Duke of Wellington's Regiment - Formation and Name

Formation and Name

The Duke of Wellington's Regiment was originally formed in 1702 as Huntingdon's Regiment. As regiments at that time took the name of the Colonel taking it over it became:- Henry Leigh's Regiment; then Robert Duncansons Regiment and George Wade's Regiment. It was disbanded on 25 March 1714, but was officially registered as the 33rd Regiment of Foot in January 1715 and re-raised on 25 March 1715, as George Wade's Regiment; then Henry Hawley's Regiment; Robert Dalzell's Regiment and John Johnson Regiment. The regiment served in Austria, France, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, America, Canada, Germany and India and the Indian Ocean islands as part of a Royal Navy Raiding Squadron and the Crimean War.

Owing to its links with the Duke of Wellington, the title 'The Duke of Wellington's Regiment' was granted to the 33rd Regiment on 18 June 1853, on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in the year following Wellington's death. Subsequently, the regiment was presented with a new stand of Regulation Colours, on 28 February 1854, emblazoned with its new distinctions of the name of the Duke of Wellington, his crest and motto, by the then Colonel of the Regiment, Lieutenant General Sir Henry D'Oyley. The regiment departed for the Crimea the following day.

The 76th Regiment was originally raised, by Simon Harcourt as Lord Harcourts Regiment on 17 November 1745 and disbanded in June 1746. Following the loss of Minorca, to the French, it was reraised in November 1756 as the 61st Regiment, but renumbered to 76th, by General Order in 1758, and again disbanded in 1763. A second battalion raised by that regiment in October 1758, for service in Africa, was renumbered as the 86th Regiment and also disbanded in 1763. On 25 December 1777, the 76th was again re-raised, as the 76th Regiment of Foot (Macdonald's Highlanders), by Colonel John MacDonell of Lochgarry, in the West of Scotland and Western Isles, as a Scottish Light Infantry regiment. It was disbanded at Stirling Castle in March 1784. The regiment was again raised for service in India by the Honorable East India Company in 1787.

In 1881 the 76th Regiment, which shared the same Depot in Halifax as the 33rd, was linked to the 33rd, under the Cardwell Reforms, to become the 2nd Battalion. Although retitled as the Halifax Regiment (Duke of Wellington's) this title only lasted six months until it was changed on 30 June 1881, in a revised appendix to General order 41, to:- The Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Regiment), or 'W Rid R' for short. In January 1921 it was again retitled to The Duke of Wellington's Regiment (West Riding), or 'DWR' for short. On 6 June 2006 The 'Dukes' were amalgamated with the Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire and The Green Howards, all Yorkshire-based regiments in the King's Division, to form the Yorkshire Regiment.