In the following year, as part of the Childers Reforms, the 1st Cambridgeshire RVC were nominated as a volunteer battalion of the Suffolk Regiment.

[3] The 3rd Volunteer Battalion sent a voluntary detachment of 3 officers (including the Padre) and 43 other ranks to reinforce the regular Suffolk Regiment in the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1902.

[3] In 1901 about twenty of this contingent were awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Cambridge and also presented engraved silver cups in recognition of their service.

[3] The original units were converted by the beginning of 1914 as follows:[6] On the outbreak of the First World War, the Territorial Force was doubled in size, with the Cambridgeshire Regiment forming a 2/1st Battalion.

[7] Troops of the 4th/5th Black Watch, the 1st Cambridgeshire Regiment and the 17th King's Royal Rifle Corps of the 117th Brigade, took part in the capture of Schwaben Redoubt, a fortress dominating Thiepval, in October 1916 during the Battle of the Somme.

[8] C Company of the battalion then performed an important role in the capture of a boiler house and then refused to fall back when they came under counter-attack during the Battle of Passchendaele in July 1917.

[10][11] The Cambridgeshire Regiment like other volunteer battalions returned to a routine of drill nights, weekend training and annual camps.

[12] In early 1939, just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, the Territorial Army was again doubled in size with each unit forming a 2nd Line duplicate.

[3] The battalion, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon Thorne, was sent to Singapore in early 1942 and reinforced the 15th Indian Brigade at Batu Pahat.

[9] In 1946 Margaret Taylor, a Cambridgeshire welfare worker stationed in Singapore, recognised the regiment's drums in an old shed, their skins broken and rotten.