The Suffolk Regiment-Regimental District No.12-is composed of the two battalions of the old 12^th Foot.  In 1661, Windsor Castle was garrisoned by several independent companies, from which was formed the 12^th Regiment, which, however, did not receive the numerical distinction till twenty-four years later.  It was with the 12^th Regiment that James II. Made the experiment, which was to give him such unwelcome proof of the unwillingness of the army as a whole to assist in his contemplated return to subservience to Rome.  Advancing to their lead he called upon all who would not support the proposed repeal of the Test clauses to lay down their arms.  With a very few exceptions the whole regiment complied with most disconcerting alacrity.  James paused for a few minutes and then bid the soldiers take them up again, moodily observing he would not do them the honour of consulting them again.  The Colonel of the 12^th-Lord Lichfield-remained, however, loyal to his misguided sovereign.

           Till after the revolution no particularly important service seems to have fallen to the lot of the 12^th; in 1689 Wharlton’s Regiment, as they were then generally called, followed the veteran Schomberg to Ireland, where the following year, they fought in the battle of the Boyne.  After this they were employed on the coast of France and in Flanders, being amongst the regiments, which the cowardice of the Dutch governor compelled to surrender at Dixmude.  Colonel Brewer of the 12^th vehemently protested against this shameful action, counselling that the fortress should be defended to the last extremity; he was, however, overruled, but his protest secured his immunity from the disgrace and punishment awarded to the other officers who supported the governor’s view.  Their next service was in the West Indies, on returning from whence they were employed in the Dyke-cutting operations about Ostend, and in Minorca.  They were then ordered to Scotland, where they formed part of General Wade’s expedition, and, twenty years or so later, gained their first distinction at Dettingen Splendid was their courage at Fontenoy, while they were in Ingoldsby’s Brigade, where their loss was more than that of any other regiment.  Three hundred and seventy-one officers and men fell, yet when their colonel and half their number were hors de combat, the splendid English regiment fought on, refusing to believe till the last that the army to which they belonged was beaten.  The 12^th subsequently repaired to Germany, where they took part in the Seven Years’ War being one of the six British Infantry Regiments who bear Minden on their colours, and of whose bearing at that battle it was written-“such was the unshaken firmness of these troops that nothing could stop them, and the whole body of French cavalry was routed.”  They fought at Kirch Denkern, Grobenstein, Luterberg, homburg and Cassel, after which their next important service was that from which is derived the badge of the “Castle and Key,” the ever memorable defence of Gibraltar.  Though the adage that “the world knows nothing of its greatest men” holds true, mutates mutandis, with regard to achievements, yet the story of this defence of Gibraltar, the endurance, the heroism, the indomitable British pluck it called forth, is, we are glad to think, familiar to all.  Under Colonel Trigge the regiment, numbering 29 officers and 570 rank and files, rendered sterling service, notably in the famous sortie, and thanks to them and their brave comrades the mountain Tarif still remains a mighty witness to the power of Britain.  During the siege the total loss of the regiment was a hundred and seventy-four of all ranks.  It is noted as a coincidence that on the occasion of the sortie of the night of the 26^th of November 1761, the only two complete regiments were the 12^th and Hardenberg’s, which had fought side by side at Minden.  Lieutenant Tweedie of the regiment was the only officer wounded in this enormously successful operation, which effected destruction to the value of £2,000,000 sterling.  As indicative of the straits to which, in the earlier part of the siege, the garrison was reduced, the following extract from Major Drinkwater’s history may be of interest: -

           “Provisions of every kind were now becoming very scarce and exorbitantly near: mutton, 3s, and 3s, 6d, per pound; veal, 4s; pork, 2s, and 2s, 6d; a pig’s head, 19s; ducks, from 14s to 18s, a couple; and a goose a guinea.  Fish was equally high, and vegetables were the difficulty to be got for any money; but bread, the great essential of life and health, was the article most wanted.  It was about this period that the Governor made trial what quantity of rice would suffice a single person for twenty-four hours, and actually lived himself eight days on four ounces of rice per day.”

