"Bringing out the big guns: the Percies’ wall pieces" Topic

"This rather wonderful watercolour (click all images to enlarge) turned up on eBay a while ago, offered as a scene of unidentified military training. (The seller's "watermark" still disfigures the cropped details further below, but I've cleaned up the full image digitally, if a bit amateurishly. Enough to give us some idea of the original, anyway.)

The cap insignia and the pantaloons, or "gaiter-trousers", of white duck are the give-aways. These solemn farmers in rifle outfits are the riflemen of the Percy Tenantry, that outsized and distinctly feudal legion of volunteers first commanded by Hugh Percy, Second Duke of Northumberland. (Their regimental roll, sealed in a glass tube, still sits within the foundation stone of the equally outsized and distinctly feudal memorial column erected in his Lordship's honour in Alnwick in 1816.) Massively out-legioning the rival Cheviot Legion of Northumberland, the Tenantry by 1805 had ballooned to six troops of cavalry, a company of flying artillery and a full seventeen companies of rifles. A surprisingly large quantity of their bits and pieces still survives, providing a highlight for visitors to Alnwick Castle.

The painting is captioned at lower right in one hand "Military Exercise", and in another "By T Rogers". On page 435 of the first volume of Mackenzie's Historical, Topographical and Descriptive View of the County of Northumberland … of 1825, appears a brief input on the neglect of local harbour facilities by "an obliging correspondent, Mr Thomas Rogers". As an keen observer of the local scene, Thomas Rogers of Long Houghton, then a "straggling village" just four miles from Alnwick, may have been our mystery watercolourist…"

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Armand

Interesting. Thanks!

Yes indeed most interesting. Thanks T.

A votre service mes amis…

Armand

Sharpshooter boots and more new stuff

At the close of 1803 court reports in the British press noted the presentation to the King of:

Captain Barber, of the Duke of Cumberland's Sharpshooters, or Rifle Corps … The Captain, although contrary to the etiquette of the Court, wore his cap, pantaloons, and boots, or high-laced shoes, for the inspection of his Majesty, who wished to see him in the full uniform of the corps…"

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Armand

The weapons appear to be wall pieces, which had to be supported when employed as they were larger and heavier than either an infantry musket or a rifle.

I don't know about the fellas in the middle. You should never use another mans ram rod!

(smile)

Armand

"Bringing out the big guns: the Percies' wall pieces"

"Keen sighted readers will already have noticed the outsized firearms – each carried by two men – being walked out with their tripods. These are the famed rifled "wall pieces" – one for each of the seventeen companies – issued from the Tower in 1806. Three men from each company were detailed to "learn the Great Guns Exercise", training for at least a week per year under Captain John Toppin of the artillery company."

I wonder if the 'Great Guns were returned to the Tower when the national emergency was over, or whether some of the seventeen- count 'em- were squirrelled away into the cellars of Alnwick or elsewhere on 'the wide Percy estates.

(I wonder if the plural of Percy might not be 'Percys')

The second Duke is best known to us Americans by his youthful courtesy title, Earl Percy. He is remembered on this side of the pond as the commander of the brigade dispatched to the aid of Colonel Smith's command after the battles of Lexington and Concord- a function he performed very ably, by all accounts.

Not to mention the battle of Long Island and the fighting to secure Manhattan. He did not get on with General Howe and return to Britain in 1777 was a loss to the army.

The Fifth Regiment under his colonelcy (1768-84) was smart and effective, not least when parading in their illegal bearskin caps. Their subsequent county title of Northumberland was due to his involvement with the regiment