Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment
| The Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment | |
|---|---|
| Active | 1959–1994 |
| Country |
 United Kingdom
|
| Branch |
 British Army
|
| Type | Infantry |
| Role | Line Infantry |
| Garrison/HQ | Brock Barracks, Reading |
| Nickname(s) | 'The Farmers Boys' |
| March |
|
| Anniversaries | Maiwand (27 July 1880), Ferozeshah (21 December 1845), (Battle of Tofrek 22 March 1885) |
The Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire) was an infantry regiment of the British Army.
The regiment was formed on 9 June 1959 after defence cuts implemented in the late 1950s saw the amalgamation of the Royal Berkshire Regiment (Princess Charlotte of Wales's) and Wiltshire Regiment (Duke of Edinburgh's), forming the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire). The amalgamation parade to create the new regiment took place at Albany Barracks, Isle of Wight, when it also received its first set of Colours, presented by its Colonel-in-Chief, HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Until the early 1980s, the regiment's administrative headquarters (RHQ) was at Brock Barracks, Reading, Berkshire, with a secondary or subsidiary headquarters at Le Marchant Barracks, Devizes, Wiltshire, but by 1982 a single RHQ had been permanently established in the Cathedral Close at Salisbury, Wiltshire, with the DERR regimental museum, - including the museum collections of the former Royal Berkshire Regiment and the Wiltshire Regiment - established on the ground floor of the same historic building, which had for several centuries been known locally as The Wardrobe.
The regimental badge of the new regiment was a silver cross patee (from the badge of the former Wiltshire Regiment), at the centre of which was a silver Chinese-style dragon (from the badge of the former Royal Berkshire Regiment). The Chinese dragon was surrounded by a gilt/gold double coil of naval rope (commemorating the service of the former regiments' service as marines, especially that of the 49th Regiment of Foot at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801). This rope coil was surmounted by the ducal coronet of the regiment's Colonel-in-Chief in gilt/gold. The badge was invariably set upon a piece of red material known as the Brandywine Flash (commemorating the regiment's action at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, during the American Revolutionary War). This red backing was configured as a square (with the red colour showing between the four arms of the cross patee) where the badge was worn as a collar badge or on a peaked cap, but as an inverted triangle approximately 2 X 2.5 inches in size where it was worn on the beret.
...
Wikipedia