Due to its erstwhile association with the 1st Regiment of Foot, it is the senior Reserve line infantry battalion in the British Army.

[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] The 1st Battalion of the Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers were raised in 1860, and counted Boys' Brigade founder William Alexander Smith amongst its ranks.

[24] The various county battalions of Rifle Volunteers first became affiliated to a newly designated local regular Line Infantry Regiment with the Childers Reforms of 1881.

Notable 52nd Lowlanders who served during this period included footballer William Reid, motorcycle racer Jimmie Guthrie, Winston Churchill, who briefly commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in the "New Army" and John Reith, who was a subaltern with the 5th Battalion of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles).

Victoria Cross recipients John Brown Hamilton and David Ross Lauder served with the Glasgow Highlanders and the 4th RSF respectively.

VC recipient and Celtic player William Angus, also served with the antecedent 8th Royal Scots, as part of the 7th Division.

[35] The Division was initially part of the ill-fated Second British Expeditionary Force (BEF) landed in France in June 1940 under Field Marshal Alan Brooke, later being evacuated from the continent during Operation Aerial.

Instead the division was reassigned to the First Canadian Army, eventually landing at Ostend in October 1944, as part of the wider Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine.

[37] They were ordered to capture the vital Port of Antwerp and as a result were involved in the Battle of the Scheldt in Belgium and the Netherlands, which included Operation Vitality, Operation Infatuate and the ultimate capture of Walcheren Island, in order to open the mouth of the Scheldt estuary to Allied shipping.

[39] It was during this operation that Dennis Donnini of the 4/5th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers, was awarded the Victoria Cross, becoming the youngest winner of the VC during World War II.

[40] The division crossed the River Rhine at Xanten on 24 March 1945, eventually advancing as far as Bremen, where it fought its last battle of the war.

[43] British forces contracted dramatically as the end of National Service took place in 1960, as announced in the 1957 Defence White Paper.

[50] Throughout the remainder of the Cold War, the 1st Battalion of 52nd Lowland Volunteers, now based entirely in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, and the 2nd Battalion, based primarily in Edinburgh, the Lothians and Borders, trained for the NATO reinforcement role, with 1/52 LOWLAND's MILAN anti-tank missile platoon having a war role with the British Army of the Rhine in Germany.

D Company of the Lowland Volunteers also maintained the name and lineage of the Cameronians, however it changed its affiliation to the King's Own Scottish Borderers in 1997.

[57][58] The Lowland Band continues to take part in military and civilian events all over the UK and the world on behalf of 6 SCOTS and the Royal Regiment of Scotland, including the Battalion's annual Beating Retreat and Remembrance Day ceremonies in George Square, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and the Opening of the Scottish Parliament.

[68] From August 2007 until February 2008, 52nd Lowland deployed Bremen Platoon, a composite Force protection formation in support of 151st Transport Regiment, based at HQ ISAF, in the Kabul area of Afghanistan, as part of Operation Herrick VII, on a 6-month Roulement.

This was the first complete 52nd Lowland sub-unit formation deployed since the Second World War and the platoon received a commendation from ISAF commander General McNeill.