Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars

Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars
Badge and service cap as worn at the outbreak of World War II
Active	1794–2007
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Yeomanry
Size	Regiment [World Wars] Two Squadrons [Present day]
Part of	Royal Armoured Corps Royal Signals
Battle honours	World War II No battle honours were awarded. It is tradition within artillery units that the Regiment's guns represent its colours and battle honours.

The Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars was a Yeomanry regiment of the British Army. First raised in 1794, it participated in the Second Boer War and World War I as horsed cavalry before being converted to an anti-tank regiment of the Royal Artillery for service in World War II. In 1956 it was amalgamated with the Warwickshire Yeomanry to form the Queen's Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry.

The Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars were formed in 1794, as the Worcestershire Yeomanry, when King George III, was on the throne, William Pitt the Younger was the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and across the English Channel, Britain was faced by a French nation that had recently guillotined its King and possessed a revolutionary army numbering half a million men. The Prime Minister proposed that the counties form a force of Volunteer Yeomanry Cavalry which could be called on by the King to defend the country against invasion or by the Lord Lieutenant to subdue any civil disorder within the country.

Worcestershire responded quickly - the first troop paraded in front of the Unicorn Inn in Worcester on 25 October 1794 under the command of Captain John Somers-Cocks and Lieutenant Thomas Spooner.

With the threat of a French invasion having receded after the signing of the Peace of Amiens in 1802 the King commended the Worcestershire Yeomanry for their "honourable distinction in forming an essential part of the defence of the country against a foreign enemy in circumstances of extraordinary emergency".