126th (East Lancashire) Brigade

East Lancashire Brigade 126th (East Lancashire) Brigade 126th Infantry Brigade
42nd (East Lancashire) Division insignia, First World War
Active	1908–1919 1920–1941
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Territorial Army
Type	Infantry
Size	Brigade
Part of	42nd (East Lancashire) Infantry Division
Engagements	Gallipoli Campaign Battle of Romani Battle of Passchendaele Battles of the Somme (1918) Hundred Days Offensive (1918) Dunkirk evacuation
Commanders
Notable commanders	Brigadier-General Viscount Hampden Brigadier Lionel Bootle-Wilbraham
Insignia
Identification symbol	42nd Division insignia, Second World War

The 126th (East Lancashire) Brigade was an infantry brigade of the British Army during the First World War and the Second World War. It was assigned to the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division and served in the Middle East and on the Western Front in the Great War. In the Second World War, now as the 126th Infantry Brigade, it served again with the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division in France and was evacuated at Dunkirk and then later converted into 11th Armoured Brigade.

For most of its existence the brigade was composed of battalions of the East Lancashire Regiment and the Manchester Regiment, although in the late 1930s and the Second World War it was composed of battalions of the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) and the Border Regiment.

On the creation of the Territorial Force in 1908, two Volunteer battalions from the East Lancashire Regiment, the 4th and 5th, and two from the Manchester Regiment, the 9th and 10th, were organised into an East Lancashire Brigade within the East Lancashire Division.

On the outbreak of the First World War, most of the men volunteered for overseas service and the division embarked at Southampton and sailed for Egypt on 10 September 1914, the first TF division to leave England for foreign service. The division began disembarking at Alexandria on 25 September and the bulk (including the East Lancashire Brigade) concentrated at Cairo.