The
Sherwood Foresters (Derbyshire Regiment)
The 45th (Nottinghamshire), or
“Sherwood Foresters”- a title granted in 1866-which was once linked
with the 17th, and the 95th (Derbyshire)- a name
given in 1825-which was linked with the 54th before the
territorialisation, were united under the present designation in 1881.
Apparently, however, the union between the two battalions is, for
local reasons, not very strong.
After prolonged service in North
America-during which time it fought at Cape Breton, Fort Beau Sejour,
Louisburg, Quebec, ST. John’s, and Bank’s River, Brooklyn it returned
home in 1778 only a hundred strong, and at the request of a patriotic
committee, formed at Nottingham about that time, the attenuated battalion
was sent there to recruit, with the assurance from the authorities
“that, whenever eight hundred men should be raised and incorporated in
the said regiment, with the assistance of the influence and bounty of the
noblemen and gentry of the county, then the regiment should be
distinguished thenceforth by the title of the ‘Nottinghamshire
Regiment.’” This was in
1782.
Its further services between 1786 (when it
embarked for the West Indies) and 1866 were at Grenada, 1791; at Buenos
Ayres, 1807; in the Peninsula, at Roleia, Vimiera, Busaco, Fuentes
d’Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz (where a French flag was captured),
Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Orthes, and Toulouse; in Ceylon
during the Kandian Rebbellion of 1821, and Burmah in 1825, for which the
distinction ”Ava” was granted. In
1868 the 45th took part in the Abyssinian campaign.
A 2nd battalion, raised in 1803, fought at Talavera, and
was disbanded in 1814; another, or “Reserve Battalion,” appears about
1843, took part in the first Kaffir War, and was present at the battle of
Boem Platts in 1852, but was finally absorbed.
The 95th has had five
predecessors. The first
existed from 1760 to 1763, and was at Martinique; the second from 1780 to
1783, and defended Jersey; the third from 1793 to 1798, and was at the
capture of the Cape; the fourth, raised in 1800, was absorbed in the Rifle
Brigade in 1816, and the fifth, formed as a 2nd battalion to
the 52nd, became the 96th, and was disbanded as the
95th in 1818. The
present 2nd battalion of the Derbyshire was raised in 1823;
and, as many of the officers and men had been connected with the battalion
raised in 1800, the rifle-badge of the Maltese Cross was adopted.
Its first active service was in 1854, when it
embarked for the Crimea, to fight at the Alma, Inkerman, the Tchernaya,
and Sevastopol; after which it did much severe work in the Mutiny at Awah,
Kotah, Kota-ke-Serai, Gwalior, Pouree, Kurnyee, and Rowa, where Private
Bernard McQuirt won the Cross for Valour.
Finally it took part in the Egyptian campaign of 1882.
The 95th had at one time a
much-loved pet. It came to
the regiment in this way. In
1858 Major Raines led the assault on Kotah, and, when the place was
carried, a black ram was found tethered.
It was one, in fact, of the famous breed of Rajpootana “fighting
rams,” and became the pet of the regiment as “Derby I.,” in charge
of the big-drummer. During
the campaign in Central India he marched some three thousand miles, and
after the Mutiny the ladies of the regiment made him a scarlet coat,
embroidered with the “honours” of the regiment.
He was drowned at Hyderabad in 1863.
The facings of the 45th and the 95th
were originally green and yellow respectively; now they are white.
The badge is the “united red and white rose”; but formerly the
stag (the arms of Nottingham) was that of the Notts Militia, and that of
the 1st Derby Militia was the rose and crown.
The button bears a Maltese Cross, crowned, on which is the stag
within an oak-leaf wreath, and by the side, and underneath, the words
“Sherwood Foresters” and “Derbyshire.”
The collar bears the cross as above without the titles; the
helmet-plate bears “Sherwood Foresters,” a Maltese Cross, with an
oak-leaf wreath and the stag, and “the Derbyshire Regiment”; on the
waist-plate and forage-cap is the crowned Maltese Cross, etc.
The Militia battalions are composed
(according to the “Army List”) of the 1st and 2nd
Derbyshire regiments and the Royal Sherwood Foresters; but of these the 2nd
is said (by the seniority in the reign of William IV.) to rank first,
though it is not the oldest force. The
first two form the 3rd battalion; the last, the 4th
battalion, seems to rank between the first two.
The 1st Derbyshire Militia did good service in France in
1814. The Volunteer
battalions are the 1st Derbyshire, Derby (scarlet and white);
the 2nd Derbyshire, Bakewell (scarlet and white); the 1st
Nottinghamshire (Robin Hood), Nottingham (green and black); the 2nd
Nottinghamshire, Newark (scarlet and Lincoln green).
The 45th had the nickname of
“the Old Stubborns” and “the Sherwood Foresters.”
It is said that one of the Colonels, when brigaded with the 87th
and 88th, hearing those regiments called to attention, not by
their numbers , but such titles as “Prince’s Irish” and “Connaught
Rangers,” addressed his regiment by the name “Nottingham Hosiers.”
The 95th were known as the “Sweeps.” The depot is in Derby.
