Other ranks' cap badge of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, 1900-1934. NAM. 1964-04-85-1Introduction
Thomas Hickman-Windsor, 1st Earl of Plymouth, was an experienced 17th century soldier. He fought for the Royalists at Naseby and immediately after the Restoration served as governor of Jamaica. By the 1680s he had returned to Britain and in 1685 he formed a troop of cuirassiers to suppress the Duke of Monmouth's revolt against James II.
Later that year this troop was merged with five others to form a regiment, initially known as the 4th Horse. After James's fall, it fought for William III and Queen Anne, serving throughout the War of the Spanish Succession at Schellenberg, Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet.
In 1713 the war came to an end with the Treaty of Utrecht. Its next 30 years were spent on peacetime duties and in 1741 it was converted into a dragoon guards regiment as the 3rd Regiment of Dragoon Guards. In 1765 the regiment was named after the Prince of Wales, later to become the Prince Regent and George IV.
It fought from 1809 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars in the Peninsula, but then spent all but 22 years of the 1816-99 period on home service. It charged rioters in Bristol in 1831 and was even kept in Ireland during the Crimean War. Two exceptions were its deployments to India from 1857 to 1868 and from 1884 to 1895, whilst a third was the 1868 Abysinnia expedition, where it was the only British cavalry unit to participate.
The 3rd Dragoon Guards charging rioters in Queen's Square, Bristol, 31 October 1831. NAM. 1981-03-52-1The regiment was deployed to the Boer War from 1901 to 1903, then back to Ireland, England and Egypt. It then deployed to the Western Front of the First World War in October 1914, where it remained for the rest of the war, taking part in the first and second battles of Ypres and the battle of Cambrai. In 1919 the regiment began a two-year deployment to Ireland, then sliding towards civil war.
In 1922 the Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards) merged into the regiment, whilst both units were in India. This was initially known as the 3rd/6th Dragoon Guards, but six years after amalgamation took elements of both regiment's names as the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards).
The new unit remained in India, where it mechanised in 1938, and its Second World War service was solely confined to Asia. The unit stayed on garrison duty in southern India for the first four years of the war, detaching a cadre at Sialkot in 1941 to form the 25th Dragoons, though this new unit only lasted until 1947. In 1943 the 3rd Carabiniers re-deployed to Burma in time to fight at Imphal.
At the end of the war it returned to India, becoming the last British cavalry regiment to leave India on independence in 1947. It then moved to join the occupation troops in West Germany from 1952 to 1961. It switched roles to reconnaissance in 1967 and four years later merged with the Royal Scots Guards (2nd Dragoons) to form the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys).
Key facts
Motto:
- 'Ich Dien' (meaning 'I Serve')
Nickname:
- Old Canaries (after the yellow facings on its uniform, worn from 1816 to 1971)
Titles to date:
- Earl of Plymouth's Regiment of Horse
- 4th Horse
- George Wade's Regiment of Dragoon Guards
- 3rd Regiment of Dragoon Guards
- 3rd (The Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards
- 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards
- 3rd Dragoon Guards (Prince of Wales's)
- 3rd/6th Dragoon Guards
- 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards)
- Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys)
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