Second World War The Cheshire Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment that can trace its history back to 1797 when Sir John Leicester of Tabley raised a county regiment of light cavalry in response to the growing fears of invasion from Napoleonic France.

[2] The Peterloo Massacre of 16 August 1819 was the result of a cavalry charge into the crowd at a public meeting at Saint Peters Field, in Manchester, England.

The troops included 600 men of the 15th Hussars; several hundred infantrymen; a Royal Horse Artillery unit with two six-pounder (2.7 kg) guns; 400 men of the Cheshire Yeomanry, 400 special constables and 120 cavalry of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, relatively inexperienced militia recruited from among shopkeepers and tradesmen.

[3] The Yeomanry was not intended to serve overseas, but due to the string of defeats during Black Week in December 1899, the British government realized they were going to need more troops than just the regular army.

[5] The mounted infantry experiment was considered a success and the existing yomenary regiments were converted to IY in 1901, the regiment becoming Cheshire Imperial Yeomanry (Earl of Chester's); the word 'Imperial' was dropped in 1908 when the yeomanry were transferred to the Territorial Force (TF).

[8] The 1/1st Cheshire Yeomanry was mobilised with the Welsh Border Mounted Brigade on 4 August 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War.

[11] The brigade was with the Suez Canal Defences when, on 14 January 1917, Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) Order No.

Here, the dismounted Yeomanry underwent training for service on the Western Front, particularly trench warfare and gas defence.

[17] With the end of the war, the troops of 74th Division were engaged in railway repair work and education was undertaken while demobilisation began.

It joined the 2/1st Welsh Border Mounted Brigade in the Newcastle area of Northumberland in January 1915[18] (along with the 2/1st Shropshire Yeomanry[19] and the 2/1st Denbighshire Hussars[18]).

[11] In April 1916, it moved with its brigade to East Anglia where it joined the 1st Mounted Division; it replaced its 1st Line which had departed (dismounted) for Egypt.

[27] On May Day 1947, the Cheshire Yeomanry reformed as an armoured regiment, equipped with Cromwell and Comet tanks.

This lasted until 1999, when the regiment, as part of the Strategic Defence Review, was amalgamated into the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry.

[2] The RMLY's mission was to provide Challenger 2 (CR2) War Establishment Reserves (WER) to the Regular Army.

[29] The Cheshire Yeomanry was awarded the following battle honours (honours in bold are emblazoned on the regimental colours):[30] Honorary Distinction: Badge of the Royal Corps of Signals with year-date "1945" and scroll "North-West Europe" The full dress uniform of the Cheshire Yeomanry, worn prior to World War I, closely resembled that of the regular hussar regiments of the British Army.

In an unusual combination collar facings were red while overall (tight cavalry trousers) stripes were white.

[31] The plain khaki service dress of the regular cavalry was worn from about 1907 onwards, replacing the blue uniform for nearly all occasions after 1914.