8th (King’s Royal Irish) Hussars

This post will look at numbering in the 8th (King’s Royal Irish) Hussars between 1881 and 1906. The cavalry regiments were unaffected by Cardwell's Army reforms; however, in keeping with the parameters of this blog, my starting point is 1881.

The database and information on this blog have been compiled as a result of studying service records in WO 97 (British Army pensions to 1913), WO 363 (WW1 service records) and WO 364 (WW1 pension records). All of these series are now online. Click on the links for further information.

2214 joined on 17th March 1881
2270 joined on 29th March 1882
2419 joined on 29th May 1883
2606 joined on 29th August 1884
2700 joined on 8th June 1885
2937 joined on 21st January 1886
3117 joined on 3rd January 1887
3224 joined on 13th October 1888
3247 joined on 24th September 1889
3276 joined on 28th February 1890
3329 joined on 12th January 1891
3453 joined on 9th February 1892
3566 joined on 7th February 1893
3685 joined on 16th March 1894
3798 joined on 3rd October 1895
3817 joined on 10th April 1896
3881 joined on 13th April 1897
4117 joined on 10th May 1898
4318 joined on 5th January 1899
4780 joined on 9th January 1900
5282 joined on 5th January 1901
5560 joined on 3rd January 1902
6242 joined on 22nd June 1903
6333 joined on 1st December 1904
6373 joined on 18th January 1905
6833 joined on 4th July 1906

In December 1906, Army Order 289 changed the numbering for cavalry of the line. Prior to this, all cavalry regiments had numbered individually by regiments. Now, line cavalry and household cavalry were separated; each of the three line cavalry corps – dragoons, hussars, and lancers – beginning a new number series which started at 1 and was to extend to 49,999.

What this meant for the 8th Hussars was that from late December 1906 they began a new number sequence which they shared with the all of the Hussars regiments:

3rd (King's Own) Hussars
4th (Queen's Own) Hussars
7th (Queen's Own) Hussars
8th (King's Royal Irish) Hussars
10th (Prince of Wales's Own Royal) Hussars
11th (Prince Albert's Own) Hussars
13th Hussars
14th (King's) Hussars
15th (King's) Hussars
18th (Queen Mary's Own) Hussars
19th (Queen Alexandra's Own Royal) Hussars
20th Hussars

See also, my posts on numbering in the Corps of Hussars 1907-1914, Queen's and King's Regulations: regimental numbering and cavalry numbering in 1906.