Inns of Court & City and Essex Yeomanry | |
---|---|
Active | 1961–present |
Country | United Kingdom |
Branch | British Army |
Type | Signals |
Role | National Communications |
Size | Squadron |
Part of | Royal Corps of Signals |
Nickname(s) | The Ice Cream, Chocolate and Eclair Yeomanry |
Motto(s) | Salus Populi Suprema Lex ([our] paramount law is the wellbeing of the people) |
Colours | Guidon |
Mascot(s) | The Devil with spur |
Battle honours | South Africa 1900–02, France and Flanders 1918, Gallipoli 1915, Gaza |
Insignia | |
Identification symbol |
Arms of the four Inns of Court overlaid by Arms of the City of London |
The Inns of Court & City Yeomanry is the modern incarnation of several predecessor units of the British Army.
The Inns of Court & City Yeomanry (IC&CY) has its headquarters in Chancery Lane, London (pictured). It is the successor to three historic volunteer units, namely The Inns of Court Regiment (ICR), The City of London Yeomanry (COLY) and briefly 2010-14 also The Essex Yeomanry (EY), which has subsequently been reformed in its own right.
The Inns of Court & City Yeomanry (IC&CY) was formed only in 1961, through the amalgamation of The Inns of Court Regiment (The Devil's Own) and The City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders). But it can trace its direct roots back at least to the first written records of the former in 1584, when 95 members of The Inns of Court entered into a solemn pledge to defend Queen Elizabeth I against the threat of Spain's Armada.
Just like today, many volunteers were recruited among the legal community at times of national peril, and so it was at an inspection in Hyde Park in 1803, during the Napoleonic Wars, that George III is reputed to have styled such a litigious body as 'The Devil's Own' – a title that lives on today.
By mid-nineteenth century, the Inns of Court Regiment (ICR) had evolved from a Volunteer Rifle Corps. The other half of the unit, The City of London Yeomanry, was raised from volunteers of the 20th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry only in the late 1890s, and served with distinction in the Second Boer War in South Africa. Its nickname, The Rough Riders was taken from a famous body of volunteer horsemen who fought in the Spanish–American War of 1898.
During the period prior to 1967, the IC&CY served as an armoured car regiment (as did many other Yeomanry units). The 1967 reorganisation of the TA then led to the regiment being reduced to an infantry company, and assigned as A Company (Inns of Court and City Yeomanry), the London Yeomanry and Territorials.