§ SIR EDMUND LECHMEREasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, looking to the fact that the 7th Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), proposed to be called the City of London Regiment, has no connection, historical or otherwise, with the Metropolis, and that the officers and men of the 3rd Regiment (Buffs), proposed to be designated the Kentish Regiment, are very desirous of maintaining their intimate connections with the City of London (owing to the circumstance of their Regiment having derived its origin and special privileges from the old Trained Bands), there would be any objection to such an interchange of Depôts and Territorial Titles as would be mutually satisfactory to both Regiments?
§ MR. CHILDERSSir, I am sorry to say that the hon. Baronet is in error with respect to the greater part of the facts which his Question purports to place on record. The Buffs have been a Kentish regiment since 1782, and as such fought all the battles recorded on their colours. After the peace of Munster, in 1648, they were called the "Holland" Regiment, and in 1689 Prince George of Denmark's Regiment. At his death they were called the Buffs. They have never been called a London regiment, 1115 although it is the case that in 1572 there had been raised from the citizens of London a company of a regiment raised in different counties of England for service in the Netherlands, and which was the nucleus of four regiments reduced to the Holland regiment, as I have said, in or about 1648. The 7th Royal Fusiliers, so far from having no connection, historically or otherwise, with the Metropolis, was in 1685 raised by Lord Dartmouth in London and its neighbourhood, and part of it was long stationed at the Tower. This regiment holds strongly to its proposed title of "City of London," and, under the circumstances, I see no reason for making the suggested change.
§ MR. WARTONasked the Secretary of State for War, whether he was aware that from 1572 the 3rd Buffs had the right of marching through the City of London with fixed bayonets, colours flying, and drums beating, without leave of the Civic authorities, a right of which they were particularly proud; and whether he did not consider that that fact gave them a better right to be called the City of London Regiment than the 7th Fusiliers, which was to be so designated?
§ MR. CHILDERSsaid, that was a matter of opinion, and he should think not; and, as he had already stated, the regiment to which the hon. and learned Member for Bridport referred had been called a Kentish regiment for 100 years.