The Royal Marines

Officially the Royal Marines were founded in 1755, as His Majesty’s Marine Forces, it was not until 1802, at the behest of Admiral Jervis, the Earl of St Vincent that King George II gave them the ‘Royal’ title.

The Royal Marines can trace its heritage back much further than 1755, with a history spanning almost 350 years, almost as long a history as the regular British Army.  In 1664, the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot was raised for service during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.  This regiment, like many of the time, was privately raised and was one of several to be formed as naval infantry in the style of other European nation’s marine infantry.  

By the late 17th century the regiment had become known as the Lord Admiral’s Regiment (the Duke of York and Albany was at the time the Lord High Admiral).  The men were uniformed in a rusket/gold coat rather than the red coat of the infantry.   Unusually for the time the each man was issued with a musket, while pikes were fading from the European battlefield they remained a diminished feature until the early 1700s.  Over the next thirty years other marine infantry regiments were formed with size and number varying with the peaks and troughs of British military campaigns.  As a result of transfers and reformations the Royal Marines can trace lineage with a dozen of the British Army’s oldest and best known regiments including the 3rd Foot or ‘Buffs’, and what later became The Rifles.

A Royal Marine wearing the iconic rounded hat and red coat, worn throughout the Napoleonic War (Source) see also image two above. 

By 1755, Britain’s marine infantry had been unified into a single formation; His Majesty’s Marine Forces.  Consisting of some fifty 200-strong companies these men were dispersed throughout the Royal Navy and were at first commanded by Naval officers rather than dedicated Marine officers, this however changed with time and by the beginning of the 19th century the Marine Forces had become the Royal Marines. 

Throughout the Napoleonic War Royal Marines acted as boarding and shore raiding parties as well as shipboard security forces as a loyal force tasked with preventing mutiny and protecting the ship from enemy boarding.  In 1804, detachment of Royal Marine Artillery was formed to man the artillery (principally mortars) of the Navy’s bomb ketches.   During the War of 1812 it was men of the Royal Marine Artillery launching Congreve Rockets from HMS Erebus that were immortalised in Francis Scott Key’s poem ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ as “rockets’ red glare”.

A Royal Marine Light Infantry at the Battle of Tamai, 1884, wearing grey field dress and armed with a Martini-Henry rifle. (source)

Following the Napoleonic War the Royal Marines continued to be part of the Royal Navy’s establishment.  The role of the Marines evolved during the second half of the 19th century into that of light infantry that could act as skirmishers screening either infantry or sailors landing behind them.  In 1855 the Royal Marines Light Infantry was formed to act as light troops on shore, the RMLI saw action in countless colonial campaigns throughout the British Empire and during the Boxer Rebellion in China.  The Royal Marines also played a prominent part during the First World War, forming part of the Royal Navy’s Naval Division, which in 1914, landed in Belgium to bolster Belgian defences at Antwerp and later took part in the Gallipoli campaign.

Royal Marines Light Infantry, wearing dark blue uniforms, in action during the Egyptian Campaign, 1882. (Source)

The uniform of the Marines evolved steadily over the 300 year history of the corps.  Moving from the original russet gold coat, through a progression of steadily simplifying uniforms (see image one) based on the scarlet tunic - with the adoption of dark blue uniform facings in 1802, when the corps became the Royal Marines.  By the late 19th century the Royal Marine’s uniform varied greatly depends on where he was in action.  During the Egyptian campaign of 1882, the RMLI wore navy blue uniforms with white pith helmets, as seen above.  By the time of the Sudan campaign, two years later in 1884, a grey field dress (see above) had been adopted.  While Marines serving in the Far East or tropical locales often wore an all white field dress.  By the time of the Boxer Rebellion and the outbreak of the First World War the standard field dress of the Marines remained the dark navy blue jacket and trousers with either a field service cap or Wolseley helmet.  When the Royal Marines arrived in Antwerp in October 1914, they wore the blue jackets and field service caps seen in images four and five.  Throughout the rest of the First World War the Marines would wear the Army’s khaki or sand coloured field dress while in action in Northern France and the Middle East.  In 1923, the Royal Marine Light Infantry and Royal Marine Artillery were amalgamated forming the Corps of Royal Marines.  During the Second World War the Royal Marines played an invaluable part, taking part in fighting in every theatre of the war providing regular infantry and special forces when they formed Commandos, an elite force the Royal Marines retain to this day.

While the Marines’ uniform often followed the Army’s lead, for the most part they also carried similar weapons.  From their inception the Marines had carried firearms, in 1778, the Sea Service Pattern Brown Bess Musket was adopted by the Navy and Marines, it had the advantage of being several inches shorter and over half a pound lighter than the muskets carried by their Army counterparts. By the latter half of the 19th century they carried first the Enfield pattern rifle musket and later the Martini-Henry breechloading rifle (see image three).   At the outbreak of the First World War, like the Army, they carried the Lee-Enfield Rifle (see images four & five). 

The Royal Marines are a military force with a unique history almost as long as the Royal Navy’s, Britain’s most senior service.   Royal Marines have fought in every corner of the globe in campaigns big and small. The uniqueness of their role both on board ship and ashore makes them a truly fascinating corps. 

Sources:

Image One Source (a photograph taken c.1970 of a historic evolution of the Marines’ uniform)

Image Two Source: The Thin Red Line: Uniforms of the British Army between 1751 & 1914, D.S.V & B.K. Fosten, (1989)

Image Three Source (Artist’s impression of Royal Marine Light Infantrymen in field service dress c.1877)

Image Four Source (Artist’s impression of Royal Marines c.1912)

Image Five Source (Royal Marines marching through Ostend on their way to join the Siege of Antwerp)

Image Six Source (Men of the Royal Marines Brigade, Belgium c.Sept.-Oct. 1914)