52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot - Legacy

Legacy

Despite its continual merging with other units from 1881, the legacy of the 52nd remains. Many of the 52nd's battle honours are represented on the Belt Badge of The Rifles (being a rifle regiment, The Rifles do not carry colours). Various museums record the actions of the 52nd and hold collections of artifacts and memorabilia, including the Royal Green Jackets Museum, and the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Trust, whose archives are managed by the Oxfordshire County Council.

Some officers of the 52nd recorded their experiences in the regiment. One of the most notable was the Reverend William Leeke who, as a young ensign, carried the Regimental Colours at Waterloo. He believed that the actions taken by Sir John Colborne (Lord Seaton) and the 52nd to defeat the Imperial Guard at the close of the battle had been unjustly overlooked in official dispatches and histories, and wrote his memoirs so that "the truth, with regard to what we knew the 52nd had achieved at Waterloo, see the light". In 1866, his two-volume work The History of Lord Seaton's Regiment, (the 52nd Light Infantry) at the Battle of Waterloo was published, and has served as a primary source for most Waterloo historians since. Also to publish memoirs, although less successfully, was Reginald Wilberforce, grandson of slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce, who wrote, in 1894, An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny; on publication, the book was criticised by his fellow officers of the 52nd for its inaccuracy.