The Manchester Regiment

Manchester Regiment
Cap badge of the Manchester Regiment during the First World War
Active	1 July 1881 – 1 September 1958
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Infantry
Size	Line infantry
Garrison/HQ	Ladysmith Barracks, Ashton-under-Lyne
Anniversaries	Ladysmith, 23 February Kohima, 15 May Guadeloupe, 10 June Inkerman, 5 November
Commanders
Colonel-in-Chief	HM King George V (1930) HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (1947)
Colonel of the Regiment	Edmund Richard Jeffreys (1881) John MacNeill Walter (1889) Sir Henry Radford Norman (1895) Vere Hunt Bowles (1899) William Osborne Barnard (1904) Sir Vere Bonamy Fane (1920) Sir Willoughby Garnons Gwatkin (1924) Hon. Sir Herbert Alexander Lawrence (1925) Wilfrid Keith Evans (1932) Francis Holland Dorling (1934) Charles Dawson Moorhead (1947) Eric Boyd Costin (1948) Thomas Bell Lindsay Churchill (1954)

The Manchester Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1958. The regiment was created during the 1881 Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 63rd (West Suffolk) Regiment of Foot and the 96th Regiment of Foot as the 1st and 2nd battalions; the Militia became the 3rd (Reserve) and 4th (Extra Reserve) battalions and the Volunteer battalions became the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th battalions.

After distinguished service in both World War I and World War II, the Manchester Regiment was amalgamated with the King's Regiment (Liverpool) in 1958, to form the King's Regiment (Manchester and Liverpool), which was, in 2006, amalgamated with the King's Own Royal Border Regiment and the Queen's Lancashire Regiment to form the present Duke of Lancaster's Regiment (King's, Lancashire and Border).

Between the 1860s and 1880s, the British Army underwent a period of reform implemented by Edward Cardwell and Hugh Childers. Single-battalion regiments were amalgamated and regiments were affiliated with a geographical area. The Manchester Regiment came into being on 1 July 1881 by the union of the 63rd (West Suffolk) and 96th Regiments of Foot. They had been linked in 1873 by their allocation to the 16th Sub-district Brigade Depot in Ashton-under-Lyne, near to Manchester. The 2nd Battalion, as the 96th Foot, had been raised in the town of Manchester in 1824. Eight additional battalions were gained through the incorporation of the 6th Royal Lancashire Militia and rifle corps units from Lancashire.