Leinster Regiment

Lt-Col. White

/ Matthew K Barrett / 1 Comment

Lieutenant-Colonel S.R.L. White
1st Bn., Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)
White

The new colours which you have just present have yet to justify existence, but I have no hesitation in saying that we are willing to a man to do under them what we have done under the old ones, to keep them flying for the honour of the Regiment and the glory of the British Army, whether in this country or in any other where duty calls us to fight for our King and country.

(Col. White, 4 Feb 1913, in F.E. Whitton, The History of the Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment, vol. 1, 167)

Samuel Robert Llewellyn White was born in Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland, on 4 June 1863. He was commissioned with the Leinster Regiment in 1885 and served as a captain during the Boer War, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. He became commanding officer of the 1st Battalion in 1911. As the unit was stationed in Fyzabad, India at the outbreak of the Great War, it did not arrive to France until December 1914.

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The Royal Canadians

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A Brief History of
The Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment
(Royal Canadians)

Despite the contradictory and rather absurd title the regiment still clings to the reminders of its Canadian origin, displays the Maple Leaf on all public occasions, and its band plays “The Maple Leaf” before God Save the Queen.

(Mrs. Thomas Ahern, “Historical sketch of the 100th Prince of Wales Royal Canadian Regiment,” 11 May 1900, 14)

If the Canadian Expeditionary Force could raise battalions nicknamed the “Irish Rangers,” the “Irish Fusiliers,” and the “Irish Guards” during the First World War, then why shouldn’t Ireland have had a British Army regiment known as the “Royal Canadians”?

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