page_title: Middlesex Yeomanry
section_title: Formation and early history
hierarchical_section_title: Middlesex Yeomanry / Formation and early history
caption_attribution_description: English: All ranks group, Middlesex Yeomanry. Pictured in the Navy and Army Illustrated published on 9 April 1896
context_page_description: The Middlesex Yeomanry was a volunteer cavalry regiment of the British Army originally raised in 1797. It saw mounted and dismounted action in the Second Boer War and in World War I at Gallipoli, Salonika and in Palestine, where one of its officers won a Victoria Cross at the Battle of Buqqar Ridge and the regiment rode into Damascus with 'Lawrence of Arabia'. Between the world wars the regiment was converted to the signals role and it provided communications for armoured formations in World War II, including service in minor operations in Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Iran, as well as the Western Desert, Italian and North-West European campaigns. It continued in the postwar Territorial Army and its lineage is maintained today by 31 Signal Squadron, Royal Corps of Signals, which forms part of the Army Reserve.
context_section_description: In 1793 the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, proposed that the English Counties form a force of Volunteer Yeoman Cavalry that could be called on by the King to defend the country against invasion or by the Lord Lieutenant to subdue any civil disorder within the country. A cavalry troop entitled the Uxbridge Volunteer Cavalry was raised by Christopher Baynes (later Sir Christopher Baynes, 1st Baronet) in 1797. By 1798 the unit consisted of over 100 men organised in two Troops. It was once called out, in 1801 to prevent rioting. After the Treaty of Amiens was concluded in 1802 the regiment was disbanded following a spate of industrial unrest and rioting, authorisation was given on 10 December 1830 to raise two new troops of Yeomanry in the Uxbridge district. It was raised as the Uxbridge Squadron of Yeomanry Cavalry with troops at Harefield and West Drayton, in 1830. The regiment was called upon to provide an escort for King William IV as he passed through Uxbridge to visit the Marquess of Westminster at Moor Park in 1834. The unit was called out on several occasions, notably in 1832 and at the time of the 1848 Chartist meeting on Kennington Common, but merely 'stood by' in barracks and saw no action.
  The Uxbridge Squadron became the Middlesex Yeomanry Cavalry in 1838 with the following organisation:
  A Troop in London
  B Troop in Uxbridge
  C Troop in London
  D Troop in West Middlesex (including a contingent at Brighton, Sussex)
  Following the Cardwell Reforms a mobilisation scheme began to appear in the Army List from December 1875. This assigned Regular and Yeomanry units places in an order of battle of corps, divisions and brigades for the 'Active Army', even though these formations were entirely theoretical, with no staff or services assigned. The Middlesex Yeomanry were assigned as 'divisional troops' to 3rd Division of II Corps based at Dorking, alongside Regular units of infantry, artillery and engineers.
  In the early 1880s the regiment's headquarters (HQ) moved to 43 Albemarle Street in London's West End, later to 25 Chapel Street off Edgware Road, and it had the following organisation:
  A Troop in Brighton
  B Troop in London
  C Troop in London
  D Troop in West Middlesex
  The regiment evolved to become the Middlesex Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry (Uxbridge) in 1871 and, by order of Field Marshal the Duke of Cambridge, serving at that time as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, the Middlesex (Duke of Cambridge's Hussars) Yeomanry Cavalry in 1884.
  By 1899 RHQ was at 1 Cathcart Road, South Kensington, and the regiment was in the 1st Yeomanry Brigade together with the Berkshire Yeomanry.
caption: Group of different ranks, Middlesex Yeomanry, 1896
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