THE KING’S COLONIALS IY MARCH

The original watercolour artwork was prepared by artist W George for the cover of Archibald Evans’s composition, The King’s Colonials IY March, a work composed and dedicated to HRH The Prince of Wales in 1899. The captions have been roughly drawn and an instruction to the printer can be seen at the top right-hand corner.

In November 1901, a notice appeared in the London Gazette to the effect that His Majesty King Edward VII had been graciously pleased to approve the formation of a regiment of yeomanry to be composed of colonials resident in the County of London. The new unit was to be called the 4th County of London (The King’s Colonials) Yeomanry, its four squadrons to be designated as: ‘A’ (British Asian), ‘B’ (British American), ‘C’ (Australasian) and ‘D’ (British African). The title of the regiment was in 1905, however, changed to the King’s Colonials Imperial Yeomanry.

Artist W George shows a mounted trooper holding a rifle on his knee wearing a slouch hat and ammunition bandolier. Badges are evident on both the headdress and collar, but these are unclear, their detail lacking. Individual squadrons wore their own distinctive insignia: an elephant for the British Asian Squadron, a beaver for the Americans and an ostrich for the South Africans. Two national emblems were adopted by ‘C’ Squadron which contained men from both Australia and New Zealand - a kangaroo and fern leaf.