Glasgow Highlanders

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The Glasgow Highlanders

Cap Badge of the Glasgow Highlanders
Active 1868 - 1973
Country United Kingdom
Branch Territorial Army
Type Line Infantry
Part of Highland Light Infantry
Garrison/HQ Glasgow
Motto Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (No One Assails Me With Impunity) (Latin)
March Quick - Heilan Laddie
Engagements Battle of Modder River
Battle of Festubert
Battle of Loos
Battle of the Somme
Battle of Arras
Battle of Ypres
Battle of the Scheldt
Insignia
Tartan MacKenzie Tartan

The Glasgow Highlanders were a former Territorial Army battalion in the British Army, it eventually became part of The Highland Light Infantry regiment, which later became the The Royal Highland Fusiliers in 1959.

They traced their origins to the 105th Lanarkshire Volunteer Corps, also known as the Glasgow Highland Regiment, which was formed in 1868 by a group of Highland migrants to Glasgow as part of the civilian Volunteer Force and initially wore the uniform and based its cap badge upon that of The Black Watch. The Lanarkshire Volunteers eventually became a volunteer battalion of the Highland Light Infantry after Childers Reforms in 1881, numbered as the 10th Lanarkshire Volunteer Rifles, which was changed to the 5th (Glasgow Highland) Volunteer Battalion in 1887. They were based at Greendyke Street near Glasgow Green and were distinctive because they continued to wear their 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 (Glasgow Highlanders) Battalion, The Highland Light Infantry, when they became part of the new Territorial Force. During the First World War they recruited another two home-based battalions, one of which was a Bantam battalion, which were used to supply manpower to the 1st Battalion in France, which served with distinction with the Highland Light Infantry under the 2nd Division at the battles of Festubert and Loos. In May 1916 they transferred to the 33rd Division and fought at the Somme (at High Wood), Arras and Passchendaele. After the end of the war, the Glasgow Highlanders were disbanded along with the rest of the Territorial Force.

In 1920, the Territorial Army was re-established and the Glasgow Highlanders raised a single battalion. When war was declared in 1939 the battalion went to war again and also raised a second battalion, they fought valiantly as part of the 52nd (Lowland) Division and 15th (Scottish) Division in the Second World War.

In 1949 it was redesignated the 1st Battalion, The Glasgow Highlanders, The Highland Light Infantry (City of Glasgow Regiment) and in 1959 transferred to the Royal Highland Fusiliers without change of title. 1967, with the formation of the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve (TAVR), the battalion was amalgamated with the other TA battalions of Regiments in the Lowland Brigade, and its name was initially carried on through the Headquarter Company of the 52nd Lowland Volunteers and C Company of the 3rd (Territorial) Battalion, The Royal Highland Fusiliers and was later only carried on by HQ (Glasgow Highlanders) Company of the 1st Battalion, 52nd Lowland Volunteers, which later changed its affiliation to The Royal Highland Fusiliers in 1973. The Glasgow Highlanders' name was continued by a platoon of the Army Cadet Force, attached to 52nd Lowland Regiment. However in 2007, this ACF unit changed its affiliation to 52nd Lowland, 6th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland.

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