Unlike the British Army, the Territorial Army and with respect to this page, the Yeomanry, has frequently been the subject of amalgamations and absorptions in its history. The subject of precedence within the Yeomanry can sometimes be contentious with debates as to 'who is on the right of the line' quite commonplace when two or more cap badges are brought together.
Precedence is merely a reflection of the current convention regarding the order in which units parade within the British Army.
Precedence[]
The rule for establishing the order of precedence is the date of commission of the first troop of the regiment and its subsequent unbroken service, including both official service and unpaid accepted unpaid service. Disbanded regiments automatically lost precedence. To maintain the order of precedence when the Territorial Army was reorganised in 1969, some units established a cadre so that they were not completely disbanded. When the cadre-ised unit was subsequently re-established, the unit or more frequently as was the case, sub-unit, could continue to claim an un-broken service. Needless to say, like any good rule, the order of precedence has exceptions.
Since 1994 and the Royal Review of Serving Yeomanry Regiments & Yeomanry Old Comrades there have been effectively two orders of precedence in place:
- Army List of 1914, and
- Order of Yeomanry Titles on parade at The Royal Yeomanry Review
Order of precedence from the Army List of 1914[]
The first is a list of yeomanry units on the establishment at the outbreak of the First World War and therefore contains units that had been disbanded by the time of The Royal Yeomanry Review. This first list does not contain the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (who are an affiliated unit), nor the North and South Irish Horse (who were on the Special Reserve[1] at this time).
Order of Yeomanry titles on parade[]
The second order of precedence represents units that were on the establishment of the Territorial Army (and affiliated to the Territorial Army) at the time of the review and potentially could indicate the status of contemporary Yeomanry units. Order of precedence in this instance includes the current role of the unit, placing Armoured Corps before Artillery and so on.
The approach taken at The Royal Yeomanry Review can be summarised as follows:
- Units are ordered in accordance with British Army Order of Precedence
- Sub-Units are ordered in accordance with the Army List of 1914, as amended by any subsequent disbandments, amalgamations etc.
The following is taken from the last page of the programme printed for The Royal Yeomanry Review. As on that day, the list below has been divided into blocks corresponding to the order in which the units formed and grouped.
- Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry[3]
- Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry (PAO)
- Kent and Sharpshooters Yeomanry
- Inns of Court and City Yeomanry[4]
- Westminster Dragoons
- Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry
- Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry[5]
- Royal Gloucestershire Hussars[6]
- Royal Devon Yeomanry
- The Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry
- Queen's Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry[7]
- Queen's Own Staffordshire Yeomanry
- Shropshire Yeomanry[8]
- Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry
- Queen's Own Yorkshire Yeomanry
- Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry
- Cheshire Yeomanry[9]
- Northumberland Hussars
- The Scottish Yeomanry
- Earl of Carrick's Own Ayrshire Yeomanry
- Queen's Own Royal Glasgow Yeomanry
- Lothian and Border Horse
- Fife and Forfar Yeomanry/Scottish Horse
- The Sussex Yeomanry
See also[]
Notes[]
- ^ Units on the Special Reserve take precedence after a Regular Unit and before a Yeomanry Unit.
- ^ The Welsh Horse was only raised after the outbreak of war in 1914. It was accorded precedence after its parent, the Glamorgan Yeomanry.
- ^ A Sqn Royal Yeomanry
- ^ Band of the Royal Yeomanry
- ^ B Sqn Royal Wessex Yeomanry
- ^ A and HQ Sqns Royal Wessex Yeomanry
- ^ The Band of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry
- ^ A Sqn Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry
- ^ HQ Sqn Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry
- ^ C Sqn Queen's Own Yeomanry
- ^ 80 Sig Sqn (V), 33 Sig Regt (V)
- ^ 95 Sig Sqn (V), 35 Sig Regt (V)
- ^ 67 Sig Sqn (V), 37 Sig Regt (V)
- ^ 68 Sig Sqn (V), 71 Sig Regt (V)
References[]
- Mileham, Patrick (1994). The Yeomanry Regiments. Edinburgh: Canongate Academic. ISBN 978-1-898410-36-2.
- Royal Review of Serving Yeomanry Regiments & Old Comrades by Her Majesty The Queen. 1994.
The original article can be found at Yeomanry order of precedence and the edit history here.