Regimental Annuals

[Jonathan]

I own a Regimental Annual for the Sherwood Foresters (1935) which came with a sword I bought years ago--the owner of the sword was the editor of the Annual during that period. I Googled "regimental annual" and found a bit of information on and citations for other Sherwood Foresters Regimental Annuals. However, I was not able to find information on the publications of other regiments. It is my understanding the Sherwood Foresters' Regimental Annual was founded in 1909. Do any members familiar with such publications know if Regimental Annuals were widespread? Were there any others at all? With a founding date of 1909, would the Sherwood Foresters be among the first to publish an Annual? Any and all information on these would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Jonathan

[Maureene]

Hi Jonathon

The FIBIS Fibiwiki page British Army has a small section called Regimental Journals (in the section Other sources)
http://wiki.fibis.org/index.php?title=B ... er_sources

Some of these journals were published annually, some more frequently

It seems to have been quite common for Regimental journals to have been published from the 1890s onwards, although there were a few earlier ones eg St George’s Gazette, journal of the Northumberland Fusiliers,(previously 5th Regiment of Foot) was published from 1883.

There only seem to be a few available online , in particular there is a broken range of editions of The Rifle Brigade Chronicle , an annual publication, for the years 1890 to 1905 available online. (lLnks may be accessed from the above Fibiwiki page)

Cheers
Maureen

[Jonathan]

Thank you, Maureene. I guess "regimental annual" is a pretty narrow search--I should have known better! I will search for regimental journals and chronicles, too, and see what I can find. The 1935 Sherwood Foresters Regimental Annual is packed full of really wonderful information. The volume I own includes the results of spots competitions, biographies, event reports, updates on the activities of the battalions, articles on the history of he regiment ad its men, and quite a few photos and illustrations.

[heliwest]

The 67th Foot published a journal called "Our Chronicle" as early as 1878 and provides interesting material for their foray into Afghanistan with Lord Roberts. It covers both social and miltary reports. This seems to have been run by a corporal and was printed. Later the Hampshire regiment continued with this publication with their trips to Burma in the period 1885 - 1893. It then seems to have faded away. The regiment then officially published a regimental magazine from 1904 until 1992 when it was subsumed into the PWRR. Originally this came out monthly and at the end was produced three times a year but was not published in the 2WW. The first edition contained a report of the battle of Jidballi which was probably the last time the Briish Army fought in a square

Joe West

[Maureene]

Joe, are you aware of any libraries which hold copies of Our Chronicle for the years 1885-1893?

Two volumes of the publication ''Our Chronicle: Published Monthly by the 67th (South Hants) Regiment “appear in Google Books. Unfortunately these volumes are not accessible to me, but they are probably accessible to those in North America, and some other countries. If anyone is able to read these books, please consider downloading them to the website Archive.org so that they are accessible to those who cannot read them on Google Books.

*''Our Chronicle: Published Monthly by the 67th (South Hants) Regiment, Issues 1-48''
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=0aU ... frontcover

* ''Our Chronicle: Published Monthly by the 67th (South Hants) Regiment, Issues 49-83''.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=I6Y ... frontcover
A reprint of the latter publication is available to buy through Amazon.co.uk

The above links appear in the FIBIS Fibiwiki Page 67th Regiment of Foot
http://wiki.fibis.org/index.php?title=6 ... nt_of_Foot

Cheers
Maureen

[Jonathan]

I posted a clipping from "Our Chronicle" here:

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6947

I will look into uploading to archive.org.

[heliwest]

Maureen

The Regimental Museum of the Royal Hampshire Regt , telephone 01962 863658 has copies.12 years ago I visited an old man in Naboomspruit in South Africa and he had the full copies. His grandfather had been the adjutant of the 67th in Kabul in 1878. He also showed me a very large silver cup which was the Bala Hissar cup which grandad had won in 1878 at Kabul for horse racing. Apparently all the officers there had contributed silver rupees and had a cup made by a local silversmith for the race.

[Maureene]

Thanks Joe for this information. It must have been facinating visiting the old man in South Africa.

Jonathan, it would be great if you could make uploads to archive.org

On archive.org there are FAQs including “Texts and Books” ‘I'd like to upload a book. What format should it be in?’
http://archive.org/about/faqs.php#Texts_and_Books

For hints and problems there are Forums, including a "Text Archive Forum" , where there seems to be a moderator answering questions
http://archive.org/details/texts#forum

An example from this forum is
http://archive.org/post/397318/bad-google-download-urls which also says “User tpb has uploaded nearly 1 million Google Books to Internet Archive”

There is also "The Forum Forum" http://archive.org/iathreads/forums.php#forum

Cheers
Maureen

[FROGSMILE]

Hi Jonathon

The FIBIS Fibiwiki page British Army has a small section called Regimental Journals (in the section Other sources)
http://wiki.fibis.org/index.php?title=B ... er_sources

Some of these journals were published annually, some more frequently

It seems to have been quite common for Regimental journals to have been published from the 1890s onwards, although there were a few earlier ones eg St George’s Gazette, journal of the Northumberland Fusiliers,(previously 5th Regiment of Foot) was published from 1883.

There only seem to be a few available online , in particular there is a broken range of editions of The Rifle Brigade Chronicle , an annual publication, for the years 1890 to 1905 available online. (lLnks may be accessed from the above Fibiwiki page)

Cheers
Maureen

I would like to endorse this information. During my service with the infantry I did not see a single regiment that did not have a 'Regimental Journal' (as they were most commonly called during my time). Each regiment's journal would have a specific title and these sometimes referred to a part of that regiment's iconography (e.g. "The Tiger"), or some other unique feature of its history. Amalgamated regiments tried to retain reminders of their forebear regiments and the few regiments that had not been amalgamated (at that time just five: Royal Scots, Green Howards, Cheshires, Royal Welch Fusiliers and King's Own Scottish Borderers) often had an unbroken run of journals going back over a century. My own regiment's (RWF's) journal was titled "Y Ddraig Goch" (i.e. The Red Dragon) and the Royal Regiment of Wales's journal was titled "Men of Harlech".

For many deacades most (but not all) of the Journals were published by the Army's most prolific unofficial publishers based at Aldershot - Gale and Polden Ltd, but after that company's demise, in 1981, the source of suitable publishing became more problematic and fragmented. From that time onwards the quality of some of the journals fluctuated, but as colour printing developed and computer based printing began, the publications took on a new life.

Although almost all journals began as annual issues, there were periods when some were printed bi-annually or even quarterly. Larger regiments (e.g. KRR, and RB) were wealthier and were always able to produce first class publications. Indeed, the KRR and RB Chronicles were published in hardback from the outset and certainly continued as such for a very long time. Very few other regiments could afford this.

As well as Regimental Journals, several regiments produced 'newspapers' during various campaigns and RWF produced such a periodical titled "The Flash" during WW1, WW2, and in Northern Ireland as late as the 1980s.

All of the foregoing are useful as historical documents.

You can see a typical contemporary journal online here: http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/genera ... tion_1.pdf