The Marches



X

XV von England

(15 von England)

15th Regiment of Foot / The East Yorkshire Regiment

The 15th Regiment of Foot, later the East Yorkshire Regiment nicknamed the Snappers from the War of American Independence (1777) fame. In 1907 a German professor re-discovered the music and pasted onto Bandmaster Turner (1st Bn) and was used at the end of programmes. The East Yorkshire Regiment used it until the 1958 amalgamation forming the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire.

Y

Yo Nepali

The Gurkhas

Gurkhas are best known for their history of bravery and strength in the British Army's Brigade of Gurkhas. The Gurkhas have always shown courage, loyalty, self sufficient, physical strength, resilience and orderliness. They have been awarded twenty-six (26) Victoria Crosses with the first in 1858 and the last in 1965. There have been two (2) George Cross medals awarded to Gurkha soldiers, for acts of bravery in situations that have not involved combat.

York and Lancaster

1st Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment

The 1st Battalion The York and Lancaster Regiment (65th Foot) adopted this march named after the regiment that was composed around 1855 by former Royal Marine Bandmaster Thomas Winterbottom.

York and Lancaster Slow March

84th Regiment of Foot / York and Lancaster Regiment

The 1860s slow march known as The Long Valley Stride was composed by Bandmaster Bonnisseau of the 84th Foot and used for Officers’ Dinner Nights but was later adopted as the slow march of the York and Lancaster Regiment.

Yorkshire Lass

(My Pretty Yorkshire Lass / The East Yorkshire March Past)

15th Regiment of Foot / East Yorkshire Regiment (Duke of York’s Own) / Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire

Although a 1870s music hall song sung by George Leybourne as My Pretty Yorkshire Lass it has been the unofficial anthem of the East Riding and one of the regimental marches of The Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire often called The East Yorkshire Marchpast.

The 15th Regiment of Foot, raised during the Manmouth Rebellion, was twice stationed at Fort Henry, Kingston Ontario and was with General Wolfe during the capture of Louisburg and Quebec. The regiment became the 15th or York, East Riding Regiment in 1782 and later the East Yorkshire Regiment in 1881. In 1881 the Army decreed that each regiment should have a march from its own county. Bandmaster James Murdock asked the bandsmen if they of a good Yorkshire song that could be used. L/Cpl Powell suggested My Pretty Yorkshire Lass that was popularized by a music hall star George Laybourne. Noting the tune the bandmaster started right away to transform it into a quick march and the regiment began using the next day.

The music was composed by George Grainger with words by Frank Egerton and was known by The Yorkshire Lass. In 1935 the regiment was granted the secondary title The Duke of York’s Own and co-ensided with the Silver Jubilee of King George V and the 250th anniversary of the raising of the regiment. In 1958 the regiment amalgamated with the West Yorkshire Regiment to form the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire and at that time the march was combined with Ca Ira to create the new regimental march.

Young May Moon

(The Dandy, O!)

6th Queen Elizabeth Own Gurkha Rifles / 10th Royal Hussars / 22nd Regiment of Foot / 63rd Regiment of Foot / Cheshire Regiment / Royal Berkshire Regiment / Sherwood Foresters / Simcoe Foresters / Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters

This English folk song as was also known as The Dandy O taken from the opera Robin Hood composed by William Shield in 1784. Several regiments adopted it over the years for different reasons: the 10th Royal Hussars - dismounted march; 22nd Regiment of Foot later the Cheshire Regiment, prior to 1881, as a regimental march; 63rd Regiment of Foot (The Manchester Regiment) used the tune until amalgamated to become the King’s Regiment when it discontinued; Royal Berkshire Regiment (Princess Charlotte of Wales’s) used it before the 1959 amalgamation that created The Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment; and the 6th Queen Elizabeth Own Gurkha Rifles used the march for their band

Prior to their amalgamation with 95th Foot the 45th foot had adopted it after the Battle of Badajor then passed it onto the Sherwood Foresters that combined it with I’m NinetyFive. The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters continued its use in combination with The Royal Windsor.

In Canada, the Simcoe Foresters had adopted it but was not retained during the 1936 amalgamtion with the Grey Regiment forming the Grey and Simcoe Foresters.

Yukon Regiment

Yukon Regiment

The Yukon Regiment was formed at Whitehorse, Yukon Territories in May 1962 and although it had no direct predecessors was not the first military unit to be stationed in the Yukon.

The Yukon Field Force was a composite unit of the Permanent Active Militia in 1898 and provided support to the Royal Northwest Mounted Police during the Gold Rush. It became known as the Yukon Garrison and was withdrawn in 1900. On 1 Jul 1900, the Dawson Rifle Company was organized in Dawson City as a member of the Non-Permanent Active Militia, which was disbanded on 2 Nov 1905.

During WW1 the Yukon Infantry Company and Yukon Motor Machine Gun Battery were formed eventually becoming "A" Battery and "C" Battery of the 2nd Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigade, part of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps. George Black (later Speaker of the House of Commons) had telegraphed the Minister of Militia offering to raise a Yukon Regiment. Receiving no reply, he travelled personally to Ottawa and Hughes told him - raise a battalion and he would be made a colonel. He was able to recruit 226 men that became the Yukon Infantry Company. They sailed from Halifax in Jan 1917 and received training in England but were renamed the 17th Machine Gun Company. They went to France as "C" Battery of the 2nd Canadian Machine Gun Brigade. Black was wounded at Amiens and returned to Canada in 1919 and later won the Yukon's seat in the House of Commons and made Speaker in 1930 by R.B. Bennett.

During WW2 No. 135 Company of the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers was stationed in Dawson. In the 1960s, the 19th Alberta Dragoons had a Squadron ("C" Squadron) located in Whitehorse were relocated to Edmonton, AB. The Regiment served in Whitehorse from 19 May 1962 until it was reduced to nil strength and placed on the Supplementary Order of Battle on 15 Jun 1968. During its short regimental life the regiment used this march.

Z

Zachmi Dil

King’s Regiment (Liverpool) / Staffordshire Regiment

In the British Army this march was also known as Pathan March or Pathan Song translated means The Wounded Heart. One version is said to have begun: ‘There's a boy across the river / With a bottom like a peach / But alas-I cannot swim’.

During the Indian Mutiny in the Northwest Frontier English troops were entertained by loyal native musicians using different instruments such as the surnas and drums and played a variety of music including Scot and Irish tunes. Major Dick Smith, a former band sergeant of the Middlesex Regiment wrote: “Before mechanization, a unit marched for miles, sometimes hundreds of miles, behind its Corps of Drums and its Band, and what a brightening of faces and added spring to the step there was once the music struck up. To pay another unit a compliment, the Band would send to march it into, or away from the Garrison. At the end of a long and tiring march on one occasion, the Battalion was marching to its encampment by Dhond, in India, when it was met the pipe band of the Rajputana Rifles who played ‘Zachmi Dil.’. The pipes and the rhythmic beat of the drums had the Battalion that had just previously been dog tired, swinging along with backs straight and heads erect as if it was just starting a march instead of finishing one of long duration.”

Raised in 1685 as the Princess Anne of Denmark’s Regiment, the King’s Regiment (Liverpool) used the slow march until the 1958 amalgamation with the Manchester Regiment forming the King’s Regiment with the march not being adopted. The Staffordshire Regiment adopted it for an Assembly March because the 2nd North Staffords had used while serving in the 1912 North West Frontier.

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