Regimental Timeline

The Princess Of Wales's Royal Regiment
and its Forebear Regiments

 

(Click here to view enlarged)

The regimental system has lain at the heart of Britain’s Standing Army since its formation in 1660 – and still does today.

In peace it helps create links between the army and local communities which not only assist recruiting but also ensures the army mirrors the community it serves and from which it draws its strength. In war – and conflicts which fall short of war but are nonetheless dangerous and demanding – it bolsters what one writer called ‘the bonds of mateship’, which form the very essence of fighting power. It is a system which has been tested in battle, which remains capable of expansion (our forebear regiments fielded dozens of battalions apiece in the world wars) and contraction (the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment now represents the seven infantry regiments of the south-east). Field-Marshal Slim wrote that: ‘The moral strength of the British Army is the sum of all these family and clan values. They are the foundation of the British soldier’s stubborn valour’.

The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment now plays its own unique part in this. It is England’s senior infantry regiment, with a war record second to none, and a strong sense of regional identity. It is a regiment which celebrates not only traditional military virtues like courage and discipline, but also the achievements of more junior ranks who are so often the people who really clinch success in war.

At Sobraon in 1846 Sergeant B. McCabe grabbed the regimental colour and planted it on the enemy rampart, at Kohima in 1944 Lance-Corporal J. Harman won the Victoria Cross by acts of repeated valour in one of the war’s grimmest battles and in Iraq Private J. Beharry won his Victoria Cross for two supreme acts of bravery in 2004, whilst serving as a Warrior armoured vehicle driver with the 1^st Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.

Brigadier E. R. Holmes, CBE, TD, JP.

Colonel, The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment

REGIMENTAL MUSEUMS CONNECTED WITH THE THE PRINCESS OF WALES’S ROYAL REGIMENT (THE QUEEN’S AND ROYAL HAMPSHIRES)
PWRR and QUEEN’S Regiment Museum » 5 Keep Yard, Dover Castle, Dover, Kent CT16 1HU Tel: 01304 240121	The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment Museum » The Maidstone Museum, St. Faith’s Street, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1LH Tel: 01622 602842 Fax: 01622 602193
The Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment Museum » Formerly at Clandon Park Now held at The Surrey History Centre 130 Goldsworth Road Woking GU21 6ND Tel: 01483 518737	The Middlesex Regiment (DCO) » National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3 4HT Tel: 020 7730 0717
The Buffs Museum, Royal Museum and Art Gallery » Beany Institute, High Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2JE Tel: 01227 452747	The Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum » Serle’s House, Southgate Street, Winchester, Hants SE23 9EG Tel: 01962 863658
The Royal Sussex Regiment Museum The Museum has now closed down. You can find more on the history of The Royal Sussex Museum at: www.royalsussex.org.uk/the-regiment/regimental-history/

 

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