Dates: 1661 - 1959
The 2nd (The Queen’s Royal) Regiment of Foot was the title given to the Tangier Regiment, when regimental numbering was introduced in Britain in 1751.
The Regiment was raised on 14 October 1661 to garrison the new British acquisition, the Port of Tangier, which was part of Queen Catherine’s dowery, when she married King Charles II. The Regiment served in North Africa until 1685, when they returned to England. The regimental numbering system was adopted in 1751.
In 1685, it was the Queen Dowager’s Regiment of Foot (named for Queen Catherine, widow of Charles II); in 1703 it was renamed the Queen’s Royal Regiment of Foot, becoming the Princess of Wales’s Own Regiment of Foot in 1715 and then the Queen’s Own Regiment of Foot when, in 1727, Princess Caroline became Queen. Its final change before 1751 came in 1747 when it was called the Queen’s Own Royal Regiment of Foot, ranked as 2nd Foot. In 1780 along with the HAC the 2nd suppresed the Gordon Riots.
Other than Guards regiments, the 2nd Foot was the oldest line infantry regiment in England.
It retained the designation of 2nd (The Queen’s Royal) Regiment of Foot until the Childers Reforms of 1881, when it became the Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), then in 1921 the Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey). It ceased to exist as a separate regiment in 1959 when it amalgamated with the East Surrey Regiment, to form The Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment.
