The regiment can trace its history back to 4 June 1794, when a meeting of country gentlemen at the Bear Inn in Devizes decided to raise a body of ten independent troops of yeomanry for the county of Wiltshire, which became the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry.

Following the Strategic Defence Review, the regiment merged with the Dorset Yeomanry in July 1999 and was reorganised.

However, this regiment traditionally recruits from Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Shropshire and Wiltshire, along with neighbouring counties such as Cornwall, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Somerset.

[11] The regiment wears a brown beret, similar to that worn by the King's Royal Hussars, with a square black patch behind the cap badge to represent the RTR affiliation.

[11] For the purposes of parading, the Regiments of the British Army are listed according to an order of precedence.

This is the order in which the various corps of the army parade, from right to left, with the unit at the extreme right being the most senior.