| Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) | |
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Badge of the Royal Fusiliers |
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| Active | 1685–1968 |
| Country | Kingdom of England (1685–1707) Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) United Kingdom (1801–1968) |
| Branch | British Army |
| Type | Infantry |
| Role | Line Infantry |
| Size | 1–4 Regular Battalions Up to 3 Militia and Special Reserve Battalions |
| Garrison/HQ | Hounslow |
| Nickname | The Elegant Extracts |
| Motto | Honi soit qui mal y pense |
| March | British Grenadiers |
The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) was an infantry regiment of the British Army until 1968 when it was amalgamated with other regiments to form The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. It was known as the 7th Regiment of Foot until 1881.[1]
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It was formed as a fusilier regiment in 1685 by Lord Dartmouth, George Legge, from two companies of the Tower of London guard, and was originally called the Ordnance Regiment. Most regiments were equipped with matchlock muskets at the time, but the Ordnance Regiment were armed with flintlock fusils. This was because their task was to be an escort for the artillery, for which matchlocks would have carried the risk of igniting the open-topped barrels of gunpowder.
The regiment became the 7th Regiment of Foot (Royal Fusiliers) in 1751, although a variety of spellings of the word "fusilier" persisted until the 1780s, when the modern spelling was formalised.[2] In 1881, under the Childers Reforms when regimental numbers were abolished the regiment became The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).[3]
The Royal Fusiliers played an active part in saving Canada from invasion by the army of the American Continental Congress during the autumn of 1775[4] and winter of 1776. Later, the regiment was sent to New York and participated in the occupation of Philadelphia, the Battle of Monmouth (1778), Tryon's raid (1779), the capture of Charleston (1779), and the southern campaigns under the command of General Cornwallis.
The Royal Fusiliers formed part of the famed Fusilier Brigade in Wellington's Peninsular Army along with the 23rd Regiment of Foot (The Royal Welch Fusiliers) at the Battle of Albuhera on 16 May 1811.[5]
| Vladimir Jabotinsky (L) as an Officer and David Ben-Gurion (R) as a Private of the Royal Fusiliers uniform. | |
The Royal Fusiliers served with distinction in the First World War,[6] raising 76 battalions who wore the regimental cap badge. They served on the Western Front, in Africa, the Middle East and Macedonia. Members of the Royal Fusiliers won the first two Victoria Crosses of the war near Mons in August 1914, and the last two in North Russia. Its war memorial is on High Holborn, near Chancery Lane tube station, surmounted by the lifesize statue of a World War I soldier, and its regimental chapel is at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate.
The Stock Exchange Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers was formed in 1914 when 1,600 members of the Exchange joined up: 400 were killed during the war .[7] The 38th through 42nd Battalions of the regiment served as the Jewish Legion[8] in Palestine; many of its members went on to be part of the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.[9]
The Royal Fusiliers were involved in many notable battles of the war, including Operation Shingle, or as it is now known, the Battle of Anzio. On 18 February 1944 Company Z was ordered to hold the bridgehead against a Tiger I tank assault. There were many casualties,[10] including Eric Fletcher Waters, father of Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters, who wrote the song "When the Tigers Broke Free" about the attack. (A common misconception is that the company Eric Waters served was called "C" when in reality he was in company "Z", 8th Battalion. There is no Company C in the 8th Battalion. The 9th Battalion Company C saw no action that day.)
On 23 April 1968 the regiment was amalgamated with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers (5th Ft), The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers (6th Ft) and the Lancashire Fusiliers (20th Ft) to form 3rd Bn. The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.[11]
The Royal Fusiliers Company "C" was also mentioned in Pink Floyd's movie "The Wall". It was the company that the character "Pinks" father died in. The Royal Fusiliers is also mentioned in Jeffrey Archer's bestseller novel,"As The Crow Flies". The protagonist of the book, Charlie Trumper, is part of the regiment which fights in the first world war.