"On an autumnal maple leaf proper a bugle Argent stringed Vert enclosing the letters RHLI Or and ensigned by the Royal Crown proper, the base of the leaf surmounted by two scrolls Azure edged and inscribed WENTWORTH REGIMENT and SEMPER PARATUS in letters Or.

[1] Details of the 77th Wentworth Regiment were called out on active service on 6 August 1914 for local protection duties.

[1]The regiment mobilised the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, CASF for active service on 1 September 1939.

(General Denis Whitaker, who fought as a captain with the RHLI at Dieppe, in a 1989 interview stated, “The defeat cleared out all the dead weight.

Most recently, members from the regiment deployed to Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

The RHLI's earliest direct ancestor is the 13th Battalion of Volunteer Militia established in 1862, which along with the 2nd Battalion the Queen's Own Rifles are modern Canada's oldest fighting regiments, having first seen combat in June 1866 at the Battle of Ridgeway against an invading Irish American Fenian insurgent army composed of better armed and more experienced recent civil war veterans.

The regimental cap badge still bears the supposedly unlucky number from its oldest official antecedent.

When the 13th Battalion first saw action at the Battle of Ridgeway it took heavy casualties and was forced to fall back along with the Queen's Own Rifles.

When the Great War began in 1914, Colonel Sam Hughes, Canada's Minister of Militia, scrapped the original national mobilisation plan and asked the commanding officers of Militia units for volunteers to serve with battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).

Throughout the war, the unit served as a depot regiment that enrolled and trained men before despatching them to deploying CEF battalions.

On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, all the units of the Non-Permanent Active Militia of Canada were mobilised for overseas service.

(This was not done in 1899 or 1914 because the original terms of sovereignty under the British North America Act-amended by the Statute of Westminster in 1931-did not include authority to deploy troops outside Canadian territory.)

The most highly decorated member of the battalion was the chaplain, Honorary Captain the Reverend John Foote, who remained at Dieppe with his wounded and captured comrades rather than accept evacuation to Britain.

Padre Foote was nominated for the Victoria Cross while still a prisoner of war; the award was made after VE Day.

During Operation Spring, the Rileys earned the distinction of being the only assault unit to hold their objective (the village of Verrières).

The town of Dieppe, France, set aside a small park at the western end of the esplanade in which it erected a memorial of its own.

Over the past decades members have also served in; Cyprus, the Golan Heights, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Haiti, Sudan, Dubai, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iraq, Ukraine and Latvia.

In 2017 the RHLI received the StAR (Strengthening the Army Reserve) Mission Task of Influence Activities (IA).

Current parade strength is approximately 200-250 all ranks, making the RHLI one of the largest reserve regiments in the CAF.

Members from the RHLI in Afghanistan served with Infantry Platoons, CIMIC & PSY OPS teams, Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), Force Protection Units, Helicopter Door Gunner Sections, and Canadian Special Operations Forces.

Bold type indicates honours authorized to be emblazoned on the regimental colour.The RHLI has two affiliated Royal Canadian Army Cadets corps.