The Post Office Rifles was a unit of the British Army formed in 1868 from volunteers as part of the Volunteer Force, which later became the Territorial Force (and later the Territorial Army). The unit evolved several times until 1935, after which the name was lost during one of many reorganisations.[1]
On 13 December 1867 a bomb exploded outside Middlesex House of Detention, Clerkenwell. It was an attempt to rescue two members of Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) detained there awaiting trial.[2] The Government's response was to raise special constables to protect London buildings against future "Fenian outrages".[3]
The GPO special constables had been supervised and trained by Major JL du Plat Taylor (and Civil Service Rifles' NCOs). After the crisis was over the GPO special constables approached du Plat Taylor to request that they be formed into a Rifle Volunteer unit. Du Plat Taylor, who was the Private Secretary to the Postmaster General,[1] sought permission from the Postmaster General and the War Office to form such a unit. Permission was granted and on 2 March 1868 the 49th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers Corps (Post Office Rifles) was duly raised from the Post Office Companies (Civil Service Rifles) and the special constables all of whom were GPO servants. Du Plat Taylor become its first commanding officer.
In 1880 a reorganisation of the volunteer corps saw the unit renumbered as the 24th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers (Post Office Rifles).[1]
Service in Egypt
In 1882 a detachment of two officers and 102 men volunteered for service in Egypt, where they performed postal and telegraph duties under the command of General Garnet Wolseley.[1] As the Army Post Office Corps (APOC) they came under enemy fire at Kassassin in so doing became the first 'volunteers' to see enemy action. The 24th Battalion was awarded their first battle honour "Egypt 1882".[1]
South Africa
During the Second Boer War the 24th Middlesex contributed a large number of volunteers comprising 16 officers and more than 1,000 other ranks. In 1907 they were awarded the battle honour "South Africa 1899–1902".[1]
In 1902 the 24th Middlesex (Post office) was one of six rifle corps to form the 4th or City of London Brigade, a volunteer infantry brigade.[4]
Territorial Force
More changes were introduced upon the creation of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907. This Act brought the part-time Volunteer Force infantry artillery and engineer units and Yeomanry (mounted) regiments from across the country together into a single Territorial Force in 1908. As a result of this, the 24th Middlesex became the 8th (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Post Office Rifles).[1]
World War I
The Post Office Rifles served with distinction in the Great War. They arrived in France on 18 March 1915. By the end of the war, 1,800 men from the Post Office Rifles would be dead and 4,500 more would be wounded.
After the outbreak of the war, the existing units of the Territorial Force each formed duplicate (or "second line") units. The existing Post Office Rifles was redesignated as the 1/8th Battalion, London Regiment when a second Post Office Rifles battalion, the 2/8th Londons, was formed in September 1914.[5] In 1915 a third line battalion, the 3/8th was formed.[5]
At the Capture of Wurst Farm, in September 1917, the 2/8th lost over half its fighting strength, dead or wounded, but its men were awarded a total of 40 gallantry medals. These included a Victoria Cross won by SergeantA. J. Knight, making him the only Post Office Rifleman to win this honour.[7]
Battle honours
The battle honours awarded to the 8th (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Post Office Rifles) for the "Great War" were announced in March 1924. Ten honours (shown in bold type) were selected by the regiment to be displayed on the King's Colours:[6]
Further reorganisations took place after World War I. Many saw these changes as a dilution of the battalion's Post Office identity. Included in these reorganisations was the amalgamation of the 8th Battalion with the non-Post Office 7th (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment in 1921, forming the 7th London Regiment (Post Office Rifles). In 1935, it was converted from infantry to the searchlight role as the 32nd (7th City of London) Anti-aircraft Battalion, Royal Engineers, and the 'Post Office Rifles' name was finally dropped. In 1939 they expanded from Finsbury Square into newly built drill-halls at Grove Park and Bexleyheath. Shortly afterward the unit was split, forming a duplicate battalion at Bexleyheath called 73rd (Kent Fortress) S/Light Battalion, Royal Engineers, with outstations at Greenhithe and Sidcup. In 1940 both units re-badged as Royal Artillery.
Successor units still occupy Grove Park and Bexleyheath drill-halls, as 265 (Home Counties) Battery, 106th (Yeomanry) Regiment, Royal Artillery and 265 (Kent and County of London Yeomanry) Support Squadron, Royal Corps of Signals. Both units strive to continue and maintain the traditions and history of their predecessor regiments.
Memorials to the Post Office Rifles
Memorials to the Post Office Rifles can be found at PaigntonWar Memorial, at St. Lawrence Parish Church, Abbots Langley, and on a plaque outside the Uckfield village church. A First World War Book of Remembrance is sited in St Botolph Aldersgate EC1, the church traditionally associated with the unit, whilst a Second World War regimental memorial plaque is displayed within the Army Reserve Centre in Grove Park, London.[8]
There is no formal memorial to the Rifles in France, but many of the fallen from the Great War have their names recorded on memorials such as the Menin Gate at Ypres and Sir Edwin Lutyens's memorial to the missing at Thiepval. Also on the Pozieres Memorial to the missing of 1918 and notably the Arras memorial. Men of the Rifles are buried in Bedford House Cemetery outside Ypres (Ieper) in Belgium.
The 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), historically known as The Artists Rifles is a regiment of the Army Reserve. Its name is abbreviated to 21 SAS(R).
The 47th Division was an infantry division of the British Army, raised in 1908 as part of the Territorial Force.
