was split up into detachments to serve as marines in the Fleet. In 1794 in the main Battle Fleet under Admiral Lord Howe, which was stationed off Ushant, Queen’s detachments were serving in the Flagship, QUEEN CHARLOTTE and in the ROYAL GEORGE, DEFENCE, MAJESTIC and RUSSELL.

On 16th May the French Fleet slipped out of Brest but because of fog and mist it was not until 1st June that Lord Howe was able to engage with his whole Fleet. Then, in two and a half hours, the British Fleet broke the French line and by superior naval gunnery virtually destroyed the French, capturing 7 ships and inflicting over 3000 casualties.

The Continuing War
In February 1795, having been relieved of duty at sea, The Queen’s under the command of Lord Dalhousie, were sent to the West Indies but the main enemy there was disease. By the end of 1795 the strength of the Regiment had fallen to 162 effectives, and the 2nd Battalion of the Regiment which had been formed at Portsmouth in April 1795 and sent to Guernsey, was ordered to join the 1st Battalion in the West Indies. In 1796 both battalions together took part in the capture of Trinidad from the Spanish who were the Allies of the French. Disease continued to reduce strengths, and in July 1797 both battalions were ordered home having between them only 70 fit officers and men out of the 1032 who had left England two years before.

Once home the Regiment reformed, and in 1798 took part in putting down the great Irish Rebellion of that year. Then the following year they were in the disastrous Helder Campaign, where the British force defeated the French but was defeated by the inadequacies of its supply system and had to withdraw. However their Brigade Commander, Major General Sir Eyre Coote, wrote of The Queen’s that they “ upheld the honour of their country and by their skill, and the attention of their officers, advanced the glory of England against the best organised troops in Europe”.

The next campaign of the Regiment was in Egypt in 1801 where the French Army abandoned by Napoleon was defeated after an opposed landing at Aboukir Bay. Alexandria and Cairo were then captured and the French driven out of Egypt.

From Egypt, The Queen’s returned to Gibraltar where they lost over 90 officers and men in the fever epidemic of 1804. Stationed at Winchester in 1806, they received new Colours which bore the Battle Honour ‘Egypt’ and the distinction of the Sphinx.

The Queen’s in the Peninsular War
In July 1808 the Regiment joined the Army of Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, in Portugal. Queensmen remained in the Peninsula until the final victory at Toulouse in 1814, taking part in the great battles of Vimiera, the Retreat to Corunna, Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria and the Nivelle River. The crossing of the Pyrenees involved ten major actions in nine days of continuous movement, and in his despatch to the Duke of York, Commander in Chief of the British Army, Wellington describing The Queen’s wrote “it is impossible for troops to behave better”.

Campaigns in India and South Africa
With peace restored, in 1816 The Queen’s returned to the West Indies, and within three months 200 officers and men and half the women and children had died of dysentery and yellow fever. They spent five years in the Caribbean, returned to Ireland for two years, and in 1825 sailed for India where they fought in the Afghanistan Campaign of 1839, subsequently being awarded the Battle Honours of ‘Afghanistan’, ‘Ghuznee’ and ‘Khelat’. After five more years in England and Ireland the next overseas station was South Africa where they were engaged in the long series of Kaffir Wars that had begun in 1799. In February 1852, a year after the Regiment had arrived in South Africa, there were very few survivors of a draft of one corporal and 50 men under command of Lt Boylan, when the troopship BIRKENHEAD struck a rock and sank 50 miles West of Simon’s Bay. The account of the perfect calm and discipline of the troops on board the sinking ship, written by a survivor, was ordered by the King of Prussia to be read out as an example to every regiment of his Army.
1859 saw the Surrey rifle volunteer corps being raised.

Formation of the 2nd Battalion
During the absence of the 1st Battalion in South Africa, the 2nd Battalion was raised again at Colchester in August 1857, and two years later went first to Malta and then to Corfu, where it received its Colours, and celebrated the bicentenary of the Regiment in 1861. It remained in the Mediterranean until 1862. From 1862 to 1865 the 2nd Battalion was in Gibraltar and the West Indies - 111 men dying of yellow fever in Bermuda - and after tours of duty in Aldershot, Ireland and Malta, arrived in India in 1878. 1881 saw the two Battalions become the 1st and 2nd battalions of The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment. In 1886 the 2nd Battalion won an unequalled reputation for efficiency and discipline in the Burma War, gaining another Battle Honour. They returned to England, after another stay in India, in 1894.

