i The Somerset Light Infantry
ii The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry
iii Somerset & Cornwall Light Infantry
iv 1st Battalion, The Light Infantry

The Somerset Light Infantry (13th Foot)

An inspection report of 1768 notes that the 13th Foot had drummers, but does not mention any musicians; nine years later, this omission had been rectified with a report that there were '12 Music', a very respectable band for a line regiment of the period. The first known bandmaster in the Regiment comes just a generation later, with a Regimental Order dated 21 January 1806:

Sjt Hurst, Master of the Band, having returned from a sick furlogh, Sjt Irwin will, on the 25th inst, be again mustered as a Private conformably to the terms upon which he was appointed to hold the rank of Serjeant.

With the conversion of the 13th to a light infantry role in 1822 it is probable that bugles were added to the Regiment's musical strength, but the Band - being well established by this stage - would no doubt have continued. There is, however, very little documentation from the first half of the century, save for a mention that the Regiment was involved in the siege of Jellalabad during the Afghan War of 1841-42; when the relief column under General Pollock finally arrived at the town, the Band of the 13th welcomed the long-awaited force with the ironic strains of 'Ye're O'er Long o' Coming'.

After the days of Sjt Hurst, the succession of bandmasters in the Regiment becomes unclear; when the thread is picked up again in 1860 it is with Sgt G McPherson, a former member of the 1st Battalion Band who had been sent to Kneller Hall to become properly accredited. Unfortunately his was but a brief tenure, for he died two years later. Even worse, his two successors - Sgt C Barry and Mr J Vevers, both ex-members of the Band - also died whilst serving, giving the 13th an unwanted reputation of being ill-starred. Mr Vevers' replacement, Thomas Mitchell, however, went some way towards breaking the myth, serving for twelve very successful years and retiring in good health.

Mr Mitchell did, though, have his own problems with the appointment. He was a highly regarded musician who had enlisted into the Royal Artillery and spent the first ten years of his Army career comfortably stationed at Woolwich; following his attendance at Kneller Hall he then found himself plunged into the peripatetic world of the infantry - over the next twelve years he had thirteen postings in Ireland, England, Gibraltar and India, plus a further five short spells in other stations in India. He also found his men regularly taken away from him for stretcher-bearing training. Such was the life of musicians in line bands, from which he had been so long sheltered.

Even so Mr Mitchell evidently fitted in well enough, for in 1899 the Regiment recommended that as reward for his outstanding services he should be commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant; the request was turned down by the Commander-in-Chief, apparently in fear that this would set a precedent for other regiments. Interestingly a similar plea on behalf of Peter Parkes of the SCLI more than half a century later was similarly rejected.

The range of musical tasks expected of Mr Mitchell can be seen in reports from the regimental journal, The Light Bob, in 1894. The annual regimental celebration of the battle of Killiecrankie in 1687 was marked by a smoking evening, the string band provided the music for a variety programme in Sabathu, a series of dances was organized and an engagement at a massed bands concert and searchlight tattoo during the Lahore Durbar week was fulfilled. There was also a call to provide a pit orchestra for the officers' troupe known as The Light Bob Minstrels, which produced the unusual instrumentation of 1st and 2nd violins, string bass, flute, clarinet, bassoon and cornet - a line-up that required a special arrangement for each piece. An even more unusual arrangement was demanded when the Band was involved in the Agra concentration of 1907, a review of more than 30,000 troops by the Viceroy of India and the Ameer of Afghanistan; Mr Mitchell was prevailed upon to arrange the Afghan national anthem.

Meanwhile a 2nd Battalion had been raised in the mid 19th century, with its most notable early musician being not a bandsman but a bugler. Bugle Major Emberson enlisted into the 2nd Battalion in 1867 at the age of fifteen, and served in Gibraltar, Malta and South Africa, the latter period including action in the Zulu War at the battle of Vlundi in 1879. For ten years from 1880 he was Bugle Major, before retiring to become Bandmaster of the depot band at Taunton; but even that was not the end of his career, for when the Boer War broke out he re-enlisted to form a bugle band. At his funeral in 1924 he was accorded full military honours.

