13th (1st Somersetshire) (Prince Albert's Light Infantry) Regiment of Foot
Est. 26/5/2016
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Formation
The regiment was one of nine regiments of foot raised by James II when he expanded the size of the army in response to the Monmouth Rebellion. On 20 June 1685, Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon was issued with a warrant authorising him to raise a regiment, and accordingly the Earl of Huntingdon's Regiment of Foot was formed, mainly recruiting in the county of Buckinghamshire.
Original uniform of the Earl of Huntingdon's Regiment in 1685
13th Regiment of Foot
By the late seventeenth century, each regiment of the standing army had been allotted a "rank" in the order of precedence. These numbers came to be increasingly used until a royal warrant of 1751 decreed that regiments should in future be known by their numbers only. Accordingly, Pulteney's Regiment became the 13th Regiment of Foot. The redesignated 13th Foot entered a thirty-year period of garrison service in England, Ireland, Gibraltar and Minorca.
13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot
It was at this time that the regiment's link to Somerset was first formed. On 21 August 1782, the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, Henry Seymour Conway, issued a regulation giving an English county designation to each regiment of foot other than those with a royal title or highland regiments. The intention was to improve recruitment during the unpopular war, and the Secretary at War, Thomas Townshend issued a circular letter to the lieutenants of each county in England in the following terms:
My Lord,
The very great deficiency of men in the regiments of infantry being so very detrimental to the public service, the king has thought proper to give the names of the different counties to the old corps, in hopes that, by the zeal and activity of the principal nobility and gentry in the several counties, some considerable assistance may be given towards recruiting these regiments".
The regiment duly became the 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot (the 40th Foot becoming the "2nd Somersetshire"). The attempt to link regimental areas to specific counties was found to be impractical, with regiments preferring to recruit from major centres of population. By June 1783, each regiment was again recruiting throughout the country, although the county names were to remain.
13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment (Light Infantry)
In September 1822, the 13th Foot was moved to Chatham in Kent, where it was brought up to strength for service in India. While there, it was reconstituted as a light infantry regiment in December and was retitled as the 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment (Light Infantry).
13th (1st Somersetshire) (Prince Albert's Light Infantry) Regiment of Foot
The conduct of the 13th at Jalalabad was officially rewarded on 26 August 1842, when Prince Albert offered his patronage to the regiment and permitted his name to be used in its title, becoming the 13th (1st Somersetshire) (Prince Albert's Light Infantry) Regiment of Foot. At the same time, the regimental facings were changed from yellow to (royal) blue, and the badge of a mural crown with a scroll inscribed "Jellalabad" was granted for display on the colours and uniform of the regiment. The unit was also honoured with the firing of a twenty-one gun salute at each army station it passed on its return to India.
The 13th Light Infantry returned to England in 1845 after 23 years of foreign service. Presented with new colours at Portsmouth in 1846, the regiment moved to Ireland in the following year, remaining there until 1850, before spending a year in Scotland. From 1851–1854, they were stationed in Gibraltar.
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13th Light Infantry in the Anglo-Zulu War
The 13th LI was part of both of Lord Chelmsford's Invastions of Zululand seeing action in both the Battle of Khambula and The Battle of Ulundi