The 1st Battalion in China and India
Meanwhile the 1st Battalion, in company with the Buffs and 31st Regiment, in a combined British and French Force, had gone to China in 1860 for action against the Chinese Empire. A landing was made near the mouth of the Pehtang River, the Taku Forts were stormed and taken, and the force advanced to Peking where, to speed peace negotiations with the dilatory Chinese, the Summer Palace was destroyed.
The 1st Battalion then returned to England and celebrated the bicentenary with ‘a sumptuous Dinner on the Barrack Square’ at Portsmouth provided by the officers - the whole battalion sitting down together.From 1866 the Battalion provided the garrison in Aden for the next two years, before going to India until 1879 when it returned home and sent a volunteer draft of 69 all ranks to the Zulu War. It remained in England and Ireland until 1891, was in Malta from 1892 until 1895, and then went again to India.
In 1897 the 1st Battalion was in the Punjab when trouble started on the North West Frontier of India, and it joined the 3rd Brigade in the Field Force sent to deal with this. Winston Churchill watched the Battalion, the only British one in the Brigade, repel a night attack by tribesmen which went on for 6 hours in the Nawagai Valley and wrote a dramatic account. After the Mohmand and Tirah campaigns on the Frontier the 1st Battalion moved to Rawalpindi for four years and then to Sialkot. Here in 1905, under Lieutenant Colonel F J Pink, it continued the Regiment’s reputation for smartness and efficiency, confirmed by winning the Infantry Efficiency Prize, presented by the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Kitchener, in a competition to determine the best battalion in India in every aspect of regimental activity. Although intended to be an annual contest, the conditions were so exacting that the competition was not repeated. The trophy was retained by the Regiment, and is now held by The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment.

The Queen’s in the South African War
In the Boer War, 1899-1902, the 2nd Battalion, initially brigaded with the 2nd East Surreys, fought at Colenso, the Tugela River, at Spion Kop and in the Relief of Ladysmith; but after the first year most of the time was spent on tedious tasks of guarding lines of communication and blockhouses in pursuit of Lord Roberts’ policy of attrition against the Boer Commandos. It returned to Shorncliffe in 1904. Meanwhile in Nigeria in 1903, the Regiment gained its first Victoria Cross, won by Lt Wallace Wright, while attached to the Northern Nigeria Regiment.

The Queen's in the 1914-1918 War

When the First World War began on 4th August 1914, the 1st Battalion was in England and the 2nd Battalion in South Africa. The 1st Battalion landed at Le Havre as part of the British Expeditionary Force, while the 2nd Battalion returned to England on l9th September and landed at Zeebrugge as part of 7th Division in early October. Both battalions were up to strength with highly skilled professional soldiers who had maintained the tradition and reputation of the Regiment in every station of the Empire where they had served. For most of them the part played in the slaughter of the next four years was pitifully brief. By the 1st November 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres, there were only 32 survivors of the 1st Battalion and by 7th of that month, the 2nd Battalion also at Ypres, had suffered 676 casualties.

The 1st Battalion was at Mons, the first battle of the war and took part in the retreat, covering 136 miles in thirteen days of hard fighting. After the battles of Mons and the Aisne, it fought the First Battle of Ypres; two days previously on 29th October, it had been joined by the 2nd Battalion withdrawing from Antwerp and that night the two battalions held a sector of the line side by side.

After the battles of Loos in 1915 and the great battle of the Somme in 1916, the 1st Battalion further distinguished itself in 1917 against the Hindenburg Line, at Arras and the Third Battle of Ypres. In 1918 it suffered ‘heavily in the German offensive but held its ground and when the tide turned, it fought its way to victory through the Hindenburg Line. It came out of action on 7th November with only 17 men of all ranks who had landed in France in August 1914.

The 2nd Battalion also lost many men in the slaughter at Ypres in October 1914 and in 1915 it fought the battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert and Loos. on 1st July 1916 the battalion captured all its objectives in the opening moves of the Battle of the Somme, and with one short rest, fought continuously until 16th July. In 1917, after fighting at Bellecourt, Broodseinde and Passchendaele, it was sent to the Italian front where it added the Battle Honours of Piave and Vittorio Veneto and was at Cavrie when the war ended.

