Staffordshire Yeomanry

The Staffordshire Yeomanry (Queen's Own Royal Regiment) was a mounted auxiliary unit of the British Army raised in 1794 to defend Great Britain from foreign invasion. It continued in service after the Napoleonic Wars, frequently being called out in support of the civil powers. It first sent units overseas at the time of the Second Boer War and saw distinguished service in Egypt and Palestine in World War I. During World War II it gave up its horses and became a tank regiment, serving in the Western Desert and landing in Normandy on D-Day. Postwar the Staffordshire Yeomanry became part of the Queen's Own Mercian Yeomanry with one of the squadrons being designated 'Staffordshire Yeomanry' until 2021. French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars After Britain was drawn into the French Revolutionary Wars, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger proposed on 14 March 1794 that the counties should form a force of Volunteer Yeoman Cavalry (Yeomanry) that could be called on by the King to defend the country against invasion or by the Lord Lieutenant to subdue any civil disorder within the county. By the end of the year 27 counties had raised Yeomanry, including Staffordshire. The first Troop in the county was raised on 4 July 1794 at the Swan Inn, Stafford, as the Stafford Troop of the Staffordshire Volunteer Cavalry and gained official recognition on 21 August. The leading figure in raising it was Francis Perceval Eliot of Elmhurst Hall, former captain in the 14th Foot. Soon there were five Troops or 'Divisions' in the county, which were loosely regimented on 20 September as the Staffordshire Regiment of Gentlemen and Yeomanry (one of the first counties to be regimented): Newcastle-under-Lyme, commanded by Colonel Earl Gower Stafford, commanded by lieutenant-colonel the Hon Edward Monckton Lichfield, commanded by Major Francis Eliot Leek, commanded by Capt James Bulkeley Walsall, commanded by Capt William Tennant The regiment was first employed when the Stafford Troop was called out on 6 August 1795 in support of the civil power in suppressing bread rioters who had intercepted a consignment of corn at Radford Bridge on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal; the rioters were dispersed without bloodshed. In 1798 the Staffordshire Yeomanry was fully regimented, and the troops were no longer independent.