The Ceylon Rifle Regiment (CRR) was a regular native regiment formed by the British in

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. Its history goes back to 1795. The nucleus of the Regiment was two companies of Malays recruited from among prisoners at St Helena. In 1795 there were some 300 prisoners there taken from vessels of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock c ...

. Some 70 or 80 Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes joined the British

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sout ...

. The Malays apparently were glad to serve under British command as they found the treatment they received much better than that to which the Dutch had subjected them. The men of the two companies were trained as artillerymen. After about two years, the companies were transferred to Bencoolen, and later from there to Ceylon.Brooke (1824), pp.313–4. In all, five independent companies of

Malays Malays may refer to: * Malay race, a racial category encompassing peoples of Southeast Asia and sometimes the Pacific Islands ** Overseas Malays, people of Malay race ancestry living outside Malay archipelago home areas ** Cape Malays, a communit ...

were transferred from Dutch to HEIC service. Since then the regiment under different names fought for the British in the Kandyan War and the Uva Rebellion of 1818. The Ceylon Rifle Regiment saw action in the Matale Rebellion in 1848. Since it served no practical application it was disbanded in 1873.

Trivia

*The regiment's officers'

mess The mess (also called a mess deck aboard ships) is a designated area where military personnel socialize, eat and (in some cases) live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the o ...

is now known as Visumpaya. *The regiment's

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are ...

, known as the ''Rifle Barracks'', after being abandoned for a long time has been refurbished and in 2007 turned into the National Defence Services’ School, Colombo.

Citations and references

Citations References *Brooke, Thomas Henry (1824) ''A History of the Island of St. Helena, from its discovery by the Portuguese to the year 1806''. (Kingsbury, Padbury & Allen).

External links and sources

Sri Lanka Army

{{Authority control Regiments of Ceylon Ceylon Defence Force British colonial regiments Indigenous counterinsurgency forces Military units and formations established in 1795 1873 disestablishments

Trivia

Citations and references

See also

External links and sources