1st The Royal Dragoons

[3] For the next few years, the regiment defended Tangier, which had been acquired by the English Crown through the marriage of King Charles II to Catherine of Braganza in April 1662, from Moorish cavalry.

The regiment was disbanded in late 1679 and three of its captains, John Coy, Thomas Langston and Charles Nedby, along with their troopers, went out to Tangier in 1680 as reinforcements.

[4] It served under Viscount Wellesley, as the rearguard during the retreat to the Lines of Torres Vedras in September 1810, and charged the enemy at the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro in May 1811 during the Peninsular War.

[4] The regiment also took part in the charge of the Union Brigade under the command of Major-General William Ponsonby at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 during the Hundred Days Campaign.

[7] The regiment, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Yorke, also took part in the charge of the heavy brigade at the Battle of Balaclava in October 1854 during the Crimean War.

[8] From June 1900 to April 1901 the regiment was employed guarding the Buffalo River and the Transvaal approaches to the Drakensberg, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Sclater-Booth.

Following the end of the war, 623 officers and men of the regiment left South Africa on the SS Kildonan Castle, which arrived at Southampton in October 1902.

[3] It was deployed to the Western Desert as the Reconnaissance Regiment for the 1st Armoured Division in December 1941;[12] its men were the first troops to enter Benghazi later that month, before seeing action again at the Battle of Gazala in May 1942.

[4] It became the Reconnaissance Regiment for the 10th Armoured Division in September 1942 and helped to destroy the enemy supply columns at the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942.

[3] It returned home in October 1962 and then deployed troops to Cyprus in February 1964 before transferring to Hobart Barracks in Detmold in January 1965.

A private of the 1st Royal Dragoons ( David Morier , 1750)
The 1st Dragoons at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815
Regimental guidons, 1840
Uniform of the 1st Dragoons, 1839
Rough Rider Robert Droash of the 1st Royal Dragoons after serving in the Crimean War in 1856
Civilians ride on a Daimler armoured car of the 1st Royal Dragoons as it enters the town of Haderslev in Denmark , 7 May 1945