Description
West Riding Regiment Cap Badge
The regimental cap badge of the West Riding Regiment depicts the crest and motto of the Duke of Wellington (a lion holding a standard emerging from a Ducal coronet above a scroll inscribed with the regimental motto ‘VIRTUTIS FORTUNA COMES’ (Fortune favours the brave)).
At base an ornate scroll inscribed ‘THE WEST RIDING’.
Brief History
The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment was originally formed in 1702 as Huntingdon’s Regiment. As regiments at that time took the name of the Colonel taking it over it became:- Henry Leigh’s Regiment; then Robert Duncansons Regiment and George Wade’s Regiment. It was disbanded on 25 March 1714, but was officially registered as the 33rd Regiment of Foot in January 1715 and re-raised on 25 March 1715, as George Wade’s Regiment; then Henry Hawley’s Regiment; Robert Dalzell’s Regiment and John Johnson’s Regiment.
In 1782 Lord Cornwallis, the then Colonel of the Regiment, wrote that “The 33rd Regiment of Infantry has always recruited in the West Riding of Yorkshire and has a very good interest and the general goodwill of the people in that part of the country:- I should therefore wish not only to be permitted to recruit in that county, but that my Regiment may bear the name of the 33rd or West Yorkshire Regiment”. On 31 August 1782 Lord Cornwallis heard that the King had approved of the new title:- 33rd (or the 1st West Yorkshire West Riding) Regiment of Foot.
Owing to its links with the Duke of Wellington, the title ‘The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment’ was granted to the 33rd Regiment on 18 June 1853, on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in the year following Wellington’s death.