Assam Valley Light Horse

The Assam Valley Light Horse were a volunteer corps and auxiliary regiment based in Assam, consisting mainly of tea planters from the area.

Chronology

• 1891 raised as the Assam Valley Mounted Rifles on 6th November when the Lakhimpur Mounted Rifles, Sibsagar Mounted Rifles, Darrang Mounted Rifles, Nowgong Mounted Rifles and Gauhati Rifles amalgamated
• 1896 renamed Assam Valley Light Horse on 25th September
• 1906 absorbed the Shillong Volunteer Rifles on 1st May

Note that the regiment called the Assam Rifles is a different regiment, which originally consisted of Assam Military Police battalions.

Details

• Motto - "Semper Paratus"

In 1901:

• Uniform - Khaki drill with steel shoulder chains
• Mess uniform - Blue with white facings
• Headquarters - Dibrugarh

Detachments at:

• Doom Dooma
• Panitola
• Margherita
• Moran
• Sonari
• Sibsagar
• Jorhat
• Panbarrz
• Numalighur
• North Lakhimpur
• Salonah
• Gauhati
• Tezpur
• Bishnath
• Mangaldai

By 1940:

• Uniform - Blue
• Facings - White
• Badge - A.V.L.H.

Service

A detachment consisting of one officer and 12 men operating a maxim gun were taken on the 1911-1912 expedition against the Abors. The men were nicknamed Lumsden's Lambs.

British Library holdings

• Recollections of a varied life Mss Eur Photo Eur 225 copy of memoir by Maj Ronald Herbert Cronin (b 1897), including details of his career with the Assam Frontier Tea Company in Assam and Ranchi 1922-1941 and 1946-1958, and of his service with the Assam Valley Light Horse from 1922, and the Assam Regiment during the Second World War.
• Navvies To The Fourteenth Army by AH Pilcher Mss Eur F174/1316 1947. Other sources indicate this book (55 pages) was published in Calcutta for Private Circulation and was illustrated with black and white plates and line drawing maps. The author was Col: A H Pilcher who at the outbreak of the second world war commanded The Assam Valley Light Horse. In March 1942 he was put in charge of raising a labour force from the Tea Plantations to build the Manipur/Burma Road to evacuate the 14th Army and also the many civilians who were fleeing Burma. Eventually he raised and commanded a labour force of 82000 Text from this book is available online, refer below.

Individuals

• Major George Plummer Montague was adjutant of the Assam Valley Light Horse during World War 2, located in Dibrugarh, and was shown as father of the bride in a October 1943 wedding photograph on page 34 The story of Sam and Marg Acomb He was briefly mentioned on pages 38-39. (Previously available online at BYU Digital Collections, but not available 2020/11).

External links

• Assam Valley Light Horse from Koi-hai.com including many photos from various era.
• Col Sir Charles Thorp Jessop CIE, VD from “Ancestors of David Robarts”, now archived. A tea planter in Assam who joined the Sibsagar Mounted Rifles in 1886 and transferred to the Assam Valley Mounted Rifles in which he served for more than 20 years; the last ten years as Commandant.

Photograph of a memorial inscription (flickr.com) mentions Charles Thorp Jessop, Commandant of the Assam Valley Light Horse, died 2 July 1915 aged 56.

Historical books online

• The history of Lumsden's Horse; a complete record of the corps from its formation to its disbandment by Henry H. S Pearse, p4 advises that Lt Col Dugald Mactavish Lumsden, commander of Lumsden's Horse in South Africa in 1900, was appointed Captain in the Durrung Mounted Rifles on its 1887 formation and later became commandant of the Assam Valley Light Horse until 1893.
• In Abor Jungles 
being an account of the Abor Expedition, the Mishmi Mission and the Miri Mission 
by Angus Hamilton. With illustrations and a map. 1912 Archive.org
• Text from Navvies To The Fourteenth Army by AH Pilcher c 1947 is available as pdf downloads from the Koi Hai website, located under Memories, the Henderson Family Scroll down to the item dated October 12, 2009. Archive.org mirror version. Does not contain the illustrations and maps from the original publication.