Description
Title: A Short History of 63rd of Foot in Western Australia 1829 – 1833
Author: Dennison, Walter and Godden, Paul
Condition: Near Mint
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 1978
ISBN: N/A
Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 27 pages
Comments: A short account of the British 63rd Regiment of Foot in Western Australia between 1829 and 1833. The 63rd Regiment of Foot known as “The Bloodsuckers”, was a British Army regiment in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In 1829, the 63rd began providing escorts for convict ships traveling to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). The rest of the regiment became garrison troops in the latter colony. A detachment of the regiment was present at the foundation ceremony of Perth in 1829, and had arrived in Western Australia that same year, on the warship HMS Sulphur. The officer commanding the detachment of the 63rd at the ceremony Captain Frederick Chidley Irwin, would later have two stints as administrator of Western Australia.
In 1830 the battalion was involved in internal security duties in Van Diemen’s Land, in order to prevent further incidents by the native Aborigines there. Such duties later expanded to the rest of Australia. The regiment left Australia in 1833 and in 1834 was based in India.