The following year witnessed the death of another venerable institution, namely, of the “churns” carried by farriers. The name transports us to the days when farriers alone of cavalry men were dressed in blue and were armed with axes. The reintroduction of knee-boots, after an exile of sixty years, also revived, though in a different fashion, the memory of early days.
1873.
The year 1873 likewise brought with it a reversion to primitive times in the shape of an order that greater attention should be paid to dismounted duty, the cavalry being now armed with the Snider carbine. This did not immediately affect the Seventeenth, which as yet possessed no carbines, but it was destined to do so before long. 1875. Two years later came another reform, this time in the matter of drill. The old system of standing pivots, or as it was called the “pivot system,” was abolished, and the “Evolutions” of 1759 lost their influence on cavalry drill for ever.
While all these changes were going forward the Seventeenth was quartered in Ireland, whither reform after reform pursued it across St. George’s Channel. Being in Ireland it was, of course, called in to aid the civil power (Mallow election, 1872) but was spared the trouble of dealing with any disturbance. 1876. In 1876 it was brought over to England for mobilisation with the 5th Army Corps. Having called attention to the disavowal or attempted disavowal of the words Troop and Cornet, one cannot do less than emphasise the introduction of the comparatively strange terms, Mobilisation and Army Corps, which here confront the regiment for the first time. The Seventeenth was encamped on Pointingdown Downs in Somerset for a few weeks, and was reviewed with the 5th Army Corps on the 22nd July. As it is unlikely that the Seventeenth Lancers will ever again form part of a 5th Army Corps (for it is not often that England is so rich in army-corps) it seems well to record so unique an experience in a not uneventful career.
In this same year the Lancers’ tunic was embellished with a plastron of the colour of the regimental facings,—a change which made the dress of the Seventeenth, by general admission, the smartest in the Army. The plastron being an essential feature in the uniform of the German Uhlan, is presumably imitated from Napoleon’s Polish Lancers. No one will quarrel with so smart a dress; but it is nevertheless a little curious that the whole world should go to Poland for its Lancer fashions. The lance may be called the oldest of cavalry weapons, at least it can demonstrably be traced back beyond the days of Alexander the Great; and its present vogue is simply a return, and a late return, to an old favourite. Its reputation as the queen of cavalry weapons is not one century, but many centuries old; and though it was for a time driven out of the field by firearms, it may be said never to have wanted champions. I have found the lance advocated, for instance, by a French military writer in 1748, and by an English colonel, Dalrymple, in 1761. In 1590 the best authorities swore by it.
1876.
In 1876, likewise, came two more changes—the one temporary and the other permanent. The first was the issue of six carbines to every troop, a sign of a further change to come. The second was the appointment of the Duke of Cambridge to be Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment, which from henceforth is designated the “Duke of Cambridge’s Own.” In the early days of the Army it was customary on all occasions to insert the colonel’s name after the regimental number; and thus it has been easy to identify the 18th (Hale’s) Light Dragoons of 1759 with the present Seventeenth Lancers. The only colonels whose names enjoyed the distinction in the Seventeenth were Hale, Preston, and Gage. The Duke’s name is now permanently bound with that of the regiment, a connection whereof, we trust, he will ever have good reason to feel proud.
1877.
After staying at Aldershot until August 1877, the Seventeenth marched north to Leeds and Preston. After some service in aid of the civil power, which brought it at Clitheroe in collision with a mob of cotton operatives on strike, 1878. it returned to Aldershot in July 1878. A month later Colonel Drury Lowe retired, and was succeeded by Colonel Gonne. The Adjutant, Lieutenant John Brown, also resigned, but remained with the regiment as paymaster with the rank of captain.
In 1878 a change was made in the armament of the Seventeenth which takes us back to the earliest days of the British army. Martini-Henry carbines were issued, and pistols returned into store. Carbines, of course, were no new thing in the regiment, though they had been unknown therein since they were withdrawn (weapons very different from the Martini) in 1823. The bound from the old flint-lock to the Martini is remarkable; but the abolition of the pistol is even more noteworthy, for the pistol was a direct survival from the days of the Ironsides. Quite unconsciously the five regiments of Lancers carried the armament of Cromwell’s troopers into the forty-first year of Queen Victoria. 1878. As a weapon the pistol had long been regarded as of no account: it was a muzzle loader to the last, and as but ten rounds annually were allowed to each man for practice therewith, it was hardly taken seriously as a weapon at all. Still the abandonment of the pistol, as a point of historical interest, deserves at least so much notice. Sergeant-majors, and trumpeters were now provided with revolvers, a change which was fated to have serious influence on the careers of two officers of the regiment.