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Friday, January 10, 2014

Waterloo Highlanders: The 42nd Regiment of Foot

Hi Guys
A break from ACW stuff today and a look at something 'Napoleonic'.
Here is the freshly based 42nd Regiment of Foot, (The Black Watch) as painted by my very talented mate 'Gunner Dunbar'. They are almost all VICTRIX 28mm Plastics except for the Rude Highlander flashing his backside at those pesky French. He is a metal miniature from Westfalia Miniatures.
 
You can see the 'Hard Campaigning' Highlanders that Gunner Dunbar painted for me earlier HERE

I've included some regimental history notes as I found on Wikipedia.
Early History
After the Jacobite rising of 1715 the British government did not have the resources or manpower to keep a standing army in the Scottish Highlands. As a result, they were forced to keep order by recruiting men from local Highland clans that had been loyal to the Whigs. This proved to be unsuccessful in deterring crime, especially cattle rustling. Therefore Independent Highland Companies (of what would be known as the "Black Watch") were raised as a militia in 1725 by General George Wade to keep "watch" for crime. He was commissioned to build a network of roads to help in the task. The six Independent Highland Companies were recruited from local clans, with one company coming from Clan Munro, one from Clan Fraser, one from Clan Grant and three from Clan Campbell. These companies were commonly known as Am Freiceadan Dubh, or the Black Watch, this name may well have been due to the way they dressed. Four more companies were added in 1739 to make a total of ten Independent Highland Companies.
The ten Independent Highland Companies of "Black Watch" were officially formed into the "43rd Highland Regiment of Foot", a regiment of the line in 1739. It was first mustered in 1740, at Aberfeldy, Scotland. The Colonel was John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford and the Lieutenant-Colonel was Sir Robert Munro, 6th Baronet. Among the Captains were his next brother, George Munro, 1st of Culcairn (also a Captain of an Independent Company raised in 1745) and their cousin John Munro, 4th of Newmore who was promoted lieutenant-Colonel in 1745 (in place of Sir Robert who went on to command the 37th (North Hampshire) Regiment of Foot). The other Captains of the 43rd were George Grant, Colin Campbell of Monzie, James Colquhoun of Luss, John Campbell of Carrick, Collin Campbell of Balliemore and Dougal Campbell of Craignish

 ABOVE: One of Westfalia's 'RUDE HIGHLANDER'.
 ABOVE and BELOW: My lads here are depicted as the would have appeared at Quatre Bras and Waterloo.


100 Days
The now single battalion 42nd fought at the chaotic Battle of Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815 and was one of four battalions mentioned in despatches by Wellington. Two days later at the Battle of Waterloo, the 42nd and also the 2nd/73rd Highlanders, were both in some of the most intense fighting in the battle and lost 289 men




I've based the miniatures on 50mm wide by 40mm deep bases for use with LASALLE or FOG-N.
Flags are from VICTRIX and come with the miniatures when purchased.
As usual comments are welcomed

3 comments:

Phil said...

A great paintjob for a great regimant!

Sun of York said...

I've just been converting a painted lot of 15mm Gordon Highlanders to the 42nd. It is interesting to see the comparison with your figures. I should get my pictures up this week. My flag is just generic and I wish I had done a bit more research. I'm glad we ended up with the same drum colours though I as I spent a bit of time trying to find info (unsuccessfully). Main difference seems to be plumes.

Your unit looks great, particularly the mix of figures.

Sun of York said...

here's my boys: http://onesidedminiaturewargamingdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/42nd-foot-black-watch.html