The St Anne's Volunteers was a Volunteer Corps formed in the parish of St Anne's Soho in 1787[1] and renamed the Royal Westminster Volunteers by permission of George III in 1797.[2] By then it was made up of two Companies.[2] By 1798 it consisted of one grenadier company, six grenadier battalions, and one light infantry battalion.[2]
Notable members of the unit included saddler and future police magistrate Richard Birnie, pianomaker James Broadwood, playwright Isaac Pocock and Charles Roworth, author of The Art of Defence on Foot with the Broad Sword and Sabre. It was disbanded in 1814,[1] but is sometimes seen as a spiritual predecessor to the Queen's Westminster Rifles, to which its 1804 colours were presented on 1 June 1861.[3]
References
edit- ^ a b Major Julian Quixano Henriques, The War History of the 1st Battalion Queen's Westminster Rifles 1914-1918 (Medici Society Ltd; London, 1923), page xiii
- ^ a b c "Military Uniform". Heatons of Tisbury.
- ^ 'Forthcoming Events', Volunteer Service Gazette and Military Dispatch, 25 May 1861, page 12
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