British Isles
Mainland Britain
One thing that's immediately obvious is the worldwide commitment of the
army, with only 52 of the 148 regiments listed based in the British
Isles. Given the relatively small size of the army compared to her
European rivals, this presumably reflects the absence of a clear threat
to the homeland, and confidence in the Royal Navy, the “Senior Service”
which received more resources, and prestige.
The home forces included all the Guards units, and the bulk of the cavalry.
The home forces included all the Guards units, and the bulk of the cavalry.
A Royal Horse Guard in parade dress outside Windsor castle (New York Library digital archive)
1st & 2nd Life Guards (Hyde Park & Windsor)
Royal Horse Guards (Regent's Park)
2nd , 3rd and 6th Dragoon Guards (Nottingham, Birmingham & Glasgow)
1st , 2nd, 4th and 6th Dragoons (Manchester, Exeter, Brighton and Piershill)
8th and 11th Hussars (Hounslow & York)
13th Light Dragoons (Ipswich)
17th Lancers (Leeds)
Grenadier Guards (1st ,2nd & 3rd Battalions) (Windsor, Wellington Barracks, London & Winchester)
Coldstream Guards (1st & 2nd Battalions) (St John's Wood & St George's Barracks, London)
Scots Fusilier Guards (1st & 2nd Battalions) (Portman St., and The Tower, London)
6th , 11th, 15th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 34th, 53rd, 58th, 60th, 61st, 65th, 66th, 67th, 72nd, & 73rd Regiments of Foot (Gosport, Weedon, Chester, Portsmouth, Devonport, Leeds, Northampton, Edinburgh, Chatham, Manchester, Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow, Plymouth, Bolton, Newport respectively)
Ireland
4th , 5th & 7th Dragoon Guards (Dublin, Dublin & Cahir)
10th Hussars (Ballincollig)
12th Lancers (Dundalk)
8th , 36th, 37th, 45th (& Reserve Battalion), 54th, 56th, 64th, 69th, & 76th Regiments of Foot
Given Britain's clear dominance of the seas, the Army was deployed either where an invader could come by land, or to protect naval ports. In the first category the two dominant commitments were India and Canada.
India
The last stand of the 44th (East Essex) on the retreat from Kabul
Twenty nine regiments are based in India, backed up by the massive army of the East India Company. Or rather the three armies of the Presidencies of Bombay, Bengal and Madras. These units comprised mainly local troops with British officers, and were, technically, separate from the British Army as such. Since 1839 the British/ British Indian armies had been locked in the disastrous Afghan War, with in 1842 the massacre on the retreat from Kabul. In total, 4,500 British and Indian soldiers, and 12,000 allied civilians had been killed. In 1845, the British forces would be in action again, this time against the Sikh empire, although this time they emerged (just) victorious.
Bengal
3rd Dragoons
9th & 16th Lancers
3rd , 9th, 10th, 13th, 21st, 29th, 31st, 44th, 50th, 62nd Regiments of Foot
Bombay
14th Light Dragoons
2nd , 22nd, 28th, 40th, 78th, 86th Regiments of Foot
Madras
15th Hussars
4th , 25th, 39th, 41st, 57th, 63rd, 84th, & 94th Regiments of Foot
Ceylon
90th & 95th Regiments of Foot
Ceylon Rifle Regiment
The Americas
After India, the biggest commitment was Canada. War with the United States was regarded as a distinct possibility in 1842, and referred to several times in articles in the magazine. The previous war had ended only 27 years before and there had been several incidents since. In 1837, insurgents had smuggled arms into Canada from the US, only for Canadian militia to cross the border and burn their ship. As recently as 1839 there had been a dispute over the Maine/ New Brunswick border. Whether the force would have been sufficient is debatable, as in the war against Mexico only 6 years later the United States was able to field 32,000 soldiers and 50,000 militia, although of course Britain could have reinforced from the homeland. Having said that, British contingency plans never depended purely on a static defence of Canada and the Royal Navy would have been deployed from it's bases in the Caribbean, especially Bermuda. Hence the deployments throughout the area.
