The Service companies of the 1st Battalion sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the ‘Stakesley’ and ‘Katherine Stewart Forbes,’ on August 20 and 26, 1836, and arrived at Chatham and disembarked on September 15 and 29, and occupied quarters there.
The Depôt companies had sailed from Jersey in the ‘Katherine Stewart Forbes’ on May 24, and arrived at Gosport on the 28th, where they disembarked, and were quartered in Fort Monckton till June 17; when they crossed to Portsmouth, and occupied Forehouse barracks, with detachments at Tipner and Hilsea.
On August 1 the Depôt companies marched from Portsmouth, through Chichester, Petworth, East Grinstead, and arrived at Chatham on the 8th to await the arrival of the Service companies; and on their landing on September 15 and 29, they were again reunited into a Battalion of ten companies.
No change took place in the quarters of the Service companies of the 2nd Battalion, except the occasional relief of the many detachments they furnished from Cephalonia. But the Depôt companies in September embarked at Guernsey for Dover, where they awaited the arrival of the Service companies, and were reunited with them on their arrival in June following.
Early in the year 1836 Lieutenant Wilbraham,[188] then Adjutant of the 1st Battalion, was selected to proceed to Persia, with eight sergeants of the Rifle Brigade, in charge of two thousand stand of rifles, intended by the Foreign Office as a present to the Shah on his accession to the throne. Four of these sergeants, belonging to the 1st Battalion, were sent out from England; the other four, belonging to the 2nd Battalion, joined the expedition at Cephalonia, where their Battalion was then stationed.
Lieutenant Wilbraham was promoted in July 1836 to an unattached company, and subsequently the local rank of Lieutenant-Colonel was conferred upon him. For nearly three years he and the eight sergeants were employed in organising and instructing the Persian troops, but at the end of that time a rupture took place between England and Persia, in consequence of the Shah’s advance upon Herat, and they returned to Europe. The rifles had under one pretext or another been withheld, as it was foreseen that they would probably be used against ourselves, but as they were too bulky to be carried, they were rendered useless by the removal of the locks, which were brought away.
Of the sergeants who were selected for this duty Sergeant Peter Macdonald afterwards rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and retired from the Service in 1865; and Colour-sergeant Johnson, 2nd Battalion, subsequently became Captain in the 41st Regiment, and died at Balaclava as Provost-Marshal of the Army.
The 1st Battalion marched from Chatham in two divisions on May 1 and 2, 1837, and arrived at Woolwich and Deptford on the 2nd and 3rd. Seven companies with Head-quarters were stationed at Woolwich, and three companies at Deptford.
During the time the Battalion was quartered at Woolwich, Lieutenant-Colonel William Eeles died in command of it on October 11. He had served in the Regiment thirty-two years, having been appointed to it in 1805; and had accompanied it through its Peninsular and other campaigns, and had been present at Waterloo. He was succeeded in the command of the Battalion by Lieutenant-Colonel Hope, who had been promoted after twenty-eight years’ service in the Rifles to the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the 21st Fusiliers; and was now brought back to his old Corps.