The Queen's Lancashire Regiment

[John]

Why do the QLR wear yellow hackles behind their capbadges?

[Craig]

Was it for cowardice?

[Tugwilson45]

Sorry Foo old chum not actually a hackle, those are for Fusilier regiments & some Scottish regiments. Any Queens regiment were known as the 'Buffs' Buff is a silly name for yellow. It is in fact a yellow.......sorry a Buff diamond shape (Plastic) inserted behind the badge. I think it is a reminder to the regiment that they are Queens and should be steady at all times

[Craig]

Cheers Tug
I thought I heard that there was a Regiment that wore Yellow or white for cowardice. This was pre Neopolanic time. Any ideas.?

[Nick]

I think that the Royal Artillery wear a white lanyard for cowardice to remind them of a battle where the guns were abandoned. Is this true ?

[John]

I thought that gunners always kept the lanyard for safety reasons. ie the lanyard was attached at the last minute. a form of safety catch perhaps? Also, it stops officers coming up and saying 'oo. whats this for?' and then pulling it out of curiosity....

[woodbine]

Why do the QLR wear yellow hackles behind their capbadges?

←

The Lancashire Fusiliers wore the primrose (Yellow) coloured brush plume in the fusilier fur cap until 1914, and it was not until after the Second World War that all Fusilier Regiments readopted the coloured plumes. (Feather Hackles) From what I can gather The QLR were created in the 1970's and traces its history back to the 30th; 40th; 47th; 59th; 81st; and 82nd. regiments of foot, and it was only natural that they adopted the Primrose coloured hackle.

Cheers

Woodbine

[Graham Stewart]

Gents,

Lets get a few facts straight here;-

1 - The QLR were never Fusiliers and do not were a hackle, they wear a yellow diamond behind the badge which is now made of plastic, but was once cloth. The significance currently escapes me.

2 - The Lancashire Fusiliers were eventually amalgamated into the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers

3 - Buff, Yellow and White facings were quite common among line regiments and are not sign of cowardice of any sorts.

4 - The white lanyard of the RA is not a sign of cowardice either and it did actually signify that the wearer in all units in Service Dress that the man was a qualified signaller. Before anyone mentions the Sigs wear a blue lanyard there was no R.Signals until after the Great War.

5 - At the end of the landyard you would find a clasp knife

6 - All R.N. ratings wear a white lanyard too and this signifies the lighted rope/match they carried when manning guns.

7 - Rifle Regiments do not carry Colours, again this is not a sign of cowardice and their battle honours are worn on their badges. Colours were a rallying point for regiments, Rifles were scouts, skirmishers and so on and were free of the line/square or what ever, so never carried them.

Please Gentlemen to make this a creditable site I suggest a little more research is used before making statements that are basically b****cks. The books, histories and facts are out there, use them and not barrackroom myths and legends.

Graham.

Edited January 17, 2006 by Graham Stewart

[Grant Broadhurst]

I was in the Queens Lancashire Regiment !

Yes it is a yellow plastic diamond which is sandwhiched between the cap badge and the beret .

The significance of this i was told in a class room is to denote all the battle honors that the Queens Lancashire Regiment has ( in 1988 we were told that we had the most of any regiment in the British army ) . Mind you you have to remember that the QLR was the East Lancs , West Lancs and i think the loyal North Lancs and so takes Battle honors off all the regiments almalgamated to it .

There you go

As for the Lancashire Fusiliers they were never part of the Queens Lancs , I has a mate in there and they recruited from the Bury , Bolton & Greater Manchester Area . The Hackle was 2 colours white and Red not claret or crimson .

Battle Honours : 204 more than any other British Regiment

Victoria Crosses : 19

Cap Badge Backing. The Primrose Diamond worn on soldiers' berets was introduced by the Commanding Officer of 1st Battalion the East Lancashire Regiment at Hamburg in 1945. Primrose (pale yellow) was the facing colour of the 30th Foot 1702-1881 and was carried again in 1916 when 1st Battalion the East Lancashire Regiment wore patches of that colour on their helmets and sleeves at the battle of the Somme. The backing is not worn by officers or by warrant officers class 1.

