The
Headstone
It is interesting to note that although Thomas Brown was buried in Yarm
Churchyard, North Yorkshire, on the 18th January 1746, no headstone
marked his resting place. It was due to the interest of the Thomas
Brown Society and the Regimental Secretary that at long last this was
rectified. On
Sunday, the 8th June 1969 a headstone to the memory of Thomas Brown was
erected in Yarm Churchyard. The words on
the stone are already worn and not easy to make out, but I believe
they say ...
IN MEMORY OF
THOMAS BROWN
PRIVATE
KINGS OWN
REGIMENT OF DRAGOONS
THE HERO
OF
THE BATTLE OF DETTINGEN
27TH JUNE 1743
PRESENTED BY
THE QUEEN'S OWN HUSSARS
1968
What follows
is an extract from:
A
special study of the battle
of Dettingen by
Major L J Melhuish ...
At
Dettingen on 27 June 1743, the 3rd and the 7th won their first shared
battle honour and captured the original silver drums. Yet that
morning a French victory was probable as the Allied Army of 44,000,
under King George II, withdrew along the East bank of the river Main, by
the narrow plain under steep wooded hills, and into the trap sprung by
General Noilles’s French Army of 70,000.
From
the other bank. Noilles sent 28,000 men under the Duc de Grammont over
the river to bar the allies’ road before Dettingen. Another
force crossed behind their rearguard and the French batteries firing
across the river commanded the lower east bank and the approaches to
Dettingen. During
the battle the
3rd was detached to the left flank and were, after a time much reduced
in numbers.
Grammont then
launched nine squadrons of the elite Maison du Roi, in eight lines,
against the allies left. The 3rd, now only the strength of two
weak squadrons, formed
into three lines, and charged the French Horse, cutting through them,
causing many casualties but suffering grievously.
Undaunted,
they reformed and twice more repeated their feat. On the last
charge they cut through ten times their number, until they had lost
three-quarters of their men in killed and wounded. During the
melee a cornet dropped the standard when his wrist was wounded.
Dragoon
Thomas Brown, on seeing the cornet drop the standard, “attempted to
dismount in order to recover it”. In so-doing he “lost two
fingers of his bridle hand by a sabre cut and his horse ran away with
him to the rear of the French lines”.
He
there saw and killed a gendarme carrying off the lost standard, catching
it as it fell and “fixing
it between his leg and saddle” he cut his way back to the regiment,
which gave him “three Huzzas”.
Brown
received “seven wounds in his head, face and body, besides which three
balls passed through his hat” and “two lodged in his back where they
could not be extracted”. After the battle the King, reviving the
creation of Knights banneret on the field, dubbed Thomas Brown as the
last.
Thomas Brown
regaining the lost Guidon
Attributed to
Richard Ansdell
From a painting
in The Officers Mess
From an old print of the time ...
"He
had two horses killed under him, two fingers of ye bridle hand chopt off
and after retaking the Standard from ye Gen d'Arms, whom he killed, he
made his way through a line of the enemy exposed to fire and sword, in
the execution of which he received eight cuts in ye face and neck, two
balls lodged in his back, three went through his hat, and in this hack'd
condition he rejoined his regiment, who gave him three Huzzas on his
arrival".
Sam
Davies a fellow Dragoon wrote ...
“Our
Regiment is above half killed and wounded, for never any Men in the
Field behaved as well as they did — so carry all the Honour”.
Yet
the Battle Honour was not awarded until 1882.
Dettingen
was the last battle in which a British Monarch commanded the Army in
person.
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