When the 2nd was stationed in England in the 1890s, the Band under Mr Ancliffe became a popular concert attraction amongst the civilian population, normally playing in conjunction with the bugles; amongst the most frequently played band and bugle marches of the time were 'Out on the Deep', 'The Prince Albert March' and 'Light Infantry' (the latter not to be confused with Denis Plater's piece of the same title). As with other bands of the 19th century, the 2nd Somersets was often dependant on enlisted men transferring to musical duties, and Standing Orders dated 1895 suggest that once registered as a bandsman it was not easy to leave:

No man who has been trained as a bandsman or acting bandsman will be permitted to resign his appointment until he has found a substitute who is in every respect the equal of the man wishing to return to duty, and this leave to find a substitute will only be granted in special cases.

Returning home from the Boer War, where reports tell of the Band playing in the town square of Heidelberg, the 2nd Battalion remained in England until 1908, when it swapped overseas postings with the 1st. The senior Band immediately took up the round of public concerts that had been established by Mr Ancliffe and his successor, Mr MacDonald.

Elsewhere the 2nd Band under Mr MacDonald was visiting some of the major stations of the Empire: in Malta it played for both Edward VII and his nephew, the Kaiser, before proceeding to Tientsin in China and Quetta in India. The Bandmaster was noted both as a fine musician, accompanying concert items on the violin, and as a writer and producer of plays, such as a farce entitled 'Mixed Drinks'. His wife too was a keen performer and appeared at concerts through to the post-war period: a performance at Ranikhet in 1921 featured two songs from Mrs MacDonald and violin accompaniment by her husband.

During the war years, and for some time afterwards, the 4th and 5th also had bands, with Mr W J Tobin DCM serving as Bandmaster of the 4th. Under his baton the two bands massed in August 1929 for a visit by the Duke of York.

When war broke out again in 1939, the 1st Battalion was in India whilst the 2nd was in Gibraltar; consequently both bands continued to function for at least the first years, though the 2nd musicians were called upon to serve on regimental duties as well as to maintain morale in a tense situation.

1948 saw both the disbandment of the 2nd Battalion and - arguably - the most decisive turning-point in the decline of the British Empire: the withdrawal from India. The men of the 1st Somersets were the last British forces to leave the country: in an historic ceremony an Indian Guard of Honour gave a Royal Salute and played 'God Save the King', to which the SLI replied with its own Royal Salute as the Band struck up the Indian national anthem, 'Vande Mattaram'; the Somersets then marched away in slow time to the strains of 'Auld Lang Syne'.

1st Battalion Somerset Light Infantry
arrive in Liverpool from India, 1948

Following service in Austria and Germany the Band found itself in Singapore. The standard and ambition of the men was seen in 1954 when bandsmen helped augment an orchestra conducted by Bandmaster Moore in a performance that included Grieg's Piano Concerto. The next posting was back home and to the depot to prepare for amalgamation with The Cornwall Light Infantry.

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The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (32nd & 46th Foot)

An inspection report of the 46th Foot in June 1769 mentions a 'Band of Music', but there is little other information on its early years. When the 32nd Foot introduced a band is unknown, but certainly by the Peninsular War there was a Band functioning. Mostly the men were required to serve in a medical capacity, though there were also occasional opportunities for music.

During the Second Sikh War of 1848 the Band of the 32nd attempted to repeat the performance of the 13th by playing 'Ye're O'er Long o' Coming' as a welcome to the soldiers of the Bombay Presidency army, who arrived too late to fight in the conflict, but was stopped on grounds of diplomacy: more orthodox martial airs were played instead.

The musicians of the 46th also served in conflict in the mid 19th century, in their case in the Crimea. The Band headed what was left of the Regiment as it marched into camp following the battle of Inkerman in November 1854.

In 1877 the two regiments took up quarters in Bodmin, with the men billeted for the most part with the local townspeople. Because of this arrangement, bugle calls were sounded through the day at street corners, though it was not long before problems arose. One morning the bugler overslept and reveille was not sounded in most parts of the town, with the result that many of the soldiers were allowed a lie-in; the Adjutant, however, had heard the call and refused to listen to any excuses, until it was discovered that the bugler for the day was billeted opposite the Adjutant's quarters, had sounded the call through his bedroom window and then gone back to bed.