A number of Officers of the King’s Colonials and later King Edward’s Horse received some of their formal education at the United Services College in Windsor, Hertfordshire. The United Services College had merged with St Mark’s School in 1906 and became the Imperial Service College (ISC) in 1911. The link to the ISC was preserved through a number of the sons of these Officers also undertaking their schooling there.
With the disbandment of the KEH on 21 March 1924, the Regimental funds of some 20,000 pounds were needing to be managed. A KEH Trust (King Edward VII's Horse Regiment Endowment Fund) established for that very purpose was unable to administer them. Hence on 16 April 1924 the ISC was approached by the KEH Fund to have the funds administered as bursaries to be paid for sons of the Dominions and descendants of commissioned Officers with the recipients described at the time as “lineal descendants of the members of the Regiment or used for the sons of Officers who were serving abroad”. Part of the fund was to be used to create a memorial to the Regiment, and this resulted in The King Edward Horse Hall being built in 1931 and used as the School Hall. The KEH Hall was demolished within 40 years of its construction, but the original clock tower was preserved and re-sited as the King Edward VII Horse Hall Clock Tower which survives today.
Former KEH Officers allowed the Regimental tie using the racing colours of King Edward VII to be worn by members of the ISC Shooting VIII. The Regimental flag was laid up in the School Hall.
The Regimental silver of the King’s Colonials and King Edward’s Horse was entrusted to the care of the ISC and graced the Common Room table at formal functions and remains in their safekeeping if not on public display.
In 1942 the Haileybury School merged with the Imperial Service College to become the Haileybury and Imperial Service College. Former members of the Regiment were hosted at the ISC and the later Haileybury and Imperial Service College on KEH Day and the day was a prominent feature in the KEH Old Comrades Bulletin up until the last issue in 1974.
Today the senior NCOs of the Haileybury and Imperial Service College Combined Cadet Force wear the KEH tie and a large painted mural of a KEH headdress badge adorns the Attlee Room as shown in the accompanying photograph.
There are two excellent articles in Issue 3 from 2023 of the Perspectives magazine of the Haileybury and Imperial Service College regarding the Regimental silver
The Hotchkiss Cup: A New Zealand story and the
historical association of the KEH to the school.
The Regimental silver of the King’s Colonials and later King Edward’s Horse was donated for custodial safe-keeping and display on special occasions to the Haileybury and Imperial Service College in the UK. The items held are:
• King’s Colonials Bowl
• Challenge Cup for Posts and Heads
• Cup presented to the Asian Squadron by Colonel H. Fortescue
• Hotchkiss Rifle Competition Cup
• Reconnaissance Challenge Cup
• Musketry Field Firing Challenge Cup
• Table Candelabrum
• Cape Town Challenge Cup
• Officer’s Mess Cup – Wrestling on Horseback.
The school also has in its safe keeping the Dewar Shield and the Australia Shield, both were annual trophies which the Squadrons of the King's Colonials and later King Edward's Horse competed for.
A photograph of the Regimental Silver is shown from a KEH Old Comrades Association Bulletin together with a photograph of the Hotchkiss Rifle Competition Cup (Courtesy of the Perspectives magazine, Issue 3, 2023) which appeared together with the following description.
The Hotchkiss Rifle Competition Cup is the smallest piece of silver in the King Edward’s Horse collection. The cup has a plain tapered and tucked body on a spread foot, with small loop and lugged handles; engraved on the cup is the badge of the regiment and an inscription. It was made in 1917 by the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Company, 112 Regent Street, London. The addition of lugged handles, like a quaich, suggests that it was intended to function as a small loving cup. It was presented to the Regiment in memory of William Henry ‘Hal’ Dillon Bell, who was killed in action on 31 July 1917 at Ypres, by his younger brother Cheviot Bell.William Henry ‘Hal’ Dillon Bell was a member of the New Zealand Parliament.
