The Northumberland Fusiliers are the only regiment to celebrate St. George's Day, and are looked upon as the representative English infantry regiment in the British Army and their crest of St. George and the Dragon is unique.
All Fusilier regiments wear sealskin fusilier caps with distinctive plumes, and a grenade as a badge. The Royal Fusiliers is best known as the City of London Regiment, and has some peculiar privileges in consequence, one of these being the right to march through the City of London with fixed bayonets, colours flying, and drums beating, without first obtaining the permission of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. This privilege is shared by the Buffs, the Grenadier Guards and Royal Marines only.
The Norfolk Regiment has a curious crest, being the figure of Britannia as it used to appear on the copper coinage, and is the only regiment not having a Royal title, of which His Majesty is Colonel-in-Chief. The Lincolnshire Regiment was for some years after being raised the only British regiment of infantry to wear blue coats.
THE MINDEN REGIMENTS
The Suffolk Regiment was one of the six regiments of British infantry that performed the remarkable feat of charging and utterly destroying a column of French cavalry, superior in numbers to themselves. This was at Minden, the other five regiments being the Lancashire Fusiliers, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Hampshire Regiment and the Yorkshire Light Infantry. The regiments passed to the battlefield through gardens of roses in full bloom, and the soldiers picked the blossoms and fixed them in their hats, and in commemoration of their victory they enjoy the right of wearing roses in their head-dress on the anniversary of the battle.
The Prince Albert's Somerset Light Infantry has two peculiar distinctions, one being that it is the only regiment without a Royal title to wear blue for its facings, and the other being that the sergeants enjoy the right of wearing their sashes over the left shoulder the same as the officers, in commemoration of their devoted gallantry at the battle of Culloden, when the casualties among the officers were so numerous that the sergeants were left in command.
The Cheshire Regiment also enjoys a peculiar privilege, that of wearing oak leaves in its head-dress and as a wreath on its colour staves on all Royal ceremonial parades, in commemoration of its rally round its Sovereign who took shelter at a critical moment beneath an oak tree during the battle of Dettingen.
WELSH TRADITIONS
Among the peculiarities of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers is that of wearing a bunch of black ribbons fastened to the back of the collar. This is a survival of the patch of black leather which in former days was worn by all soldiers on the back to prevent the grease from the powdered pigtails from soiling the tunics. The regiment also enjoys the privilege, common to all Welsh regiments, of being led on parade by a goat, these animals being generally gifts from the Sovereign.
The South Wales Borderers have a highly-prized distinction, that of bearing a silver wreath of immortelles fastened to their King's colour, in commemoration of the devoted bravery of the regiment in the Zulu War.