John RIPCKE

John Ripcke, by birth a German.
He served as Trumpter in the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, Blue for fifty years and ten months. He would have enlisted about 1744

Born 1727 in Germany and died at Loughborough, Leicestershire 16th April 1795 aged 68

TITLES.

1661-87. The Royal Regiment of Horse.
1687-1750. The Royal Regiment of Horse Guards.
1750-1819. The Royal Horse Guards Blue.
1819 (from). The Royal Horse Guards (The Blues)

PRINCIPAL CAMPAIGNS, BATTLES, &c. * "Honours" on the Colours.

1685. Sedgemoor.

1689-90. Flanders. 1689. Walcourt. 1690. Boyne. 1691. Aughrim. 1742-45. Flanders. *1743. Dettingen. 1745. Fontenoy. 1758-62. Germany. 1759. Minden. 1760. Warbourg. 1761. Kirk Denkern. 1762. Wilhelmstahl. 1794-95. Flanders. 1794. Cateau. 1794. Tournay. *1812-14. Peninsula. 1813. Vittoria. *1815. Waterloo. 1815. Netherlands. *1882. Egypt. *1882. Tel-el-Kebir. 1884-85. Nile.

Uniform.—Blue with Scarlet facings (from 1661). Plume, Red.

Regimental Badge.—"The Royal Arms."

Nicknames.—(1) The Oxford Blues, circa 1690, from its Colonel's name, the Earl of Oxford, and in distinction to a blue habited Dutch Regiment commanded by the Earl of Portland; (2) The Blue Guards (1742-45) during the Campaign in Flanders; and (3) The Blues—a present day sobriquet.

Notes.—This is the only Cavalry Regiment now extant which formed part of the Parliamentary Army against Charles I., being then known as Colonel Unton Crook's Regiment. King William IV. presented the regiment with a Standard emblazoned with "Dettingen," "Minden," "Warbourg," "Cateau." It wore cuirasses from 1691 to 1698, and resumed them in 1821.

Bibliography.—An Historical Record of The Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, or Oxford Blues. Its Services, and the transactions in which it has been engaged from its first establishment to the present time. By Edmund Packe, late Captain Royal Horse Guards. [London: Clowes, 1834.]