The Queen's Westminsters were an infantry regiment of the Territorial Army, part of the British Army. Originally formed from Rifle Volunteer Corps, which were established after a French invasion scare of 1859. The unit became part of the newly established London Regiment on the formation of the Territorial Force in 1908. It was subsequently amalgamated in 1921 with the Civil Service Rifles, and became a territorial Battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps in 1937. It ceased to exist as separate entity after it was amalgamated in 1961.
Colonel John Lowther du Plat Taylor CB VD was the founder of the Army Post Office Corps and the Post Office Rifles.
A rifleman is an infantry soldier armed with a rifled long gun. Although the rifleman role had its origin with 16th century hand cannoneers and 17th century musketeers, the term originated in the 18th century with the introduction of the rifled musket. By the mid-19th century, entire regiments of riflemen were formed and became the mainstay of all standard infantry, and rifleman became a generic term for any common infantryman.
The British Army is listed according to an order of precedence for the purposes of parading. This is the order in which the various corps of the army parade, from right to left, with the unit at the extreme right being highest. Under ordinary circumstances, the Household Cavalry parades at the extreme right of the line. Militia and Army Reserve units take precedence after Regular units with the exception of The Honourable Artillery Company and The Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers.
The 167th Brigade was an infantry formation of the British Territorial Army that saw active service in both the First and Second World Wars. It was the first Territorial formation to go overseas in 1914, garrisoned Malta, and then served with the 56th (London) Infantry Division on the Western Front. In the Second World War, it fought in the North African and Italian campaigns in the Second World War.
The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1966. The regiment was formed, as the Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment), in 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms when the 57th (West Middlesex) and 77th (East Middlesex) Regiments of Foot were amalgamated with the county's militia and rifle volunteer units.
The Volunteer Force was a citizen army of part-time rifle, artillery and engineer corps, created as a popular movement throughout the British Empire in 1859. Originally highly autonomous, the units of volunteers became increasingly integrated with the British Army after the Childers Reforms in 1881, before forming part of the Territorial Force in 1908. Most of the regiments of the present Army Reserves Infantry, Artillery, Engineers and Signals units are directly descended from Volunteer Force units.
The 9th Battalion, London Regiment was a Territorial Army infantry battalion of the British Army. The London Regiment was formed in 1908 in order to regiment the various Volunteer Force battalions in the newly formed County of London, and the Queen Victoria's Rifles were one of twenty six units brought together in this way.
The Army Cyclist Corps was a corps of the British Army active during the First World War, and controlling the Army's bicycle infantry.
The 168th Brigade was an infantry brigade formation of the British Army that saw service during both the First and the Second World Wars. Throughout its existence, serving under many different titles and designations, the brigade was an integral part of the 56th (London) Infantry Division. It served on the Western Front during First World War and in the Italian Campaign during the Second World War. It was finally disbanded in the 1960s.
The Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry (DLOY) was a yeomanry unit of the British Army from 1798 to 1992. Originally raised as part-time cavalry for home defence and internal security, the regiment sent mounted infantry to serve in the Second Boer War. During World War I it carried out mounted duties in Egypt and Palestine and on the Western Front. By 1917 the reserve units at home had become cyclists and the regiment serving on the Western Front joined an infantry battalion, seeing action at the Battle of Passchendaele, against the German Spring Offensive and in the final Allied Hundred Days Offensive. At the beginning of World War II the regiment gave up its horses and formed two regiments of medium artillery, which served in the Middle East, Italy and North West Europe. Postwar it became an armoured unit. Today its lineage is maintained by B Squadron, the Queen's Own Yeomanry.
The Kensington Regiment (Princess Louise's) is a unit of the British Army, which originated in the Volunteer Rifle Corps' movement of the 1850s. In 1908 it became a battalion of the London Regiment in the Territorial Force. It was an infantry regiment from 1908 to 1940, a heavy fire support unit from 1940 to 1945, and has been a unit of the Royal Corps of Signals since 1945.
In September 1939, the British Army was in process of expanding their anti-aircraft and mobile assets. Among these new changes was the formation of Anti-Aircraft Command which was formed on 1 April 1939, and the 1st Armoured Division formed in 1937. The list below will include the British Army units, colonial units, and those units which were in the process of formation.
During the First World War the British Armed Forces was enlarged to many times its peacetime strength. This was done mainly by adding new battalions to existing regiments. Although sometimes identified by shoulder titles, generally the new battalions could not be identified from appearance. Consequently, the units in this list have been assembled considering only those as having a uniquely different cap badge.
The Rangers was a volunteer unit of the British Army, originally formed in 1860. It provided a detachment for service in the Second Boer War, saw intensive action on the Western Front in the First World War, and served as motorised infantry during the Second World War during the campaigns in Greece and the Western Desert.
The 24th Battalion, London Regiment was an auxiliary unit of the British Army. Formed in 1908 from Volunteer units in the Surrey suburbs of London that dated back to 1860, it was part of the London Regiment in the Territorial Force (TF). Its battalions served on the Western Front at Salonika and in Palestine during World War I. When the London Regiment was abolished the unit reverted to the Queen's Royal Regiment and served in the Battle of France, in North Africa, including the Battle of Alamein, and in taly and North West Europe as part of the 7th Armoured Division. Postwar it was converted to an anti-aircraft regiment of the Royal Artillery.
The Structure of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force over the course of the First World War is shown below.
The Exeter & South Devon Volunteers was the premier unit of Britain's Volunteer Force. Formed in 1852 it went on to become a battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. Both its active service battalions went to garrison India on the outbreak of the First World War, and then saw action in Mesopotamia and Palestine. In the Second World War, the battalion served in the garrison of Gibraltar. It continued in the postwar Territorial Army until it was merged with other West Country units. Its successors today serve in a reserve battalion of The Rifles.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United Kingdom 
Territorial Army 
