Other ranks’ collar badge, 14th King’s Hussars, 1900-1904.
NAM. 1964-04-85-21Introduction
Like many of the British Army’s light cavalry regiments, this unit was raised in southern England in 1715 and immediately sent to Preston to face the First Jacobite Rebellion. From 1717 to 1742 it was in Ireland and in 1745 it faced the Jacobites again, this time in Scotland. It then immediately returned to Ireland in 1746 for nearly 50 more years of peacekeeping.
In 1791 Crown Princess Frederica, the only child of the king of Prussia, landed in Dover to marry Frederick, Duke of York and second son of George III. The regiment provided her escort to London and seven years later was named after her and granted the Prussian eagle as its cap badge - an honour abolished between 1915 and 1918 but retained by both of its successor regiments.
Its first overseas deployment came two years later when two of its troops were posted to the Low Countries and Germany in 1794. The few men from these troops who survived these campaigns were absorbed into the 8th Dragoons. Seven troops of the 14th were still left, however, and these were sent to Haiti in 1795. These troops also faced rebel slaves on Jamaica and garrisoned Santo Domingo, but their losses to tropical disease were so heavy that only 25 men returned to England in 1797.
A soldier of the 14th Light Dragoons, 1820. NAM. 1982-04-217-11The regiment remained in England to recruit until 1808, when it sailed for the Peninsula. It fought in Spain, Portugal and France until May 1814, when it was shipped back to England. Yet within a few months it was sent to fight in the New Orleans campaign of the War of 1812.
It came straight back home in 1815 and alternated between England, Scotland and Ireland until its first Indian deployment in 1841. It remained there until 1860, fighting at Ramnuggur during the First Sikh War (1845-46). 1857 saw it in both the Anglo-Persian War and opposing the Indian Mutiny, before returning to Ireland two years later.
Between 1860 and 1914 the regiment spent 29 years in Ireland or England, interspersed with three Indian postings in 1876, 1881 and 1906 and two South African ones in 1881 and 1900. On the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the regiment remained in India, seeing its first action a year later when it was deployed to what is now Iraq. It spent four of the next five years there – the exception being 1918, which it spent back in Persia.
In March 1919 it was ordered to Germany to join the Army of Occupation in Cologne. From there it also sent one squadron to occupy Silesia. The regiment was still in Germany in 1922, when it amalgamated with the 20th Hussars to form the 14th/20th Hussars.
Key facts
Nickname:
- The Emperor’s Chambermaids (after fighting at the battle of Vittoria in Spain in 1813, the regiment looted a silver chamber pot from the carriage used by Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain and Napoleon’s elder brother)
Titles to date:
- James Dormer’s Regiment of Dragoons
- 14th Dragoons
- 14th Regiment of Dragoons
- 14th Regiment of (Light) Dragoons
- 14th (The Duchess of York’s Own) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons
- 14th (The King’s) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons
- 14th (The King’s) Hussars
- 14th (King’s) Hussars
- 14th King’s Hussars
- 14th/20th Hussars
- 14th/20th King’s Hussars
- ‘B’ Squadron, The King’s Royal Hussars
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