British Regiments Serving in Colonial Australia

The 65th Regiment of Foot (2nd Yorkshire, North Riding)

Thanks to Noble Numismatics.

This regiment served in Australia from 1846-47. They were sent out on guard duty with convicts then went onto New Zealand, where they served until  September 1865.  Four hundred men accepted their discharge, and remained in Auckland.

A member of the 65th Regiment in New Zealand.

40th Regiment of Foot

Buttons in the Sovereign Hills Museum collection. Two of the backmarks are Jennens & Co, and S.Isaac Campbell & Co.

The Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser, 4th September 1823 page 2.

Small detachments were sent to New South Wales to relieve the 48th Regiment via convict ships in 1823. They also served in Van Diemen’s Land, were they were involved in hostilities against the aboriginal people. In 1828-9 the regiment left for Bombay.

In 1853 they returned to Australia and were quartered in Melbourne for the furnishing of companies to protect the goldfields.  Some companies of the 12th and 40th regiments were sent to Ballarat in early December 1854 to suppress the miner’s rebellion at Eureka Stockade on the morning of 3 December 1854. In 1860 they went to fight in the Maori Wars.

Battle of the Eureka Stockade. J. B. Henderson [1854] Watercolour

Photographs printed between 1940 and 1950 from originals between 1850 and 1900. From Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria.

Geelong Advertiser, 10th November 1900 page 2.
In the 1850s a detachment of the regiment had been stationed in a barracks at the site of the new orderly rooms.

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