page_title: Royal Norfolk Regiment
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Norfolk Regiment / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Soldier of the 9th regiment (1742)
context_page_description: The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named the 9th Regiment of Foot.
  It was formed as the Norfolk Regiment in 1881 under the Childers Reforms of the British Army as the county regiment of Norfolk by merging the 9th Regiment of Foot with the local Militia and Rifle Volunteers battalions.
  The Norfolk Regiment fought in the Great War on the Western Front and in the Middle East. After the war, the regiment became the Royal Norfolk Regiment on 3 June 1935. The regiment fought with distinction in the Second World War, in action in the Battle of France and Belgium, the Far East, and then in the invasion of, and subsequent operations in, North-west Europe.
context_section_description: The regiment was raised for the English Army in Gloucester by Colonel Henry Cornewall as Henry Cornewall's Regiment of Foot at the request of James II in 1685 as part of the response to the Monmouth Rebellion. Cornewall resigned his post following the Glorious Revolution and command went to Colonel Oliver Nicholas in November 1688. In December 1688, Nicholas was also removed due to his personal Jacobite sympathies and command passed to John Cunningham. In April 1689 the regiment, under Cunningham's command, embarked at Liverpool for Derry for service in the Williamite War in Ireland. Cunningham led a failed attempt to relieve the besieged city of Derry. The regiment briefly returned to England, but in May 1689 Cunningham was replaced by William Stewart, under whom the regiment took part in a successful relief of Derry in summer 1689. The regiment also saw action at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, the Siege of Limerick in August 1690 and the Siege of Athlone in June 1691. It went on to fight at the Battle of Aughrim in July 1691 and the Siege of Limerick in August 1691.
  In 1701, over the objections of General William Selwyn, the threat of war led the English government to post an Independent Company of regular soldiers, detached from the 2nd Regiment of Foot, to Bermuda, where the militia continued to function as a standby in case of war or insurrection. The company was composed of Captain Lancelot Sandys, Lieutenant Robert Henly, two sergeants, two corporals, fifty private soldiers, and a drummer, and arrived in Bermuda along with the new Governor, Captain Benjamin Bennett, aboard HMS Lincoln, in May 1701.
  The regiment embarked for Holland in June 1701 and took part in the sieges of Kaiserswerth and of Venlo in spring 1702 during the War of the Spanish Succession. In March 1704, the regiment embarked for Lisbon and took part in the Battle of Almansa in April 1707 before returning to England in summer 1708. The regiment was then based in Menorca from summer 1718 to 1746. The regiment was renamed the 9th Regiment of Foot in 1751 when all British regiments were given numbers for identification instead of using their Colonel's name. During the Seven Years' War the Regiment won its first formal battle honour as part of the expedition that captured Belle Île from the French in 1761. It sailed for Cuba with George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle in March 1762 and took part in the siege and subsequent capture of Havana in summer 1762.
  Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and the end of the war, the regiment moved to a posting at St. Augustine in Florida, where it remained until 1769. In April 1776, the regiment embarked for Canada as part of an expedition under Major-General John Burgoyne and took part in the Siege of Fort Ticonderoga and the Battle of Fort Anne in July 1777 during the American Revolutionary War. It surrendered at the Battle of Saratoga in autumn 1777 and its men then spent three years as prisoners of war as part of the Convention Army.
  On 31 August 1782, the regiment was linked with Norfolk as part of attempts to improve recruitment to the army as a whole and it became the 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot. In January 1788, the regiment embarked for the West Indies and took part in the capture of the island of Tobago and in the attack on Martinique. It went on to capture Saint Lucia and Guadeloupe before returning to England in autumn 1796. In 1799 the King approved the Regiment's use of Britannia as its symbol. The next period of active service was the unsuccessful Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland under the Duke of York when the regiment took part in the Battle of Bergen in September 1799 and the Battle of Alkmaar in October 1799. It also took part in the Ferrol Expedition in August 1800 under Sir James Pulteney. In November 1805, shortly after the Battle of Trafalgar, the Regiment suffered a significant misfortune: as the 1st battalion returned from Ireland a storm wrecked the troop transport Ariadne on the northern French coast and some 262 men were taken prisoner. The Times reported t
caption: Soldier of 9th regiment, 1742
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