A Brief History of the Bedfordshire Regiment
A Brief History of the Bedfordshire Regiment The
regiment was raised in 1688. It was a regular Regiment of the Line and, being
the sixteenth raised, was numbered 16th Foot. At this time it was associated
with Buckinghamshire. The 14th Foot was associated with Bedfordshire and fought
at the Battle of Coruña in January 1809. That same year the colonels of the two
regiments decided to swap their county affiliations, the 14th Foot becoming
associated with Buckinghamshire and the 16th Foot with Bedfordshire.
The
regiment had a less than glorious service record in the century or so between
the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War as it was largely on garrison duty
and fought in no major battles. In his Goodbye
to All That Robert Graves states that in the army it was said that the
motto of the Regiment ought to be “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, but added that the
regiment was making a name for itself in the Great War
- 1688: 16th Foot raised as
- 1782: affiliated to Buckinghamshire;
- 1809: affiliation changes to Bedfordshire
(previously 14th Foot)
- 1858: a second battalion is raised
- 1881: officially named the Bedfordshire Regiment
In
1919 the regiment was renamed the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment. This
was in recognition of the fact that as many men from Hertfordshire served in
the regiment as from Bedfordshire. A principal reason for this was that
Hertfordshire had no regular infantry regiment associated with the county. Two
rifle volunteer battalions had been formed in 1860, becoming the 1st and 2nd
(Hertfordshire) Volunteer Battalions, Bedfordshire Regiment in 1868. In 1908
one battalion became a Territorial Army unit as the Hertfordshire Regiment
(TA), thus a unit of part-time soldiers intended as home defence, though they
served on the Western Front with some distinction in World War One. As a
Territorial Army formation the Hertfordshire Regiment continued to exist even
after the renaming of the Bedfordshire Regiment as the Bedfordshire and
Hertfordshire Regiment.
In
1958 the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment was disbanded but its lineage
continued as 3rd Battalion, East Anglian Regiment, being amalgamated with the
Essex Regiment to form this battalion. Separate Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire
(Territorial Army) battalions were merged in 1961 to form the Bedfordshire and
Hertfordshire Regiment (TA).
In
1964 the East Anglian Regiment was renamed the Royal Anglian Regiment and in
1967 the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment (TA) became 5th (Volunteer)
Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment. In 1992 the 3rd Battalion, Royal Anglian
Regiment was disbanded ending the Bedfordshire Regiment's history.
In
1995 D Company, 2nd Battalion was named Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire
Company but by then the lineage of the Bedfordshire Regiment had been lost. In
1996 the 5th (Volunteer) Battalion became 7th (Volunteer) Battalion, Royal
Anglian Regiment and in 1999 the various
Territorial Army battalions were amalgamated as East of England Regiment
(Territorial Army). Then in 2006 the 3rd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment was
resurrected and the Essex Hertfordshire components of the Territorial Army
became E Company, 3rd Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment. Thus there is,
officially, no Bedfordshire component to the current TA unit.
The
service record of the regiment is as follows:
- 1689-1697: service in
north-west
- 1701-1713: service in
north-west
- 1713-1740: northern
- 1740-1742: served as
marines during the War of Jenkins' Ear including the Battle of Cartegena
de
- 1742-1746: northern
- 1746-1749:
- 1749-1767:
- 1767-1781:
- 1782-1791:
- 1791-1796:
- 1796-1802:
- 1803-1815:
- 1815-1819:
- 1820-1840:
- 1841-1845:
- 1846-1857: Gibraltar,
The
service record of the 1st Battalion was as follows:
- 1858-1870:
- 1870-1890:
- 1890:
- 1891-1907:
- 1907-1908:
- 1908-1914:
- 1914-1917: Western
Front
- 1917-1918:
- 1918-1919: Western
Front
- 1920-1922:
- 1922-1925:
- 1925-1927:
- 192701929:
- 1929-1938:
- 1938-1942:
- 1942-1947:
- 1947-1950:
- 1951:
- 1952-1954:
- 1954-1956:
- 1856-1958:
The
service record of the 2nd Battalion was as follows:
- 1858-1861:
- 1861-1866:
- 1866-1869:
- 1869-1876:
- 1876-1891:
- 1891-1898:
- 1898-1900:
- 1900-1903:
- 1903-1907:
- 1907-1910:
- 1910-1912: Bermuda
- 1912-1914:
- 1914-1919: Western
Front
- 1919:
- 1919-1925:
- 1925-1926:
- 1926-1936:
- 1936-1938:
- 1938-1939:
- 1939-1940:
- 1940-1941:
- 1941-1943:
- 1943-1944:
- 1944-1947:
- 1947-1958:
The
service record of the 1st/5th, later 5th, Battalion was as follows:
- 1915: Gallipoli
- 1915-1919:
- 1939-1941:
- 1941-1942:
The
service record of the 4th Battalion was the Western Front 1916-1918 and 6th 7th
and 8th battalions was the Western Front from 1915 to 1918.
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