The Canadian deployment had a much lower proportion of cavalry compared to that in India, presumably related to the terrain.
Canada
1st Dragoon Guards
7th Hussars
1st (2nd Battalion), 14th, 23rd, 23rd (Reserve Battalion), 43rd, 68th, 70th, 71st, 71st (Reserve Battalion), 74th, 81st, 83rd, 85th, 89th and 93rd Regiments of Foot
New Brunswick
30th & 52nd Regiments of Foot
Newfoundland
Royal Newfoundland Companies
Nova Scotia
82nd Regiment of Foot
Rifle Brigade (Reserve Battalion)
Rifle Brigade (2nd Battalion)
Bermuda
20th Regiment of Foot
St Vincent
33rd Regiment of Foot
Barbados
46th & 92nd Regiments of Foot
British Guiana
47th Regiment of Foot (Berbice)
1st West Indian Regiment
Trinidad
59th Regiment of Foot
Jamaica
60th Regiment of Foot (2nd Battalion)
2nd West Indian Regiment
The Mediterranean
British interests in the Mediterranean centred on her island bases,
with the obvious exception of Gibraltar. As well as being a crucial
naval base, this had a land border with a Spain that had already coveted
Gibraltar for over a hundred years. For much of the 1830s Spain had
been racked with civil war (the Carlist Wars) and as recently as 1842
there had been a coup attempt in Madrid. In the circumstances it is
hardly surprising that Gibraltar was strongly garrisoned. The forces in Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante and the Ionian Islands perhaps require some explaining. These had been Venetian possessions before conquered by France during the Napoleonic Wars, Several rapid changes of ownership followed before they became a British protectorate at the Congress of Vienna. British rule was certainly hugely better than French or Venetian, but after Greek independence in 1830 a movement developed to join the mainland, which they eventually did in 1864. A this time Corfu, especially, was a very useful British naval base in the eastern Mediterranean, especially for British intervention in the short Egyptian/ Ottoman war in 1839-41.
Gibraltar
1st (1st Battalion), 5th, 7th, 48th & 79th Regiments of Foot
Malta
19th and 88th Regiments of Foot
Rifle Brigade (1st Battalion)
Royal Malta Regiment
Corfu
38th, 77th and 97th Regiments of Foot ( 97th Reserve Battalion)
Cephalonia
42nd Regiment of Foot
Ionian islands
42nd Regiment of Foot (Reserve Battalion)
Zante
97th Regiment of Foot
Africa
Mauritius
12th , 35th and 87th Regiments of Foot
Sierra Leone
3rd West Indian Regiment
South Africa (Cape of Good Hope)
27th , 75th, 91st (& Reserve Battalion) Regiments of Foot
Cape Mounted Riflemen (Cape of Good Hope)
St Helena
St Helena Regiment
The Far East
The 18th (Royal Irish) at the Battle of Amoy in China, 1841
The large garrison in China was a result of the Opium war, which had started in 1839, and only ended in 1842. Since the 1750s a massive amount of tea and other goods had been imported to Britain from China, but access to Chinese markets in return was extremely restricted, creating a huge trade imbalance (sound familiar?). The unfortunate British response was to export opium, for which there was a huge Chinese market. Initially this was actually welcomed by the Chinese government (as long as they got their cut via taxes), but the massive increase in opium production and importation led to increased tensions and eventually war, which the British won easily, gaining Hong Kong as a colony. All this, of course, required British troops.
Otherwise, the largest British deployment was in New South Wales. This does not necessarily mean Australia, and in fact probably doesn't. In 1840, New Zealand had controversially become a British territory, initially assigned to New South Wales and in 1841 becoming a separate colony, but possibly that change is not reflected in this list. Certainly annexation had been far from popular with some of the Maori chieftains, though others had argued that too many European settlers had been let in previously, and New Zealand was inevitably going to be British or French. Anyway, small scale revolts and skirmishes started almost immediately, and resulted in two major British-Maori wars in the 1860s.
Aden
17th Regiment of Foot
China
18th , 26th, 49th, 55th and 98th Regiments of Foot
New South Wales
51st , 80th, 96th & 99th Regiments of Foot
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