Northern Bengal Mounted Rifles

Also known as the North Bengal Mounted Rifles.

Originally formed on the 6th August 1873 as the Northern Bengal Volunteer Rifle Corps. The unit absorbed the Darjeeling Volunteer Rifle Corps on 5th August 1881. Reorganised on 15th February 1889 and became The Northern Bengal Mounted Rifles.

• Uniform - Scarlet
• Facings White
• Badge - Bengal Tiger
• Motto - "Fideliter"

"The head-quarters of the Northern Bengal Mounted Rifles are at Darjeeling; the force consists of 6 companies, stationed at Kurseong, Jalpaiguri, Dam-Dim, Nagrakot, Alipur-Duars and Purnea, 3 companies of cadets, and one reserve company. Its total strength (1903-4) is 510 in all ranks".

“...all the British tea planters were members of the North Bengal Mounted Rifles....We were issued rifles and received an allowance to cover the expenses of maintaining a horse”.

British Library holdings

• Journal of the Northern Bengal Mounted Rifles for the years 1927/28-1931/32

External links

• Photograph of cadets from North Point (St Joseph’s College Darjeeling) c 1936 from One hell of a life: an Anglo-Indian Wallah's memoir from the last decades of the Raj, page 82 by Stan Blackford 2000
• Photograph of the 1939 Victoria School cadet corp attached to the Northern Bengal Mounted Rifles (NBMR)(scroll down) From vsdh.org
• NBMR Journal 1941-47 Koi-hai.com
• Photograph: Mess dress overalls : Subaltern J Black-Stevenson, Mounted Rifles, Indian Army Australian War Memorial website. Given his employment for Assam Tea Company, he probably belonged to Northern Bengal Mounted Rifles.