Thirty-First Regiment (2^nd Battalion)
1805-1814

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Regular Army expanded greatly. In common with many other regiments, the 31^st raised a second battalion which received its Colours in the same year. Five years hard fighting in the Peninsular War followed, including the battles of Albuhera and Vittoria. An unusual incident involving these Colours occurred during the action at Mouguerre, near Bayonne in December 1813. Major-General Byng’s brigade, which included the 2^nd/31^st, was ordered to attack a strongly entrenched hill supported by artillery. The brigade commander, a man of outstanding courage, took the King’s Colour from the Ensign and under gruelling fire led his troops to the capture of the position. The Ensign was very much upset at the time by General Byng’s unorthodox action which, he felt, reflected on his courage.

Figure 40

On the disbandment of the 2^nd/31^st, these Colours were presented to Sir John Byng, later Earl of Stafford. They are supposed to have been preserved in his ancestral home at Wrotham Park, Barnet, although in 1975 no trace of them could be found. It is thought that they were destroyed in a fire early in the twentieth century. The missing 2^nd/31^st Colours would have been of the six foot size. The central shield began to be changed about this time to a circular crimson patch bearing the regimental numeral and surrounded by its title.

Based on existing designs of other second battalions formed in this same period, the Regimental Colour at Wrotham Park might be as illustrated in figure 40.