Edited January 18, 2006 by Grant Broadhurst

[Graham Stewart]

Grant,

Thanks for adding to this post and clearing up as to why QLR wear the capbadge backing. The only bit you got wrong was the hackle of the Lancashire Fusiliers which was infact "primrose yellow", which they wore until amalgamated with the other English Fusilier Regiments in 1968 and then the old Royal Northumberland Fusiliers hackle of red & white was adopted by all battalions.

Fusilier hackles were as follows;-

Royal Northumberland Fusiliers - White base, red tip.

Royal Fusiliers - White.

Lancashire Fusiliers - Primrose yellow.

Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers - Deep orange base, dark blue tip. This was the last regiment to be created Fusiliers to allow amalgamation in 1968, up until this date they had been Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

Royal Welsh Fusiliers - White.

Royal Scots Fusiliers - White. Amalgamated with the Highland Light Infantry as the Royal Highland Fusiliers and kept the white hackle.

Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers - Grey

Royal Irish Fusiliers - Green

Royal Munster Fusiliers - Green with white tip.

Royal Dublin Fusiliers - Green with blue tip.

Going back to the question of facing colours and the use of buff, yellow and white by a lot of line regiments, I believe that I read somewhere that in the 1600's that only base colours were used due to the difficulties in the process of producing colour fast dyes. Greens were also used as was blue.

Graham.

[peter monahan]

Grant,

Thanks for adding to this post and clearing up as to why QLR wear the capbadge backing. The only bit you got wrong was the hackle of the Lancashire Fusiliers which was infact "primrose yellow", which they wore until amalgamated with the other English Fusilier Regiments in 1968 and then the old Royal Northumberland Fusiliers hackle of red & white was adopted by all battalions

And presumably the Lancs had primrose regimental colours as well as facings, so adopting the "yellow" backing would commemorate the colours upon which some of that incredible number of battle honours would be embroidered. Very clever of the colonel in question!

A couple of points to agree with Grant on the "cowardice" issue. Lets' think this through:

Forcing a unit to wear a cowardice badge would do what for their recruiting prospects?

How long would it be before the unit did something (suicidally) brave enough to rehain their unit honour and have the sign removed?

If such a thing were prescribed, especially in a removable form like a lanyard, how often would it be lost or forgotten, with the active connivance or the NCOs and officers, as opposed to worn to proclaim their shame? "Oh, the lanyard? We wear that in No. 77 Dress, our second Sunday of every leap year uniform."

To quote Freud, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" and sometimes white and yellow are just colours. And lanyards do have a use - use one on my own jackknife when I'm camping 100 miles from the cutlery store.

My tuppence worth!

peter

[Ed_Haynes]

It is truly amazing how slices of phoney knowledge can, when repeated often enough and with enough certainty, become "fact". It is always equally amazing how some who ought to know better never "fact-check" their assertions. A lesson for us all?

[Dave Danner]

To some extent the QLR questions will be moot, or at least completely recast, as of 1 July of this year. On that date the QLR will cease to exist, being joined with The King?s Own Royal Border Regiment and The King?s Regiment to form the The Duke of Lancaster?s Regiment (King?s, Lancashire and Border). The three existing regular battalions will be reduced to two (1 and 2 LANCS), while the TA's The Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers will become 4th Battalion The Duke of Lancaster?s Regiment (King?s, Lancashire and Border), or 4 LANCS. In March 2007, once reduction of the regular battalions is complete, 4 LANCS will become 3 LANCS.

The significance of this i was told in a class room is to denote all the battle honors that the Queens Lancashire Regiment has ( in 1988 we were told that we had the most of any regiment in the British army ) . Mind you you have to remember that the QLR was the East Lancs , West Lancs and i think the loyal North Lancs and so takes Battle honors off all the regiments almalgamated to it .

QLR is the result of amalgamations of 30, 40, 47, 59, 81 and 82 Regiments of Foot. 30 and 59 are the East Lancs, 40 and 82 are South Lancs, 47 and 81 are the Loyal North Lancs. Was there a West Lancs?

[Graham Stewart]

The colour "primrose yellow" predominates throughout the history of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and in my library I managed to find a copy of "Customs & Practices of XX The Lancashire Fusiliers", in which this colour is frequently mentioned. I also checked on the facing colour of the 20th Foot, from which the Lancashire Fusiliers are descended and indeed their facing colours were yellow.

