PREFACE THE larger share of the credit for the work in the following pages is due to the late Admiral Colomb, who was asked some twelve years ago by Colonel Hooke, who was then commanding the 1st battalion Sherwood Foresters, formerly the 45th regiment, to undertake the task. The undertaking was by no means a light one; Admiral Colomb was practically asked to make bricks without straw, as hardly any material was forthcoming. But he manfully faced the work, and at the time of his death had collected a large part of the material necessary, and constructed the history for a period of nearly one hundred years. When I was asked some years later by Colonel Hume, who had succeeded to the command of the regiment, to complete the work for press, I found the task as light as it was congenial. The admirable work done by Admiral Colomb was handed over to me, and I had only to select from the material collected by him such facts as I considered essential to a true and succinct account of the doings of the regiment, and after verification to arrange them in the form in which they now appear. For the period subsequent to 1859, for which I could obtain no records or material of any sort, I am largely indebted to the kind assistance of officers of the regiment who were serving during that period, and should like to express my especial obligation, among others, to MajorGeneral Hayward, Captain Reeve-King, Captain Patterson, and the late Major Higgins, without whose friendly help I should indeed have been in a difficult position. I have also been much indebted to Mr. Wilfred Brinton for his kind loan of a book entitled, "The British Army: As it is and as it ought to be," by Major Campbell, an adjutant of the 45th regiment during the Peninsular War, from which I have been able to collect many interesting incidents affecting the regiment. The illustration of the monument to the regiment at Secunderabad is from a sketch by the late Major Baldwin, R.E., while Mr. Frank Wallis has been responsible for the pictures illustrating the uniform of the regiment at different periods. It is in the hope that the records of untarnished honour and uniform soldierlike and good behaviour, in peace as well as on the battlefield, which these pages contain, may arouse feelings of pride in those who have borne their share in them in the past, and call forth a spirit of emulation in those who, as the successors of the old 45th regiment, have now in their hands the power to add fresh lustre to the laurels gained by their predecessors-a hope which, I am bold enough to say, has been amply fulfilled in South Africa. -I dedicate this short history to the memory of sixteen years spent in the old regiment, with a confident trust in the kindly criticism of all into whose hands the book may fall. MAY, 1902. P. H. DALBIAC. |
