Research

Welcome to our Research Service at the Royal Highland Fusiliers Museum

Welcome to the Museum’s Research Service and we are delighted to receive general enquiries and enquiries pertaining to the soldiers of our Regiment and antecedent regiments:
  • The Royal Highland Fusiliers (RHF)
  • The Royal Scots Fusiliers (RSF); raised as The 21st of Foot
  • The Highland Light Infantry (HLI) + their antecedent regiments:
o 71st Highlanders
o 74th Highlanders
  • The Glasgow Highlanders (GH); formerly a British infantry regiment, becoming a volunteer battalion of the HLI in 1881
We have an extensive library and archives containing material associated with the Regiment and antecedent regiments, including: battalion war diaries; personal diaries & correspondence; regimental journals, etc.  We also have access to the National Archives at Kew, as well as several online sites.

Sadly, at the moment, we are unable to open our facilities to the general public; although, we do allow access for academic research – please contact the Curator.

We do make a small charge of a minimum £20 for each enquiry; which goes towards the upkeep of the archives and must be paid with the application.  Payment can be made to our  Paypal account or by cheque/postal order made payable to “The RHF Museum”.

There are a couple of health warnings:
  • sometimes, research does not produce any results; although, it still takes time to explore all the usual avenues of enquiry
  • we have literally been inundated with enquiries since the onset of WWI commemorations and enquiries are taking longer than we would like – our service is
run entirely by volunteers who are extremely thorough and their reports are usually well worth the wait!
Please read before submitting an enquiry: if your enquiry concerns a soldier who was discharged after 1920, we require his service record before we can complete an enquiry; although, this does not apply to WWI soldiers, some of whom were not discharged until 1921.  The Ministry of Defence retains these records and it is necessary to apply to them – there is a charge for this information – please click here for information as to how to submit an application for service records.
For all other enquiries, please use our enquiry form – this can be completed online or printed and sent by post.

Please click here to Download the Enquiry form

Please click here to go to the Online Enquiry Form

Please note:

• after you have submitted your completed online enquiry form – you should be directed to the Payment Page with a PayPal link for your payment
• should this not happen or if you prefer, it is possible to pay through your own PayPal account by using:
o “Send Money”
o our email address: museum@rhf.org.uk
• however, we cannot begin processing your enquiry until we receive payment
Please give as much information as possible:
  • copies of any documentation – please do not send originals
  • photographs – these often help with identification
  • regimental/army numbers:
  • for WWI soldiers, they were usually etched on the edge of the medals, but may be on other documents
  • WWI soldiers often had more than one number – please include all
  • officers’ numbers are rarely found on documents
  • date of birth
Our case study of Private Walter Rumph will give you an idea of what our researchers can discover – to view Walter’s case study,please click here.