Finsbury Rifles

Finsbury Rifles 11th Battalion, London Regiment 61st (Middlesex) Heavy AA Regiment 12th (Finsbury Rifles) Light AA Regiment
Cap badge of the Finsbury Rifles
Active	6 March 1860–1 May 1961
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Volunteer Force/Territorial Army
Type	Infantry Battalion Anti-Aircraft Regiment
Size
Garrison/HQ	Penton Street drill hall, Pentonville
Nickname(s)	Pentonville Pissers
Motto(s)	Pro aris et focis ('For hearth and home')
Engagements	Gallipoli Campaign Palestine Mesopotamian Campaign Western Front Battle of Britain The Blitz North African Campaign Sicily Campaign Italian Campaign
Commanders
Notable commanders

The Finsbury Rifles was a unit of Britain's Volunteer Force and later Territorial Army from 1860 to 1961. It saw action at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front during World War I. In World War II it served in the Anti-Aircraft (AA) role during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, then in North Africa, Sicily and Italy.

The unit began as the Clerkenwell Rifles, formed in the Clerkenwell and Finsbury districts of London during the invasion scare of 1859–60 that led to the creation of hundreds of Rifle Volunteer Corps (RVCs). It was adopted by the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex as the 39th Middlesex RVC, and he issued the first officers' commissions on 6 March 1860, the commanding officer (CO) being Lieutenant-Colonel Colvill, Governor of Coldbath Fields Prison and a former Captain in the 71st Foot. The corps was based at 16 Cold Bath Square, Clerkenwell. Colvill was later obliged to relinquish the command by the Middlesex magistrates, who considered it incompatible with his prison duties. He was replaced as CO by Major Henry Penton (1817–1882) of the 3rd (Royal Westminster) Middlesex Militia, a local landowner in Clerkenwell whose grandfather had developed the district of Pentonville. The unit's HQ later moved to 17 Penton Street in Pentonville, and it became known from the beery ways of its members as the 'Pentonville Pissers'.