Royal Horse Guards - Other Rank PoWs 1914

The outcome of a Royal Horse Guards mock trial in 1896

Navy & Army Illustrated, 6th March 1896

There is a just a handful - if you've got six fingers - of Royal Horse Guards soldiers who were captured by the Germans on or before Christmas Day 1914. This data has been transcribed from the following Imperial War Museum collection:

B.O.2 1/169 is a single-page typed (and badly faded) list sent to Sir Enest Goodhart  by the officer i/c records, Royal Horse Guards, Regents Park Barracks dated 7th January 1920.

For more information about these so-called 'Princess Mary tin PoWs' see my 1914 PoWs page. The majority of these men will also have records published by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Searching is free; finding your man is another matter entirely.

The full transcription is available for £15 as part of my Household Cavalry PoW collection. Contact me if you would like to purchase a copy.
1466 Corporal Ernest J Braby of Manhood Farm, Sussex 
1008 Trooper Harry Burchett Royal of Forge Square, Lyghe, Near Tonbridge, Kent 
151 Trooper A Dixon of Prospect Place, Market Rasen, Lincs 
47559 Trooper William Glassett of 37 Livingstone Road, Clapham 
46233 Corporal Wilfred Pocklington of 24 Woods Lane, Cottingham Hill, Hull

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Contact me if you need help with your military ancestor.

Royal Horse Guards 1867-1880

A little beyond the scope of this particular army service numbers blog, but as I have the data, I thought I'd post it here. This also of course, ends nicely at the point at which my previous blog post on Royal Horse Guards numbering begins. See Royal Horse Guards 1881-1914.

Service records for all of the numbers listed below, survive in a number of military series. The majority (in this small sample) are taken from the WO 97 Chelsea Pensioners series at the National Archives in Kew. These can also be viewed on-line via Find My Past which is currently offering a FREE 14 day trial. Some records here are also taken from the WO 363 Service Records and WO 364 Pension Records which are also housed at Kew and also available online, in this case with Ancestry.co.uk (which also offers a FREE 14 day trial).

447 joined on 4th November 1867
479 joined on 16th June 1868
525 joined on 1st October 1869
547 joined on 15th February 1870
605 joined on 31st October 1871
622 joined on 2nd January 1872
731 joined on 22nd December 1873
739 joined on 13th January 1874
814 joined on 6th July 1875
841 joined on 12th June 1876
916 joined on 18th April 1877
968 joined on 28th January 1878
1015 joined on 19th March 1879
1072 joined on 19th February 1880

So all in all a pretty slow recruitment rate for the Royal Horse Guards in the period outlined above with, by my rough calculations, just four men recruited on average per month.

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Royal Horse Guards: 1881-1914

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.

I also offer a comprehensive, fast and cost-effective military history research service. Follow the link for more information.