They returned to England in October, and on 21 April 1758 the 2nd Battalion became the 61st Regiment of Foot, with Major General Granville Elliott as colonel.

The regiment returned to England in the summer of 1760 where they engaged in recruiting to make up for the casualties suffered in the West Indies.

By 1779 Britain was involved in a war with America, France and Spain, and in August 1781 a Franco-Spanish force began an attack.

In April 1795 they moved to St Lucia as part of the force under Brigadier-General James Stewart.

The regiment had suffered very heavy casualties and returned to England in October 1796 to be made up to strength.

[3] In 1801 the regiment proceeded to Egypt where they took part in the campaign to expel the French Armée d'Orient from the country.

The 2nd Battalion was raised as part of the expansion of the army in response to the threat of invasion by France, and spent its entire existence in England and Ireland, before being disbanded in October 1814.

Early in the following year they were forced to evacuate to Sicily, along with the deposed King Ferdinand IV.

[3][11] In June 1809 the 1/61st landed in Lisbon, Portugal and joined the army fighting under Sir Arthur Wellesley in Spain.

The battalion's commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert John Coghlan was killed at Toulouse.

Regimental Headquarters and a portion of the strength were delivered immediately to St. George's Garrison by the steamer HMS Spitfire (remaining there until moving to Prospect Camp on 27 April 1868, clearing the Royal Barracks at St. George's to be taken over by the 1st Battalion, 15th (The Yorkshire East Riding) Regiment of Foot, which arrived from New Brunswick the following day),[14] while the rest encamped at the Royal Naval Dockyard on the island of Ireland before moving into the Casemates Barracks there.

Surgeon-Major Usher Williamson Evans of the regiment was appointed the Principal Medical Officer of the Bermuda Command.

[17][18] The regiment departed Bermuda on 20 December 1870, when it marched from Prospect Camp to the City of Hamilton, embarking on HMS Vixen for transfer to HMS Himalaya at the Royal Naval Dockyard, which carried the regiment to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The regiment had lost 37 men in Bermuda, including Private Vincent Hodge Kinson, who shot himself at the Casemates Barracks on Ireland Island on the 6th of December, 1867, in a fit of temporary insanity, Private William Johnson, who fell into a ditch near the same barracks on the night of 15 December 1867,[19] and six men during the last year at Bermuda, one of whom had died of each of the following causes: dysentery, Pthisis Pul, Haemoptyses, coma, excess of spirits, and drinking a quantity of Murray's disinfecting fluid while in a fit of delirium tremens.

In 1873, under the Cardwell Reforms, the United Kingdom was divided into 66 "Brigade Districts" which generally corresponded to one or more counties.