75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment of Foot | |
---|---|
Active | 1787–1881 |
Country |
Kingdom of Great Britain United Kingdom (1801–1881) |
Branch | British Army |
Type | Infantry |
Size | One battalion |
Garrison/HQ | Dorchester Barracks |
Engagements |
Third Anglo-Mysore War Fourth Anglo-Mysore War Second Anglo-Maratha War Napoleonic Wars Indian Rebellion |
The 75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment of Foot, was a British Army line infantry regiment raised in 1787. It amalgamated with the 92nd (Gordon Highlanders) Regiment of Foot to form the Gordon Highlanders in 1881.
The regiment was raised in Stirling by Colonel Robert Abercromby for service in India as the 74th (Highland) Regiment of Foot in October 1787. In accordance with the Declaratory Act 1788 the cost of raising the regiment was recharged to East India Company on the basis that the act required that expenses "should be defrayed out of the revenues" arising there. First assembled in June 1788, the regiment proceeded to England and embarked for India arriving there by the end of the year. It saw action at the Siege of Seringapatam in February 1792 during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. It went on to fight at the Battle of Seedaseer in March 1799 and the Siege of Seringapatam in April 1799 during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War as well as the Siege of Bharatpur in January 1805 during the Second Anglo-Maratha War. It then returned home in August 1806 and then lost its Highland status due to recruiting difficulties, becoming the 75th Regiment of Foot in April 1809.
The regiment embarked for Jersey in June 1811 and was deployed to Messina in Sicily in October 1811. Internal dissensions in the Sicilian government and an ever-increasing suspicion that Queen Maria Carolina was in correspondence with the French Occupation of Sicily as its object had led to the appointment of Lord William Bentinck as British representative to the Court of Palermo in July 1811. Bentinck established a new constitution under which the Sicilians gained an autonomy they had never experienced before. The constitution set up the separation of the legislative and executive powers and abolished the feudalistic practices that had been established and recognised for the past 700 years. Bentinck went on to lead an Anglo-Sicilian force, involving the regiment, which raided the Calabrian coast in February 1813. The regiment transferred to the Ionian Islands in July 1814 and to Gibraltar in 1821 before returning to England in 1823.