Glasgow Highlanders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Glasgow Highlanders were a former Territorial Army battalion in the British Army, within The Highland Light Infantry, later The Royal Highland Fusiliers.
They traced their origins to the 105th Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers, which was formed in 1868. The Lanarkshire Volunteers eventually became a volunteer battalion of the Highland Light Infantry in 1881, numbered as the 5th (Glasgow Highland) Volunteer Battalion. They were distinctive due to the fact that they wore kilts in contrast to the rest of the HLI, who wore trews.
Detachments were sent to South Africa during the Second Boer War and earned the battalion its first battle honour, for service on the Modder River.
In 1908 they became the 9th Battalion, The Highland Light Infantry. During the First World War they recruited another two battalions, one of which was a Bantam battalion, and served with distinction with the Highland Light Infantry at the battles of Festubert, Loos, the Somme, Arras and Ypres.
By 1920 the Highlanders were reduced again to one battalion. When war was declared in 1939 the highlanders went to war again and recruited another battlion, they fought valiantly again in the Second World War.
In 1967, with the formation of the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve (TAVR), they were broken up into two companies, which later formed Headquarters Company and C Company of the 52nd Lowland Regiment, which later changed its affiliation to the Royal Highland Fusiliers in 1973 and is now the 6th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Today the battalions' name is continued by a platoon of the Army Cadet Force, attached to 52nd Lowland Regiment.
[edit] References
- Regiments.org. Accessed 24 April 2006
- 'Weir, Alec (2005), 'Come on Highlanders!: The Glasgow Territorials in the Great War by Alec Weir, Sutton Publishing ISBN 0-7509-4230-4