On "Minden Day" which celebrates the British victory of the 1st August 1759, the Lancashire Fusiliers, as did other regiments who took part, celebrate by wearing roses in their head-dress and in the case of the Lancashire Fusiliers, they wore a combination of a red and yellow rose. The red rose being that of Lancaster.

I checked my copy of "British Infantry Uniforms - since 1660", which has a table of facing colours and indeed the facing colour's of yellow, white, blue and green are to be found throughout our Regiments of Foot. For those members from across the water, I also believe that the facing colour of white was also used by the Continental Army with their blue uniforms.

As an amateur military historian I do tire of the endless crap, myths, legends I hear about the British Army or the Armed Forces in general and perhaps this site with the help of knowledgeable members could eventually sweep it all away.

Graham.

Edited January 19, 2006 by Graham Stewart

[Humber]

On the North bank of the Humber we have a derogatory saying "Lincolnshire yellow bellies", I think it is actually something to do with the Yellow Waistcoats one of the Lincolnshire regiments used to wear.

Officers of the Royal North Lincolnshire Militia would wear bright yellow waistcoats on the battlefield. This made it easier for their men to spot them.

Edited February 10, 2006 by Humber

[leigh kitchen]

The Lancs Fus red & yellow Minden Day roses are still worn by the successor regiment RRF on MInden Day August 22nd.

KOYLI used to wear a single white rose to commemorate MInden, I don't know what colour rose or roses are worn by the successor regiment LI.

Interesting but infuriating thread, what with the total confusion between the Lancs Fusiliers & the Queens Last Resort, the introduction of alleged cowardice colours & why is "buff" a silly term? - it's a colour, and it's an accurate term. It does have other meanings too - perhaps the possible reference to nudity is why it's "silly"?

The business about yellow being the colour for all Queens regiments or whatever - words fail me at this point............

[Harry Fecitt]

Gentlemen

PRIMROSE BACKING

The Curator of the QLR Museum, Ms Jane Davies, has kindly provided this extract from the QLR Handbook:

'The Primrose Diamond worn on our soldier's berets was introduced by Lt

Col FFE Allen DSC, CO of 1st Bn the ELANR (East Lancashire Regiment), at Hamburg in 1945.

Primrose was the facing colour of the 30th Ft 1702-1881 and was carried again

in 1916 when 1st Bn ELANR wore patches of that colour on their helmets

and sleeves at the battle of the Somme. The distinctive diamond shape

of the backing may be traced back to the old 59th, the 'Lilywhites',

who when in India in 1902-3 received permission to wear a white diamond

patch on their sun helmets. The backing is not worn by officers or by

warrent officers class I.'

Harry

ex-1 LOYALS and 4QLR

[peter monahan]

On the North bank of the Humber we have a derogatory saying "Lincolnshire yellow bellies", I think it is actually something to do with the Yellow Waistcoats one of the Lincolnshire regiments used to wear.

Officers of the Royal North Lincolnshire Militia would wear bright yellow waistcoats on the battlefield. This made it easier for their men to spot them.

I have to agree with Graham: there is a lot of mythology out there!

I'm sure that some one of the Lincs reg'ts may well have worn yellow weskits at some point and equally sure it had nothing to do with standing out for the men. First, westkits were worn under a tunic which might be worn open in the mess but never in the field.

Second, In the Napoleonic period, when waistcoats were part of the uniform, junior officers wore one epaulet and senior ones two, so OR's had to know the officers by face to even know their rank! Coloured coats would have been redudndant.

Third, officers were either well to the front of a series of closed ranks ior behind them. Either way, unless they were running, the enemy would see the weskits befor the men did. So, maybe it was an "up yours, you can't hit me" invitation to enemy sharpshooters. Suicidal, but not impossible.

Anyway, a charming story but probably not quite accurate and, clearly, productive of lots of nasty comments from the low soldiery of other regiments!

Peter

[leigh kitchen]

Thanks for the info Harry, adding to Grants earlier post re. the origins of the yellow diamond.

Anybody want to start off a thread on the QLR & perhaps seperate threads on each of its component regiments - photos, insignia, medals, ephemera?

[Dave Alexander]

The 10th Foot (Lincolnshire Regt) wore yellow facings. There is also an inhabitant of the Fens, a particular yellow-bellied frog that is known locally as, what else? A Yellow Belly!