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3 unusual facts about Somerset Light Infantry


Frank Wrentmore

Frank Wrentmore (birth registered during October→December 1884 in Pontypridd) was a Welsh rugby union and professional rugby league footballer of the 1900s, playing club level rugby union (RU) for Penygraig RFC, and playing club level rugby league (RL) for Mid-Rhondda, he served with the Somerset Light Infantry with the British Expeditionary Force in World War I.

Gateway of India

The last British troops to leave India following the country's independence, the First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry, passed through the gateway on their way out in a ceremony on 28 February 1948, signalling the end of British rule.

Johann Heinrich Walch

Many marches supposedly written for several cavalry regiments by Queen Victoria's consort Prince Albert, who was also the Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and the Duke of Saxony are actually by Walch, including the British regiment march, the Regimental quick march of the Somerset Light Infantry.


John Hellard

A second lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry during the First World War, he was killed on the second day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and is commemorated at the Serre Road cemetery.


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