Great value Victorian military uniform prints of the King's Regiment including the Manchester Regiment and Liverpool Regiment, by Victorian artist Harry Payne, published by Cranston Fine Arts, the military art print company.

Manchester Regiment by Harry Payne

Print serial number UN008.

Image size 7" x 12".

A West Suffolk regiment-the 63^rd-had for its linked battalion the 96^th; and these were combined as the Manchester Regiment in 1881.  The first-mentioned was originally a 2^nd battalion to the 8^th, and became independent under its late number in 1758, receiving the county name of “West Suffolk” in 1782.  “General Wolfe’s Regiment,” as it had been once called, first came under fire in the expedition to the West Indies in 1759, when Martinique, Guadaloupe, Grenadam St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and many other islands, such as Defeada and Santos, were captured.  It returned home after these exploits, but was sent back to take part in the war of Independence, fighting at Bunker’s Hill, Brooklyn, Brandywine, Fort Clinton, New Jersey, Charleston, Hobkirk’s Hill, and Eutaw Springs.

           Men were heavily weighted in those days.  Those of the 63^rd twice “returned to the charge, in the middle of a hot summer’s day, encumbered with three days’ provisions, their knapsacks on their backs, which, together with cartouche box, ammunition, and firelock, may be estimated at 125lb. Weight.  Many of the men, too, served as Mounted Infantry, under Colonel Tarleton, one of the most enterprising of the “partisan” leaders in the war; and they behaved with conspicuous gallantry at the affair of Sherar’s Ferry in 1780.           In 1794 the regiment served in Holland, and fought at Nimeguen, but returned to the West Indies in the following year, sharing in Sir Ralph Abercromby’s expedition 1796, and in the defence of Honduras in 1798; after which it came home reduced to only 150 men.  Recruited to full strength, it again served under Abercromby in the Holland campaign, seeing much hard fighting at the Helder, Zuyp, Schagerburg, Bergen-op-Zoom, and Egmont-op-Zee.

           The expedition to Ferrol gave the regiment its next employment, and during the operations Sergeant-Major Nugent was promoted for gallantry in having disarmed and made prisoners two Spanish sentries.  But its West Indian services were not yet completed.  After the capture of Madeira in 1807, it again assisted in the capture of Martinique two years later-when the articles of surrender were signed by Major O’Rourke of the 63^rd-and at Guadaloupe, St. Martin, and St. Eustatia; but on the outbreak of hostilities again in 1815, the 63^rd for  the third time shared in the capture of Guadaloupe, when “the eagles and standards of the French” were surrendered, and Captain Lynch with the light company covered the landing at Bailiffe, and checked the advance of three hundred French soldiers, who had been sent to oppose the debarkation.  In 1819 the regiment came home, and, after general service on various stations, it was sent to Burmah in 1838, and suffered loss in the fighting at Moulmein. 

           In the Crimean campaign the 63^rd was present at the Alma, Inkerman, and through out the whole siege of Sevastopol, losing altogether 947 off all ranks during the war.  In the Afghan War it joined the 2^nd division of the Kandahar force, but was not present in any of the more important actions.  From India it was transferred to Egypt in 1882.           The 63^rd had a 2^nd battalion from 1804 to 1814, but this saw no active service.           The 96^th was recruited in Manchester in 1824 and was preceded by five of the same number-viz, the first, which served from 1760 to 1763; the second, from 1780 to 1783; the third, from 1793 to 1798; the fourth, formed from a 2^nd battalion of the 52^nd, and numbered the 96^th in 1803, but disbanded as the 95^th in 1818; and the fifth, raised in 1798 as the “Queen’s Germans,” was called the 97^th in 1802, and disappeared as the 96^th (“Queen’s Own”) in 1818.  The last saw service in Egypt in1801, and in the Peninsula.  It bore the name of the “British Musketeers,” and from it comes the Sphinx badge, and the words “Egypt” and “Peninsula,” which appear on the appointments, etc.           The work of the present battalion, as far as active service goes, began in 1844, when a detachment-the rest of the regiment being in New South Wales-was sent to New Zealand, and fought at Kororarika and Stokes Pah.  In 1881, as the 2^nd battalion of the Manchester Regiment, it was sent to Egypt, and formed part of the garrison of Alexandria during the operations which led to the battle of Tel-el-Kebirand the fall of Cairo.  Since then it has seen no active service.

           The badge of the “Fleur-de0lys,” formerly worn by the 63^rd, is supposed to have been bestowed in commemoration of its long and brilliant services in the West Indies against the French; but its use was forbidden in 1856 “because written authority sanctioning its wear could no be found.”  The coatee was replaced in that year by the tunic, and it was certainly worn before that date on the former by the officers and sergeant-major.  It is scarcely likely it would have been used without permission, and some might well have been granted; but the only record disappeared when the regimental baggage was lost at Helvoetsluys in 1795.  The green facings of the 63^rd and the yellow of the 96^th were altered to white in 1881.  Those of the 63^rd had been first black, then very deep green (1768), with white and green lace, and deep green with silver lace in 1813.  Gold lace was worn after 1832.  The badges are the arms of the city of Manchester, and the Sphinx with “Egypt,” which was worn by the 96^th, but can only have been derived from the regiment that was disbanded in 1818; an eight-pointed star, however, bearing the number, was once the decoration of the buttons and breast-plate of the 63^rd.  The star was worn in remembrance of its good work under Tarleton from 1775 to 1781.  The button now bear the Garterand its motto, and within it the Sphinx and “Egypt,” crowned.  The Sphinx also appears on the collar on an eight-pointed star, on the waist-plate with the name of the regiment, and on the forage-cap.  The helmet-plate bears the arms of the city of Manchester.