Dates: 1881 - 2006
The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (officially, the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (West Riding)) was an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the King’s Division. It was formed by the amalgamation in 1881 of the 33rd (formed in 1702) and the 76th Regiments (formed in 1787). The title ’The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment’ had been granted to the former 33rd Regiment by Queen Victoria on 18 June 1853, following the death of the Duke of Wellington the previous September. 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 on the 6 June 2006.
Battalions from the regiment had served in most land conflicts involving British forces since its formation. The regiment was engaged in the Second Boer War, in many of the greatest battles of World War I (the Battle of Mons, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Passchendaele, and the Battle of Cambrai, as part of the British Expeditionary Force in France at the beginning of World War II, forming part of the rearguard at Dunkirk. In North Africa, Italy and France, after D-Day, and also in Burma. In the Korean War, particularly at the Battle for the Hook. In police actions in Cyprus, Kenya and Hong Kong and, more recently, in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo and the 2003 Iraq War.
Nine soldiers from the regiment have been awarded the Victoria Cross, and Corporal Wayne Mills of the 1st Battalion became the first recipient of the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross in 1994.
The 33rd Regiment was originally formed in 1702 as Huntingdon’s Regiment of Foot and was retitled 33rd Regiment of Foot in 1751. It later served in the American Revolution, in India under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel (later full Colonel) Arthur Wellesley, at the Battle of Waterloo, in the Crimean War and in Abyssinia. Owing to its links with 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 the 28 February 1854, emblazoned with its new distinctions of the name of the Duke of Wellington, his crest and motto, by the Colonel of the Regiment, Lieutenant General Sir Henry D’Oyley. The regiment departed for the Crimea the following day.
The 76th Regiment was raised for service in India by the British East India Company in 1787, serving in India until 1806, and then in the Peninsula War in 1809 and again in 1813, and in the British-American War in 1813, before undertaking garrison duties in Nova Scotia,Canada, the West Indies, Bermuda, Malta, Corfu, India and Burma.
In 1881, Viscount Cardwell undertook wide-ranging reforms of the British armed forces, including the end of flogging in both the Royal Navy and the Army. As part of the reforms, the 33rd and 76th Regiments of Foot were linked under the territorial system to form the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Halifax Regiment (Duke of Wellington’s). This title was intensely resented, by the men of the 33rd. The title only lasted a few months before being changed again on 30 June 1881, in a revised appendix to General Order 41, to Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment).
