Cap badge of The Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians), c1881-1922.
NAM. 1970-12-234-11Introduction
The regiment was formed in 1881 by merging the 100th and 109th Regiments of Foot, thus inheriting the 100th Foot’s association with Canada and the association of the antecedent of the 109th with India, as part of the forces of the Honourable East India Company.
At its creation the regiment also gained a new territorial association, being allocated a recruiting area covering Meath, Westmeath, Longford, King’s County (now Offaly) and Queen’s County (now Laois) - five counties in the Leinster province of central and east Ireland.
The 100th Foot was in India at the time of the merger, becoming the new unit’s 1st Battalion and remaining there until 1894. The 109th Foot was in Aldershot and became 2nd Battalion. It then moved to Ireland from 1882 to 1888, before a further period in England.
In 1894 1st Battalion moved to Ireland and 2nd Battalion to Malta. 1st Battalion remained in Ireland until 1898, although it did send a detachment to the Composite Battalion that fought in the Ashanti War in 1895. 2nd Battalion moved on to Bermuda in 1895, to Nova Scotia in 1897 and then in 1898 to the West Indies. 1898 also saw the regiment’s 1st Battalion begin two years in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making it the last-ever British infantry unit to garrison Canada.
In 1900 that battalion sailed from Canada, via England, to South Africa, where it remained until 1902. 1st Battalion then spent nine years in Ireland and England. 2nd Battalion arrived in South Africa from the West Indies in 1902, moved to Mauritius in 1905 and two years later went to India.
Members of ‘D’ Company, 1st Battalion, The Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians), in the front line at St. Eloi, c1915.
NAM. 1958-02-21-2In 1911 1st Battalion was moved to India and 2nd Battalion to Cork in Ireland. 2nd Battalion was thus able to deploy to France soon after the outbreak of World War One, landing at St Nazaire on 12 September 1914. 2nd Battalion remained on the Western Front until the end of the war, absorbing the remnants of 6th Battalion, The Connaught Rangers in April 1918, after the latter suffered heavy losses facing the German Spring Offensive.
The regiment also raised two service battalions for the conflict - 6th Battalion (which served at Gallipoli and in the Macedonian and Palestine campaigns) and 7th Battalion (which served on the Western Front). 3rd, 4th and 5th Battalions were embodied for their home-based reinforcement role in 1914 and thus did not serve overseas.
1st Battalion arrived on the Western Front in December 1914, but in November the following year it was posted to Macedonia. In September 1917 1st Battalion moved to Egypt and Palestine for two years and at the end of the war it returned to India, where it stayed until 1922. In the meantime 2nd Battalion had settled into barracks at Colchester, but was detached for post-plebiscite duties in Upper Silesia from June 1921 until March 1922. HRH The Prince of Wales - later King Edward VIII - was appointed Colonel-in-Chief in 1919.
The regiment recruited from five Irish counties, all of which became part of the Irish Free State in 1922. The regiment was disbanded that year, depositing the Colours of its two regular battalions at Windsor Castle. 1st Battalion presented its regimental silver to the Government of Canada.
Key facts
Motto:
- 'Ich Dien' (meaning 'I Serve' - the Prince of Wales's motto, inherited from the 100th Regiment of Foot)
Titles to date:
- The Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)
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