What Happened to the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers？ ｜ Our History)

Of all the time-honoured regiments of the British Army, there's none with greater glory than the Lancers. The 9th Queen's Royal Lancers. Here on parade, the Lancers of today carry themselves with all the proud bearing of men conscious of the stirring traditions they stand for. For the 9th have been crack cavalrymen for 245 years. Cavalrymen. Cavalrymen without horses these past 25 years, for the winds of change have blown their banners too. As they follow their colonel here, the 9th Lancers are beginning the slow march into history. Soon the 9th will be no more. Soon, like many another glamorous regiment, they'll be amalgamated. Soon they'll be swallowed up in the latest reorganisation of the Army to form, with the 12th Royal Lancers, a brand new regiment to be called the 9th-12th Royal Lancers, the Prince of Wales. In its 245 years' existence, the regiment has charged its way into battle honours galore. Cavalrymen supreme, even if their horses today are centurions. Behind the tradition, behind the pomp and ceremonial, are the Lancers of the rocket age. Bang up to date, efficient, trained to a hair's breadth in the most modern methods of warfare. For a quarter of a century now, the 9th have ridden tanks in peace and war. Today they charge on tracks of steel, a cross-country their predecessors would know as cavalry terrain. Even now, in the 1960s, the officers keep their own horses. It's part of the tradition. It's expected of the Lancers. And there's nothing like riding a horse, they'll tell you, for getting your eye in as a tank soldier. Lancers make dashing riders, as this officer's picture of 9th Lancers Lieutenant Frank Furlong winning the Grand National shows. And this is how another 9th Lieutenant, Fulker Wallin, rode Reynolds Town to victory again in 1936, the third 9th Lancer to win a National. As with many another Lancer's tradition, successful horsemanship goes on. Here are some of the racehorses owned by the 9th's officers being taken out for morning exercise. And the Lieutenant who leads them, Nick Upton, is the 1959-60 champion amateur jockey of Germany, the first Englishman to win the honour for 75 years. But now, back to England, back to blighty and ceremonial parades and a fresh identity under the new order. Back from service abroad they come, from Germany, just as the Lancers of old came home from campaigns overseas, with souvenirs, something for mum and the old man, the last homecoming of the 9th. Back they come to the open spaces of southern England, to the Downs near Salisbury, to Tidwell, and inevitably Polo. Today Prince Philip broadens interest in the game, but it was the 9th who first brought it to Britain, way back in the 1880s. It was the 9th who played the first game in these islands, and like those many other traditions, the fact is not forgotten. If you come across a 9th Lancer with time on his hands, watch out for the horses. Racing, showjumping, Polo, they all come naturally to these cavalrymen. Here's all the dash and purpose of some battle charge of old, and there are many in the 9th's proud story, from Peninsula and Ponyard to Delhi, 100 years ago, and the battle charges that brought more VCs to the 9th than any British regiment has won in any campaign, 13. And a new name too, the Delhi Spearmen, though the 9th are officially called after Queen Adelaide, William IV's consort. And now another Queen honours the 9th, the Queen Mother. Right on time, right on the landing mark comes the 9th's Colonel-in-Chief, to present them with a guidon. Once, every cavalry regiment carried its guidon, until 130 years ago, when the Light Cavalry, and this included the Lancers, began carrying their battle honours on their drum banners instead. And the Queen Mother, who has so many links with Scotland, inspects the regiment that was first raised as Wynn's Dragoons in 1715, to help fight the 10th's troops. Away go the old drum colours, the colours that have been in use since before the First World War. And in with a new guidon, a banner that represents a milestone in the 9th's charge down the centuries, a standard flying in the wind of change, for all too soon, the 9th will be no more. But a new regiment, a regiment of Lancers that will keep the best of the traditions and customs of both the 9th and 12th, from which it will be formed. For change can be a beginning as well as an end. None regrets the passing of fine old regiments more than the old comrades, the soldiers of yesteryear, who remember their days with the 9th. The withdrawal from France in 1940, the desert and El Alamein, and the smashing of the Gothic line. The 9th were in those places. And there are old Lancers here today who know what this historic last charge of the 9th back in 1914 was really like, for they were there. In the new army, the 9th Lancers will find their fresh place, for they can look forward as well as back. Forward into the 60s, they have their place in history, and their place of duty too, in tanks, as part of the NATO shield that guards the freedom of the West.