The regiment was formed on 1 April 1967, as the successor to Territorial Army infantry battalions of the Mercian Brigade that had been reduced under the 1966 Defence White Paper and formation of the TAVR.

It also lost E Company (Cheshire) to the newly raised battalion.

The battalion's structure afterwards was as follows:[1][2] The Home Service Force, a home defence unit, established in 1982 at the height of the Cold War, saw each Territorial infantry battalion raise a company of HSF soldiers; this led to the formation of G (HSF) Company at Kidderminster.

[3] In the late 1980s, the decision was made to place control of the territorial infantry units back under the control of the local county-line infantry regiments and so the battalion was broken up, and the companies used as the foundation blocks for building these new battalions.

The 2nd Battalion was formed on 1 April 1975, mostly from the Light Infantry and Mercian Volunteers.