The 4th Battalion, which dates from 1859 when a volunteer company was raised in Croydon, mobilized on 5th August 1914 and in September became the 1st/4th. Reserve battalions as they were raised became 2nd/4th and 3rd/4th. In October 1914 the Home Counties Division, in which the 1st/4th and 1st/5th Battalions of the Queen’s were serving, sailed for India to relieve Regular troops for service in other theatres. The 1st/4th fought on the North-West Frontier in 1916 and 1917 and received a commendation for their conduct and bearing from the Commander-in-Chief.

The 2nd/4th Queen’s, raised in 1914, amalgamated with the 2nd/5th Battalion in 1915 retaining the title of the 2/4th. They joined 53rd Division and sailed in July for Gallipoli where they landed in August, and in subsequent operations fought gallantly to capture and hold Hill 53 on the peninsula. They suffered heavy casualties both from the battles and disease, and in December 1915, when Gallipoli was evacuated, were sent to Egypt where they guarded the Suez Canal until January 1917. After heavy fighting in three attacks on Gaza, the Battalion reached Jerusalem which surrendered on 9th December 1917. In May 1918 the 2/4th was transferred to the Western Front where, after fighting at the Marne, they played a great part in the final offensive.

The 3rd/4th. Battalion went to France in 1917 and in October, lost nearly half its strength in the attack on Broodseinde-Becelaere Ridge but gained all its objectives. Having fought at Ypres, it was disbanded in February 1918 and used as reinforcements for other Queen’s battalions in France.

The 1st/5th Battalion whose origin was the 2nd Volunteer Battalion dating from 1883, went to India with the 1st/4th in October 1914. In December 1915 it was sent to Mesopotamia and joined 34 Indian Infantry Brigade. After actions against the Arabs at Butaniyeh and Nasariyeh, it moved to Baghdad in July 1916 and was in the action which ended in the defeat of the Turks. It is recorded that the men’s endurance and fine fighting spirit were conspicuous.

The 6th Battalion was one of Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ raised in 1914. It went to France in 1915 and fought at the Battle of Loos in 1915, the Somme in 1916 and Arras and Cambrai in 1917. The 7th Battalion went to France in 1915 and made four attacks at the Somme. It suffered appalling casualties at Arras and the Third Battle of Ypres, where Lieut Colonel Bushell, the Commanding Officer, was awarded the Victoria Cross. Finally, the Battalion fought to halt the German offensive in 1918.

The 8th Queen’s suffered heavy casualties at Loos in 1915; they fought at the Somme and the Third Battle of Ypres, and. distinguished themselves in the German offensive of 1918. The 10th and 11th Battalions went to France in 1915 with the 41st Division; they fought at Messines and the Third Battle of Ypres. The Division was moved in 1917 to Italy but returned to France to meet the German offensive of 1918. Six further battalions of the Queen’s fought as part of the London Regiment, and won three Victoria Crosses.

Altogether 31 battalions were raised; the Queen’s fought on nearly every front, added 73 Battle Honours to their Colours and won four Victoria Crosses. The Regimental War Memorial in Holy Trinity Church, Guildford is inscribed: ‘To the glorious memory of 8000 Officers, Warrant Officers,Non-Commissioned officers and Men of the Queen’s who gave their lives for their country in Flanders, France, Italy, Gallipoli, Salonika, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, India, Africa and Germany 1914-1918’.
The Regiment between the Wars
Between the World Wars the 1st Battalion served in Ireland during ‘the troubles’ and then went to the Far East. After several years in Hong Kong and Tientsin, it moved to Quetta in North West India and was out on a night route march when the city was devastated by the earthquake of 31st May 1935. L/Cpl Henshaw and Pte Brooks were awarded the Empire Gallantry Medal for their work and courage in the subsequent rescue operation. By Royal Command these medals were later converted to the George Cross.

The 2nd Battalion went to India in 1919 where it spent a year on the turbulent North-West Frontier. Under Lieutenant Colonel Mathew-Lannowe, it continued the Regiment’s great reputation for smartness and efficiency, later earning the nickname ‘The Guards of India’ after providing guards and escorts for the Prince of Wales. When it left India in 1926, the Commander-in-Chief, lord Birdwood, said: “For the past 40 years I have realised there are no better troops than The Queen’s.”

