THE INNS OF COURT REGIMENT

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21715, 24 February 1936, Page 4

THE INNS OF COURT REGIMENT

NEW COLOURS APPROVED *?. -AHISTORY FROM DAYS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH LONDON, January 26. ■lt was announced by the War Office yesterday that the King had approved of the colours being carried by the Inns of Court Regiment, says the "Daily Telegraph." The King's Colour will be the Union Jack, with, in the centre, the title of the regiment on a crimson circle, above which is the Imperial Crown. The Regimental Colour will be green. In the centre will be a figure of Justice within a crimson circle, on which will be the title of the regiment. Round this circle will be a Union'wreath, above which will be the Imperial Crown and below the motto, "Salus Populi Suprema Lex" —"The safety of the people is the highest law." Underneath, *on a scroll, will be the regiment's battlehonour, "South Africa, 1900-01." The history of the unit, which is known as "The Devil's Own," goes back to 1584, when the Benchers of the Inns of Court formed an association to protect Queen Elizabeth. As a volunteer corps, it contributed troops to the C.I.V. during the South African War. During the European War, as an Officers' Training Corps, it supplied 11,000 officers. Lieutenant-Colonel W. H. Newson, the commanding officer of the regiment, said that the last colours carried by the unit were presented by the Prince of Wales—afterwards King George IV.—in 1804, when invasion was threatened by Napoleon. These colours were now in the Inner Temple. In the 1800's, he added, there were two units —the Law Association and the Bloomsbury and Inns of Court Association, Colours presented to the latter association by George 111. in 1801 now hang in the regimental mess, Lincoln's Inn. Both associations came to an end in the years after Waterloo. v . In 1859 the legal profession raised a volunteer corps which was named the 14th Middlesex (Inns of Court) Volunteer Rifle Corps. This title was kept until 1908, when the unit joined the new Territorial Army as the Inns of Court O.T.C. In 1932 it became the Inns of Court Regiment.