The Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire) was an infantry regiment of the British Army.
History
Earlier history
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, 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.
The first posting for the 1st Battalion (1 DERR) in 1959 was in Tidworth, Wiltshire and it was from there in June 1960 that B Company arrived in the Bahamas to augment the in-place garrison unit in the Caribbean, the 1st Battalion the Royal Hampshire Regiment (1 R HAMPS). The following year, ethnic violence in British Guiana saw 1 DERR send a company to assist the re-establishment of order.
Other information
- Colonel-in-Chief: The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Band
During its existence, the regiment maintained a regimental band and a corps of drums. It took part in many different ceremonies on behalf of the regiment, including the Beating Retreat with the Pipes & Drums of the Ulster Defence Regiment. In August 1979, members of the regimental band were hurt in the 1979 Brussels bombing on the Grand-Place, carried out by volunteers belonging to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The bombing injured seven bandsmen and eleven civilians. Fatalities were avoided as only some of the band's 30 members arrived (the rest were stuck in city traffic) and the band members that were there were dressing away from the stage.
Alliances
Alliances included:
- The Lincoln and Welland Regiment—Canada (1959–1994)
- The Algonquin Regiment—Canada (1959–1994)
- The Hawke's Bay Regiment—New Zealand
- The Duke of Edinburgh's Own Rifles—the former Union of South Africa Defence Forces
- 7th Battalion (Wellington (City of Wellington's Own) and Hawke's Bay), Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment
- 13th Battalion, Frontier Force Regiment—Pakistan
Freedoms
The regiment received the Freedom of several locations throughout its history; these include:
- 1960: Windsor and Maidenhead
- 1970: Abingdon.