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Archiver > GREATWAR > 2000-11 > 0975271509


From: "Charles.Clark" <>
Subject: [WW1] Re: GREATWAR-D Digest V00 #338
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 09:45:09 +1300
References: <200011261015.eAQAFJr31059@lists3.rootsweb.com>


> Subject: [WW1] Royal Welsh/Welch Fusiliers
> Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 10:15:42 -0000
> From: "Jim Grundy" <>
> To:
>
> Dear All
>
> The Royal Welch Fusiliers became "Welch" only after the end of the Great War (sometime in the early 1920's, I believe). During the war, the correct spelling was "Welsh".
>
> Regards,
>
> Jim Grundy
>
>
> > Another mixed spelling in the British Army, the Welsh Fusiliers can also
> use
> > Welch! I am told it depends on the commanding officer?
> > Bubbles from Robin Hood Country.

No, you have, as I understand it, both committed sacrilege with this one. Robert Graves the poet was with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and the following extract is taken from his autobiography, "Good bye to all that". Probably essential reading for anyone who is interested in WWI, but that's another matter.

"After the war, when scarlet was abandoned on the grounds of expense, the Army Council saw that it could now reasonably sanction the flash on servicc-dress for all ranks. As an additional favour it consented to recognize another defiant regimental peculiarity: the spelling of the word `Welch' with a c. This permission was
published in a special Army Council Instruction of 1919. The ignorant Daily Herald commented "Strewth!' as though it were unimportant, but the spelling with a c was as important to us as the miniature capbadge wom at the back of the cap was to the Gloucesters (a commemoration of the time when they fought back to back in Egypt). I
have seen a young officer sent off Battalion Parade because his buttons read'Welsh' instead of `Welch'. `Welch' referred us somehow to the archaic North Wales of Henry Tudor and Owen Glendower and Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the founder of the regiment; it dissociated us from the modem North Wales of chapels, Liberalism, the dairy and
drapery business, slate mines, and the tourist trade.
Charlie





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