(The), subs. phr. (military).—The Fiftieth Regiment of Foot: now the first battalion of the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment): many men suffered from ophthalmia during the Egyptian campaign (1801); also the DIRTY HALF HUNDRED: the men in action wiped their faces with their black facings during the Peninsula War.
1871. Chambers’s Journal, No. 417, 803. The DIRTY HALF HUNDRED was the curious nickname given to the 50th Foot. Two accounts are given of the origin of this. One asserts that it was from their red uniforms being faced with black and silver lace, and thus giving the regiment a dull and sombre appearance; whilst the other tells us that it was from the men wiping their perspiring faces with the black cuffs of their coats, and thus giving their countenances a somewhat swarthy tint. Whatever may be the origin of this sobriquet, they bear a second, about which there can be no doubt. From the glorious charge, led by Colonel Walker, at Vimiera, this regiment is known as the ‘Gallant Fiftieth.’
1886. Tinsley’s Magazine, April, 322. Most people have heard of the ‘Fighting Fiftieth.’ But the 50th are rich in nicknames. They are, or at least they were, the BLIND HALF-HUNDREDTH, having been but too literally blinded by the ravages of ophthalmia when in Egypt with Sir Ralph Abercromby. And when on one occasion the men dried the perspiration from their faces with their cuffs, they for a while became the DIRTY HALF-HUNDREDTH.
