The Berkshire Regiment was formed as part of the reforms carried out by Edward Cardwell and Hugh Childers, Secretaries of State for War in the late nineteenth century.

County militia regiments were also to be linked with the regular battalions, with all sharing a single depot in the brigade district.

[7] On 19 March 1896 the regiment, under Major Massard, was called in by the Penzance Borough Police and Cornwall County Constabulary to help quell disorder during the Newlyn riots.

[10] The 2nd Battalion was posted to South Africa in February 1898 and stayed there throughout the Second Boer War (1899–1902), leaving for Egypt in November 1902.

In 1915 during the Battle of Loos, 2nd Lieutenant Alexander Buller Turner of the 3rd Battalion, attached to the 1st, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

[15] The 7th Battalion joined the 78th Brigade and moved to Salonika to fight the Bulgarian Army on the Macedonian front in the battles of Horseshoe Hill and Doiran in 1917 and ended the war in Macedonia.

[15] The 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th battalions were all formed in 1916, serving in France and were transferred to the Labour Corps and remained there for the rest of the war.

Miles Dempsey served with the regiment after being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1915, where he was awarded the Military Cross for bravery.

He would serve with distinction in the Second World War in France, North Africa, Sicily, Italy and North-Western Europe and became the Commander of the British Second Army from D-Day onwards.

[1] However, the 2nd Division, 1st Royal Berkshires included, was sent to India in 1942, after the Imperial Japanese Army conquered much of Burma in early 1942.

The battalion and division became part of the Fourteenth Army under the command of Lieutenant General William "Bill" Slim.

Entering the Battle around 20 April 1944, the 1st Royal Berkshires continued to fight the Japanese for a further three weeks in horrendous conditions, and suffered just over 50% casualties.

[19] The battalion continued to fight in the Burma Campaign, seeing action in the Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay until being withdrawn to India in April 1945.

After Dunkirk the battalion was posted away and was not part of a field unit but trained intensively for future combat operations, gaining a high standard of fitness and morale.

By the time of Victory in Europe Day the battalion was based in Sussex and were re-training several hundred men of the Royal Artillery into infantrymen.

The battalion spent most of its existence moving around the United Kingdom, mainly in East Anglia, on guard duties and training and preparing for a possible German invasion of England.

The battalion was created specifically for home defence purposes and consisted mainly of men mainly in a lower medical category and younger soldiers unable to be conscripted and eventually it grew to 2,000 strong.

[1] The 9th Battalion, nicknamed The Farmer's Boys, was formed in June 1940 at Reading and joined the 213th Infantry Brigade (Home) and spent the war in the United Kingdom.

The 50th (Holding) Battalion's job was to 'hold' men who were homeless, medically unfit or those awaiting orders, on courses or returning from abroad.

The 168th Brigade took part in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, and then fought in the Italian Campaign back with the 56th Division.

The division came under the command of the US Fifth Army under Mark W. Clark for the landings at Anzio, where the battalion endured some of the bitterest fighting of the war so far.

The battalion spent most of its time guarding areas of the United Kingdom against German invasion and grew to a size of well over 1,000 officers and men, with the hope that they would be able to see action overseas.