I've not covered any of the Household Cavalry regiments to date and so, to rectify this omission, I list below - with three gaps - sample numbers from the series in use by The Royal Horse Guards (The Blues), between 1881 and 1914.
The numbers and dates have all been gleaned from service records at the National Archives, the majority of which cam also be found by searching on Ancestry. Click on the link for a FREE 14-day trial.
1126 joined on 3rd February 1881
1174 joined on 14th January 1882
1229 joined on 31st March 1883
1264 joined on 19th January 1884
1313 joined on 15th January 1885
1382 joined on 9th January 1886
In May 1886, for reasons which are unclear to me at present, The Royal Horse Guards started a new number series, number 2 joining on the 6th May 1886.
23 joined on 2nd February 1887
80 joined on 29th May 1888
117 joined on March 19th 1889
220 joined on 4th september 1890
271 joined on 12th september 1891
301 joined on 20th February 1892
368 joined on 6th February 1893
426 joined on 31st January 1894
481 joined on 1st February 1895
547 joined on 10th January 1896
625 joined on 1st March 1897
690 joined on 21st May 1898
1899 - No data
815 joined on 15th March 1900
1901 - No data
984 joined on 18th February 1902
1077 joined on 18th September 1903
1122 joined on 8th June 1904
1187 joined on 12th october 1905
1906 - No data
1277 joined on 10th september 1907
1302 joined on 15th january 1908
1371 joined on 27th September 1909
1394 joined on 22nd Janaury 1910
1469 joined on 26th June 1911
1514 joined on 1st April 1912
1567 joined on 9th April 1913
1605 joined on 10th February 1914
1684 joined on 31st August 1914
As can be seen, recruitment into the regiment was incredibly slow and, apart from a small surge between October 1914 and January 1915, continued at the same slow rate throughout the First World War.
The image on this page shows a troop of Royal Horse Guards riding through Cork in 1903. I've borrowed it from the Cork Past and Present website.
Also see my post on numbering in the Royal Horse Guards between 1867 and 1880.
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