           After Gibraltar the 12^th served for some time as Marines, while the flank companies were engaged at Martinique and Guadaloupe, where they were almost annihilated.  They fought again in Flanders and shared in the disastrous retreat of Bremen, after which, in 1796, they proceeded to the Cape, and thence to India.  Here they were the senior King’s regiment, and were required by General Order to be always ready to turn out, night or day.  At Seringapatam, under Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw, they were the leading regiment in Baird’s column, and on one occasion were ordered forward to occupy an important position midway between our camp and the fortress.  Scarcely had they approached the required posts when the enemy sent off showers of rockets and blue lights, which illuminated the surrounding country and showed the movements of our men with alarming distinctness.  Twenty thousand of the enemy are said to have been showering these missiles, at one time “no hail could be thicker; with every blue light came a shower of bullets, and several rockets passed through the column from head to rear, causing death and dreadful lacerations.  The cries of the wounded were awful.”  Yet the 12^th still pressed on, firing not a shot, in obedience to the order of “brave old Colonel Shaw”-“All must be done with the bayonet.”  At last, when a fresh attack was commenced on his flank, the Colonel ordered his men to lie flat down, with the result that the enemy, supposing their withering fire had destroyed the column, “ventured forward to make sure with the bayonet, to be greeted with the words, ‘Up 12^th and charge,’” and to be driven back to their position.  At the final assault the 12^th formed part of the storming party, and by their adroit rear attack on Tippoo’s desperate band undoubtedly saved much loss to our force.  In the attempted sortie made by the fierce tyrant, a volley from the light company of the 12^th gave him his mortal wound.  “Covered with blood and dying now, the fallen Sultan was raised by a faithful few and placed in his palanquin, where he lay faint and exhausted, till some of the 12^th, climbing over the dead and dying, reached him.  A servant who survived the carnage related that one of the soldiers seized Tippoo’s sword belt, which was exceedingly rich, and attempted to drag it off, and that the Sultan, who still grasped his sword, made a lust cut with it, wounding in the knee the soldier, who short him through the temple and killed him on the spot.”

           The career of the regiment after the fall of Seringpatam may be shortly epitomised by stating that they were actively employed in “Wynaad, in the carnatic, against the Polygars, in Cichin and Travancore-services commemorated by the word ‘India; on their colours.”  The mention of these places recalls the prowess displayed by the 12^th at Quilon in 1808, under circumstances, which read like a romance.  When the hostile attitude of the Rajah of Travancore threatened Quilon, the 12^th, who were stationed at Cannamore in Malabar, were ordered to the support of the garrison, and under colonel Picton, brother of the peninsular hero, they embarked.  On the way more than half of the regiment were belated, and on arriving off Quilon with the rest, Colon Picton was received with the intelligence that the whole country was in arms, and that to land would be to court absolute annihilation.  “In defiance of this the 12^th landed in small boats would only convey three or four men at a time,” and proceeded to make good their position.  The next morning-utterly regardless that they numbered units as against the hundreds of the enemy-the gallant Suffolk proceeded to storm the palace of the Rajah’s prime minister, after accomplishing which they returned to their camp.  This, however, they were compelled to evacuate, as a force of some forty thousand of the enemy, led by European officers, were advancing against them, and they accordingly took possession of an old fort.  By this time the 12^th were reduced to two hundred and fifty men; there were about twelve hundred Sepoys and some ten thousand followers; and to add to their discomfort a terrible tropical storm came on directly they got into the dismantled fort, “rusting the fire-arms, and rendering much of the ammunition unfit for service.”  Despite this it was determined to regain the camp at the bayonet’s point, and at that critical juncture the missing six companies were hailed approaching with some native troops they had picked up en route.  They brought with them tidings that stimulated to fever point the already furious rage of the 12^th against the barbarous foe.  Some thirty men of the regiment under Sergeant-Major Tilsby had been in a small vessel and so escaped the hurricane, which had delayed the others.  They had landed near Alepe, and mistaking it for Quilon had marched in.  They were beguiled with falsehoods, induced to pile their arms in what they were told was the English barracks, and invited to drink and fraternise with their foes.  The arrack was drugged “They soon became intoxicated and Stupefield, and while in this state were easily secured by the Travancorians, one of whom, with a heavy iron bar, broke the two wrists of each soldier, smashing the bones hopelessly to atoms; then, tightly their hands behind them, and binding their knees and necks together, they precipitated them into a loathsome dungeon.”  They were left like this four days and nights, without food or drink, the savages around them derisively mimicking their groans; then they taken out, and dragged to a deep pool, into which-with heavy stones tied to the neck of each-they were flung into frown “amid shouts, laughter, and the clasping of hands.”  No wonder that when they day of battle came the avenging fury of the 12^th was irresistible.  They carried a strong batter of guns, a hurled aside a force of at least ten thousand of the enemy who strove to retake them.  “The 12^th were inspired by a degree of fury beyond description, and never ceased to shout, ‘Remember Alepe!  Remember Alepe!’  One thrust his bayonet with such force into his adversary’s body as to fix it in the backbone so firmly that he had perforce to leave it.  “Lieutenant Thomsoon of the 12^th charged five thousand of the enemy, with only fifty men, three times, and fell to rise no more, covered with wounds.”

           The 12^th served in the Mauritius, and the years that elapsed between the warfare signalised by “India” and 1851 were passed in various places, no fighting of any magnitude coming in their way.  In 1851 they were ordered to South Africa to take part in the Kaffir War, in which they’re greatly distinguished themselves.  For some time they were employed in Australia, and took part in the Maori War in New Zealand.              Passing over the following few years we come to the Afghan Campaign of 1878-80, the last in which the gallant Suffolk have been engaged, and in which they acquitted themselves in such manner as to win the final distinction for their colours, and to give evidence of the fact one of Her Majesty’s oldest most efficient regiments has deteriorated no whit from the heroes of Minden and Gibraltar