This regiment was first raised in 1702 as Colonel Richard Coote’s Regiment of Foot. In 1751 it became the 39th Regiment of Foot. Between 1782 and 1807 it was known as the 39th (East Middlesex) Regiment of Foot. In 1807 it became the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot until the Army reforms of 1881.

In 1810-1814 the regiment served with distinction on active service in Spain against Napoleonic forces during the Peninsular War. It fought at Albuhera, Vittoria, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes and Toulouse. It then served in Canada during the War of 1812. The regiment returned to Europe to join the occupying forces in France, before seven more years in Ireland from 1818.

In 1825 the regiment left Ireland to return to England in readiness to board convict ships as guards to New South Wales, Australia. Captain Joseph Wakefield, Sergeant John Hale, and 18 rank and file soldiers embarked with other troops on Woodman, Regalia, and Earl St Vincent, arriving in Sydney, NSW between April and August 1826. By November they were on board the brig Amity bound for King George’s Sound under the command of Major Edmund Lockyer, with among others, 23 convicts and two convict overseers.

This temporary military post later became the home of settlers at Albany, Western Australia. The final detachment of soldiers of the 39th in King George’s Sound returned to Sydney in May 1831. The regiment left for Madras between July and December 1832 and remained in India for the next 13 years, including the Coorg (1834) and Gwalior (1843) campaigns.

In 1854, the regiment sailed for the Crimean War, serving at Sevastopol.

[Sources: The National Army Museum.
Chichester and Burges Short.
Illustration: Historical Record of the Thirty-ninth, or the Dorsetshire Regiment of Foot, by Richard Cannon].