Cap badge of the 15th Hussars, 1900-1902.
NAM. 1964-04-85-22Introduction
In March 1759 a royal warrant to raise a cavalry regiment was issued to George Augustus Eliott, previously lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Troop of Horse, Grenadier Guards. The unit Eliott raised was immediately numbered the 15th (or Light) Regiment of Dragoons and deployed to join the Allied army in Germany during June the following year.
Its first engagement was at Emsdorf in July that year, where it suffered two-thirds of the total allied casualties, including six dead by heatstroke, and won the first ever battle-honour awarded to a British regiment.
An officer of the 15th Light Dragoons, c1768.
NAM. 1992-07-125From 1766 to 1769 they became the 1st (or The King’s Royal) Regiment of Light Dragoons, before returning to the number 15 for the rest of their existence. They fought in the Netherlands during the early stages of the French Revolutionary Wars and were converted into a hussar regiment in 1807 before being sent to Spain a year later. There it joined up with Sir John Moore’s force before charging uphill through snow against French chasseurs and dragoons at Sahagun on 21 December 1808.
In 1819 it provided most of the cavalry sent to keep order at the demonstration in Manchester which ended in the Peterloo Massacre. One of the regiment’s officers in the Crimea was Louis Edward Nolan, whose behaviour as an aide-de-camp helped launch the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade, in which he and the regiment took part.
The regiment spent the whole of World War One on reconnaissance and dismounted duties on the Western Front, before being merged with the 19th Royal Hussars (Queen Alexandra’s Own) in 1922.
Key facts
Motto:
- 'Merebimur ' (meaning 'We Shall Be Worthy')
Nickname:
Titles to date:
- Eliot’s Light Horse
- 15th, or Light Regiment of Dragoons
- 15th Regiment of Light Dragoons
- 1st Regiment of Light Dragoons
- 15th (The King’s) Regiment of Light Dragoons (Hussars)
- 15th (The King’s) Hussars
- 15th The King’s Hussars
- 15th/19th The King’s Royal Hussars
- Light Dragoons
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