List of battalions of the Durham Light Infantry

This is a list of battalions of the Durham Light Infantry, which existed as a regiment of the British Army from 1881 to 1968.

When the 68th Regiment of Foot and the 106th Regiment of Foot became the Durham Light Infantry (DLI) in 1881 under the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Armed Forces, seven pre-existing militia and volunteer battalions of County Durham were integrated into the structure of the DLI.

These latter battalions had existed intermittently for some time, but had been made permanent in reaction to a perceived threat of invasion by France the late 1850s.

[1][2][3] The militia, in two battalions, were more appealing to the working classes as the equipment was government funded, while the volunteers were organised as "rifle volunteer corps", independent of the British Army, financially self-supporting and composed primarily of the middle class, they underwent a number of reorganisations before reaching the form in which they were incorporated into the county regiment.

[25] The regiment's territorial components formed duplicate second and third line battalions of progressively lower fitness men.

[27] The Volunteer Training Corps were raised with overage or reserved occupation men early in the war, and were initially self-organised into many small corps, with a wide variety of names, such as the Darlington Civilian Rifle Club, formed on 12 September 1914 which had amembership of 260 by December that year.

[63] A number of Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) troops were formed from the local battalions to defend specific points, such as factories.