Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry

The Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry was a Yeomanry Cavalry regiment of the British Army with its origins in 1798. The regiment provided troops for the Imperial Yeomanry during the Second Boer War and served on the Western Front in the First World War, latterly as infantry. The regiment converted to artillery in 1920 and served as such in the early years of the Second World War, before becoming part of the Chindits in Burma. Postwar, it served as a gunner regiment until 1971, when the title disappeared.

French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

After Britain was drawn into the French Revolutionary Wars, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger proposed in 1794 that the counties should form a force of Volunteer Yeoman Cavalry (Yeomanry) that 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 county. By the end of the year, 27 counties, mainly in the invasion-threatened South and Midlands of England, had raised Yeomanry. In the spring of 1798 the threat of invasion seemed more acute, and the government encouraged the formation of local armed associations of cavalry and infantry for purely local defence. The first independent Yeomanry Troops now appeared in Cumberland:

Eskdale Five Kirks Yeomanry Cavalry, 16 October 1798

Cumberland Yeomanry Cavalry, 25 October 1798

Penrith Yeomanry Cavalry, 15 October 1801

All the Volunteer Cavalry were disbanded after the Treaty of Amiens, but the peace was short-lived, and on the resumption of war a new cavalry troop, the Cumberland Rangers, was raised on about 18 May 1803. The Eskdale Five Kirks and Cumberland Cavalry troops were reformed in 1806.

19th century

After Waterloo the main role for the Yeomanry was to suppress civil disorder (they were paid while on duty).