The Territorial Battalions which stood down at the end of the Great War, were reactivated in 1920. Initially they were manned by those who had fought in the war. There was a wave of pacifism throughout the country and with no obvious threat in the world, numbers gradually diminished. The 1929 financial crises led to economies with cancelled camps and cuts in training grants.

The rise of the Nazi Party in the mid-1930’s in Germany changed all this; grants were increased and new drill halls and equipment became available which led to an increase of recruits. To give London air defence first consideration, the 4th Battalion (Croydon) became a Searchlight Battalion RE. At the same time 22nd London Regiment became 6th (Bermondsey) Battalion, The Queen’s and 24th London Regiment became the 7th (Southwark) Battalion, The Queen’s; they were both transferred to 44th Home Counties Division and together with the 5th Battalion, 131st Queen’s Brigade was formed.

The Munich crisis in 1938 led to greatly increased activity and training took place every night of the week. Then early in 1939 the Territorial Army was ordered to be doubled and the 2nd/5th, 2nd/6th and 2nd/7th Battalions were formed; after a short period as 35 Brigade, they became 169 Queen’s Brigade of 56th London Division.

The Queen's in the Second World War

After 12 years in England the 2nd Battalion had been sent to Palestine in 1939 and was engaged in security operations when the 2nd World War began. The 1st Battalion was in Allahabad in India, and so it was the Territorial Battalions which made the first contact with the enemy in Europe.

The 1st Battalion spent the war in the Far East. For over a year from October 1940, it was deployed on the North-West Frontier in operations against the tribes and then in 1942 it joined the 7th Indian Division. The Division was deployed in the Arakan in Burma in September 1943 and the Battalion saw some hard fighting through the winter months inflicting the first reverses on the Japanese. In May 1944 the Battalion was flown up to Kohima to help relieve the gallant 4th Queen’s Own Royal West Kents who were holding out alone against the main Japanese attempt to invade India. In the battle for Jail Hill, Kohima, the 1st Battalion played a major part in bringing about the defeat of the Japanese. This action was considered the turning point of the War in Burma: thereafter the Japanese were always in retreat. Later in 1945 the Battalion drove the enemy down the Irrawaddy River and fought its last battle of the war north of Rangoon at the end of July. In the war against the Japanese this Battalion never failed to take its objectives and was never made to withdraw from ground it had won.

The 2nd Battalion, initially in the Middle East, took part in General Wavell’s successful campaign in the Western Desert in 1940, including the capture of Sidi Barrani. In 1941 after two abortive efforts to reach Crete while the German invasion was in progress, it took part in the war in Syria against the Vichy French. in September it was landed by sea at Tobruk with the 70th Division to relieve the Australian garrison, and then in November 1941, it took part in the successful break out against General Rommel’s forces and linked up with the 8th Army offensive.

Consequent upon the loss of Singapore in 1942, the 70th Division was moved to reinforce the Far East, initially the 2nd Battalion going to Ceylon and then to India, where in 1943 it became part of the Deep Penetration Forces (the Chindits) under General Wingate. The Battalion was divided into two columns, and with the rest of 16 Brigade marched under appalling conditions from the Ledo Road in the north to the centre of Burma using mule transport and re-supply by air. It finally took part in the operations in the Indaw area to disrupt the Japanese lines of communication. At the conclusion of these operations a long period to recover from the debilitating effects was required. After re-forming, the 2nd Battalion was training for the attack on Malaya (Operation Zipper), when the Japanese surrendered in August 1945.

