page_title: King's Regiment (Liverpool)
section_title: Colonial wars (1881–1914)
hierarchical_section_title: King's Regiment (Liverpool) / Colonial wars (1881–1914)
context_page_description: The King's Regiment (Liverpool) was one of the oldest line infantry regiments of the British Army, having been formed in 1685 and numbered as the 8th Regiment of Foot in 1751. Unlike most British Army infantry regiments, which were associated with a county, the King's represented the city of Liverpool, one of only four regiments affiliated to a city in the British Army. After 273 years of continuous existence, the regiment was amalgamated with the Manchester Regiment in 1958 to form the King's Regiment, which was later amalgamated with the King's Own Royal Border Regiment and the Queen's Lancashire Regiment to form the present Duke of Lancaster's Regiment.
  The King's notably saw active service in the Second Boer War, the two world wars, and the Korean War. In the First World War, the regiment contributed dozens of battalions to the Western Front, Salonika, and the North West Frontier. More than 13,000 men were killed. In the Second World War, the 5th and 8th battalions landed during Operation Overlord, the 1st and 13th fought as Chindits in the Burma Campaign, and the 2nd Battalion served in Italy and Greece.
context_section_description: The Cardwell–Childers reforms from the 1860s to the 1880s substantially reorganised the British Army, principally by amalgamating single-battalion regiments to form regiments of multiple battalions. The King's, which already had two regular battalions, did not amalgamate, but did adopt a new title on the numbering system's abolition. Thus, on 1 July 1881, the two battalions of the 8th (The King's) Regiment of Foot became the 1st and 2nd Battalions, The King's (Liverpool) Regiment. The 8th Foot had been associated with Liverpool since 1873, when it became allocated to the town's 13th Brigade Depot. Regular regiments gained auxiliary battalions through the integration of the militia and volunteers, of which nine from Lancashire and the Isle of Man transferred to the King's and ultimately became part of the Special Reserve and Territorial Force.
  The battalions after the 1881 reforms included:
  Regulars
  1st Battalion
  2nd Btn
  Militia
  3rd (Militia) Btn , former 1st Btn, 2nd (The Duke of Lancaster's Own) Royal Lancaster Militia
  4th (Militia) Btn , former 2nd Btn, 2nd (The Duke of Lancaster's Own) Royal Lancaster Militia
  Rifle Volunteers
  [5th] 1st Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps, became 1st Volunteer Btn in 1888
  [6th/7th] 5th Lancashire (The Liverpool Rifle Volunteer Brigade) Rifle Volunteer Corps acting as double battalion, became 2nd and 3rd Volunteer Btns in 1888
  [8th] 15th Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps, became 4th Volunteer Btn in 1888
  [9th] 18th (Liverpool Irish) Rifle Volunteer Corps (also including the Isle of Man RVC), became 5th (Irish) Volunteer Btn in 1888
  [10th] 19th (Liverpool Press Guard) Lancashire Rifle Volunteers, became 6th Volunteer Btn in 1888
  Under the new system, it was envisaged that one regular battalion would be based in the United Kingdom and one overseas. The 1st Battalion had been in North West England since the late 1870s and had been bombed while based at Salford Barracks in 1881. The attack had been the first in a dynamite campaign instigated by the Irish Republican Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. The barracks sustained only minor structural damage from the explosion, which killed a child and badly wounded its mother. Soon afterwards, rioting during mineworkers' strikes in Chowbent, Wigan, and Warrington required the battalion's intervention to prevent further disorder. In 1882, the battalion moved to Ireland, based in the Curragh. During the otherwise uneventful posting, the 1st responded to riots in Belfast. The sectarian disorder coincided with the introduction of the 1886 Home Rule Bill in the British Parliament. The battalion returned to England three years later.
  The 2nd King's had been on the Indian subcontinent since 1877 and had fought in the Second Afghan War. The Third Burmese War punctuated the battalion's overseas service in the 1880s. Intent on deposing Upper Burma's King Thibaw and imposing imperial rule, Britain issued an ultimatum consisting of demands that were rejected as anticipated. The invasion began in November 1885 in the form of the Burma Field Force, which progressed up the Irrawaddy River via transports, enabling the rapid capture of frontier forts and the capital Mandalay. After the capital's seizure, the battalion provided an escort that oversaw the exile of Thibaw. A guerrilla campaign against the British followed the completion of Upper Burma's annexation on 1 January 1886, lasting for at least five years. For more than a year, the King's operated in small groups pursuing guerrillas in the Burmese jungle. Casualties numbered 12 officers and 256 men by the time the battalion had returned to India. In early 1900 the 2nd Battalion Liverpool Regiment was stationed at Gibraltar.
  Overseas service for the 1st King's included a two-year residence in Nova Scotia, beginning in 1893. In January 1895, the battalion provided a 100-man guard of honour when the body of Canadian Prime Minister John Thompson was returned from Britain. The battalion subsequently became stationed in the West Indies, then Cape Colony in 1897. The Second Boer War began two years later. Prior to the outbreak 
caption: "D" Company of the 1st King's, Wellington Barracks, Halifax, Nova Scotia, early 1890s.
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