The Territorial Battalions in the 1939-45 War
44 Home Counties Division which included 131 Queen’s Brigade, 1st/5th, 1st/6th and 1st/7th Battalions, went to France on 3rd April 1940. They were followed later in the month by 35 Brigade which included 2nd/5th, 2nd/6th and 2nd/7th Battalions. The Germans launched their ‘Blitzkrieg’ on 10th May, 131 Brigade, after some heavy fighting on the Escaut and near La Bassée, carried out a fighting withdrawal through Dunkirk. The Naval Commander-in-Chief wrote that ‘the bearing, good order and discipline of the Queen’s was an example and inspiration to all of us in the Royal Navy’. 35 Brigade which was only half trained and half equipped, with no proper anti-tank weapons and no artillery, was evacuated through Cherbourg after being overrun by the main German armoured thrust. Its position had been hopeless from the start and the fact that the battalions came home, largely intact, is a lasting tribute to the spirit of The Queen’s.
After Dunkirk in the reorganisation of the Army, 35 Brigade became 169 Queen’s Brigade of 56 London Division and for two years took part in the defence of the Kent and Sussex Coasts. In the summer of 1942 both 44th and 56 Divisions were ordered overseas to the Middle East, where the former joined the 8th Army in North Africa, while 56 Division was deployed in north Iraq. In Egypt, 131 Brigade tenaciously held the Alam Halfa ridge area in the defeat of the main German offensive against the El Alamein position. Subsequently it fought, but at some cost, on the southern front at El Alamein. After this battle, 44 Division was broken up and the Brigade became the Lorried Infantry Brigade of 7th Armoured Division (The Desert Rats).
131 Brigade led the advance of the 8th Army from Tripoli to the Mareth Line where at Medenine the Germans mounted a counter attack using two Panzer Divisions; the three Queen’s battalions, unprotected by mines and wire met the brunt of the attack and thoroughly defeated it. At dawn on 7th March 1943 there were no less than 27 tanks destroyed by their 6-pounder anti-tank guns in front of 1/7 Queen’s. Following the battles of Mareth and Enfidaville, 1/7 Queen’s was the first to enter Tunis.
Meanwhile 169 Brigade spent the winter of 1942/43 in Iraq, and when ordered to join the 8th Army, drove straight from Iraq into action at Enfidaville on 28th April. its approach march of 3,313 miles in 31 days, an average of 107 miles a day, is the longest in military history.

Both Queen’s Brigades took part in the landings at Salerno, 169 Brigade in the initial assault force and 131 Brigade landing later with the follow up force. There was much hard fighting and when the break-out was made, the two Brigades led their Divisions, now in the 5th (US) Army, side by side across the plain of Naples, across the Volturno and beyond. 131 Brigade with 7th Armoured Division then returned to England in December 1943 to take part in the Normandy invasion. 169 Brigade in Italy fought on, capturing Monte Camino, crossing the Garigliano and finally were at Anzio, before returning in a very reduced state to Egypt to reform and retrain.

In 1944 131 Brigade landed in France on 8th June two days after D Day and after heavy fighting round Caen and Villers Bocage, pursued the Germans to the Seine, swept across north east France, drove the enemy from Ghent, crossed the Scheldt, kept the Nijmegen road open during the Arnhem battle and finally pushed the Germans back across the River Maas. After this in a reorganisation, 1/6 and 1/7 Queen’s dropped out of the Brigade and returned to England, leaving 1/5 Queen’s to cross the Rhine on 28th March 1945. This Battalion then fought its way across north Germany and led the 7th Armoured Division into Hamburg, hoisting the Regimental Flag on the Town Hall. It subsequently moved to Berlin to take part in the Victory Parade in July, marching past Mr Winston Churchill with its Colours flying and the band playing the Regimental march ‘Braganza’.

Meanwhile in July 1944 169 Brigade, reinforced by converted Royal Artillerymen, returned to Italy to take part in the intensive fighting to break the Gothic Line and cross the Rubicon. Reinforced again it spent the winter fighting for the line of the River Senio, and with the coming of spring, crossed Lake Commachio in early April, advanced to and crossed the River Po and had occupied Venice when the German armies surrendered in Italy.

In the Second World War, Queensmen had fought on every front except in Norway and had added 39 Battle Honours to their already long list.

Regimental Barracks

The regimental depot at Stoughton Barracks Guildford was established in 1873 and completed in 1876, designed to house 300 Queensmen and also be the headquarters of the 2^nd Surrey Militia when they were called up for training. Its first title was 'The 48^th Brigade Depot', but this was abolished in 1881 when The Queen's (Second) Royal Regiment became The Queen's Royal (West Surrey) Regiment. A married quarters block was built opposite the barracks in 1879 and by 1881, 500 men, women and children were living in Stoughton Barracks.

During the First World War, Stoughton Barracks was also an army recruiting centre. Early in 1939 wooden huts were built to provide more accommodation in anticipation of the outbreak of the Second World War, and during the war the barracks became a reception and training centre for Infantry recruits.

Other than the Guards regiments, the 2^nd Foot was the oldest line infantry regiment in England. A regimental timeline can be found at the Queen's Royal Surreys Regimental museum site. It ceased to exist as a separate regiment when in 1959 it amalgamated with the East Surrey Regiment, to form The Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment.