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Authors and Contributors this page: T.F. Mills
Page created 15 July 2000. Corrected and updated 14.07.2006
 
crest and tie
The  Dorset Regiment
crest and tie
by A. Melville-Brown
United Kingdom 
  Titles & Lineage
  History
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How to find information about individuals who served in this corps
 
1881.07.01 The Dorsetshire Regiment
organised as the county regiment of Dorsetshire , encompassing its Militia and Volunteer infantry [see below] and uniting two regular battalions:
 
1951.06.23 The Dorset Regiment
1958.05.17 amalgamated with The Devonshire Regiment, to form The Devonshire and Dorset Regiment
pip History of The Devonshire and Dorset Regiment (Army site)
pip The Dorsetshire Regiment, by Brad Chappell (The Regimental Warpath 1914-1918)
pip The Dorsetshire Regiment, by Chris Baker (The British Army in the Great War).
     
  RHQ and Depot:
    RHQ:
    39th Regimental District at Dorchester [1881-1905]
   
    H Group at Bulford [1946-1948]
    Wessex Brigade at Exeter [1948-1958]
     
  Regulars:
    1st Battalion [1881-1958]
    2nd Battalion [1881-1948, 1951-1952]
   
Militia and Special Reserve:
  3rd Battalion (Dorset Regiment of Militia) [1881-1953]
Territorials and Volunteers:
  1st Volunteer Battalion [1881-1908]
  4th Battalion [1908-1958]
Hostilities-Only Units (First and Second World War, including T.A. duplicates):
  2/4th Battalion [1914-1918]
  4th (Reserve) Battalion [1915-1919]
  5th (Service) Battalion [1914-1919]
  5th Battalion [1939-1947]
  6th (Service) Battalion [1914-1919]
  6th (Home Defence) Battalion [1939-1941]
  7th (Reserve) Battalion [1914-1916]
  7th (Garrison) Battalion [1940-1942]
  8th (Home Service) Battalion [1916-1917]
  8th Battalion [1940-1941]
  9th (Service) Battalion [1918-1918]
  9th Battalion [1942-1946]
  30th (Service) Battalion [1941-1946]
  50th (Holding) Battalion [1940-1940]
  70th (Young Soldier) Battalion [1940-1942]
  1st (Home Service) Garrison Battalion [1916-1917]
  2nd (Home Service) Garrison Battalion [1916-1916]
 
[combined battle honours of 39th Regiment and 54th Regiment, plus:]

Martinique 17941, Tirah, Relief of Ladysmith, South Africa 1899-1902

The Great War [13 battalions]:  Mons, Le Cateau, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, La Bassée 1914, Armentières 1914, Ypres 1915 '17, Gravenstafel, St. Julien, Bellewaarde, Somme 1916 '18, Albert 1916 '18, Flers-Courcelette, Thiepval, Ancre 1916 '18, Arras 1917, Scarpe 1917, Messines 1917, Langemarck 1917, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, St. Quentin, Amiens, Bapaume 1918, Hindenburg Line, Épéhy, Canal du Nord, St. Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir, Cambrai 1918, Selle, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914-18, Suvla, Landing at Suvla, Scimitar Hill, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1916, Gaza, El Mughar, Nebi Samwil, Jerusalem, Tell 'Asur, Megiddo, Sharon, Palestine 1917-18, Basra, Shaiba, Kut al Amara 1915 '17, Ctesiphon, Defence of Kut al Amara, Baghdad, Khan Baghdadi, Mesopotamia 1914-18

The Second World War:  St. Omer-La Bassée, Normandy Landing, Villers Bocage, Tilly sur Seulles, Caen, Mont Pincon, St. Pierre La Vielle, Arnhem 1944, Aam, Geilenkirchen, Goch, Rhine, Twente Canal, North-West Europe 1940 '44-45, Landing in Sicily, Agira, Regalbuto, Sicily 1943, Landing at Porto San Venere, Italy 1943, Malta 1940-42, Kohima, Mandalay, Mt. Popa, Burma 1944-45

4th Battalion:  South Africa 1900-01

1.  awarded 1909 for service of 39th Regiment.

flag construction sign
   
Badges: construction sign
Uniform: 1881-1904: scarlet; facings: white
1904-1953: scarlet; facings: grass green
1953-1958: blue; facings: grass green; piping: grass green
headdress: construction sign
   
   
     
   
1953.06.02 HRH Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, CI, GCVO, GBE
1881 [1st Bn:] Gen John Ramsay Stuart, CB
1881 [2nd Bn:] Gen. Sir Charles Thomas van Straubenzee, GCB [also 47th Foot]
1892.08.11 Lt-Gen. Robert John Eagar, CB
1894.10.24 Gen. Henry Ralph Browne, CB [also Norfolk Regt]
1903.10.08 Lt-Gen. Sir Matthew William Edward Gosset, KCB
1909.03.28 Lt-Gen. Lindsay Farrington
1910.02.03 Maj-Gen. William de Wilton Roche Thackwell, CB [also Hon Col. 7th Bn King's Regt]
1910.06.17 Maj-Gen. Henry Cook, CB
1922.03.05 Maj-Gen. Sir Arlington Augustus Chichester, KCMG, CB, DSO
1933.07.02 Maj-Gen. Sir Hubert Jervoise Huddleston, GCMG, GBE, CB, DSO, MC [Gov. Gen. Sudan 1940-47]
1946.10.31 Brig. Charles Hall Woodhouse, OBE, MC
1952.03.01 Maj-Gen. George Neville Wood, CB, CBE, DSO, MC [continued 1958 in Devonshire and Dorset Regt]
vc Victoria Crosses, by Mike Chapman (VC Reference).
vc VCs in the Devonshire & Dorset Regimental Museum, by Iain Stewart.
pip Private Harry Woods (d. 1915), by Tom Morgan (Hellfire Corner)
   
   
 
Motto: Primus in Indis, Montis Insignia Calpe
Nicknames: construction sign
Anniversaries: Plassey (23 June), Sarah Sands (11 Nov.)
Freedoms: construction sign
Marches: quick: The Maid of Glenconnel
  slow: The Maid of Glenconnel [slowly]
Musicians: construction sign
Mascot: construction sign
Miscellaneous Tradition Links:
Canada flag Les Fusiliers de Sherbrooke 1939-1959
Australia flag

39th Battalion (The Hawthorn-Kew Regiment)

1931-1951
Malaysia flag 6th Battalion, The Royal Malay Regiment 1954?-1959
swords The Devonshire and Dorset Regimental Association (Army site)
   
   
monument Military Museum of Devon and Dorset, Dorchester (Army Museums Ogilby Trust)
monument The Keep Military Museum, Dorchester (museum site)
monument The Keep Military Museum, Dorchester (Simonides listing)
monument The Keep Military Museum, Dorchester (WestCountry.com listing)
   
   
Regimental Journal:
book The Dorset Regimental Journal Vol. 1. no. 1 (May 1912)-v. 3. no. 27 (July 1914). Portsmouth, 1912-1914.
book The Dorset regimental quarterly. Vol. 1. no. 1 (June 1926)-v. 19. no. 2 (June 1951). London, 1926-1951.
book The Dorset regimental journal. Vol. 19. no. 3 (Sep. 1951)-v. 27. no. 2 (May 1958). London, 1951-1958.
Full Histories:
book Atkinson, Christopher Thomas. The Dorsetshire Regiment; the Thirty-Ninth and Fifty-Fourth Foot and the Dorset Militia and Volunteers. Oxford : Privately printed at the University Press, 1947. [v. 1. The Thirty-Ninth.--v. 2. The Fifty- Fourth. The Dorsetshire Regiment]
book Phipps, P. R. A medallic record of the war services of the Dorsetshire Regiment (39th and 54th). [Dorchester : Hnery Ling Ltd.], 1932. Repr. from the Dorsetshire regimental quarterly, v. 6, no. 3, Sept., 1931, and rev. "January, 1932."
book Popham, Hugh. The Dorset Regiment: the 39th/54th Regiment of Foot. London : Leo Cooper Ltd, 1970. (Famous regiments) ISBN: 0850520487
book Phipps, P.R. Records of the 1st Battalion, The Dorset Regiment, late 39th Regiment, from 1853 to 1893. Cairo : [s.n.], ca. 1893.
book The First Battalion, the Dorset Regiment (39th and 54th) in the Far East : two hundred years after the landing of the 39th Regiment in India in 1754. [Hong Kong] : Dorset Regiment, 1954.
   
Short Histories:
book The Dorset Regiment : The 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment illustrated with brief historical account of the services of the regiment. Ferozepore : F. Bremmer, 1906.
book A short history of The Dorsetshire Regiment. Aldershot : Gale & Polden, 1922.
book A short history of The Dorsetshire Regiment. Aldershot : Gale & Polden, 1937.
book A short history of The Dorsetshire Regiment. Aldershot : Gale & Polden, 1941.
book A short history of The Dorsetshire Regiment, 1702-1948 . Dorchester : Henry Ling Ltd., 1948.
 

Militia:

book Records of the 3rd Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment from 1757 to 1893, together with the names and dates of commissions of officers who have entered the regiment from its formation down to the present time. London : Griffith Faran, [1893]
 

Territorials/Volunteers:

book Symonds, Henry. Dorset Volunteers during the French wars, 1793-1814. Dorchester : F.G. Longman, 1920.
 

First World War:

book

Ransome, A. L. The Fine Fighting of the Dorsets : three battles of 1st Battn. The Dorsetshire Regiment in 1914 and 1915. Dorchester : Regimental Museum, 1959.

book

Ransome, A. L. The 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment in France and Belgium, Aug. 1914 to June 1915, including a roll of officers, list of honours and awards, mentions in despatches and summary of casualties. [Plymouth] : Priv. print. [at the Mayflower press], 1923.

book History of the Dorsetshire regiment, 1914- 1919. Dorchester, London : Henry Ling Ltd.; Simpkin Marshall Ltd., 1932.

Second World War:

book Bredin, Alexander Edward Craven. Three assault landings; the story of the 1st Bn., the Dorsetshire Regiment in Sicily, Italy, and N. W. Europe. Aldershot : Gale & Polden, 1946.
book White, Oliver Geoffrey Woodhouse. Straight on for Tokyo; the war history of the 2nd Battalion, the Dorsetshire Regiment (54th Foot) 1939-1948. Aldershot : Gale & Polden, 1948.
book Watkins, G. J. B. From Normandy to the Weser : the war history of the Fourth Battalion the Dorset Regiment, June 1944 - May 1945. [s.l. : s.n., (H. Ling at the Dorset Press) , ca. 1945-1979].
book Hartwell, G. R., and Pack, G. R. Edwards. The story of the 5th Battalion, The Dorsetshire Regiment in north-west Europe. [s.l. : s.n., (H. Ling Ltd., at the Dorset Press), 1946].
Havers, Norman. March on! : an infantry battalion in England, India and Burma 1941-1945. Worcester : Square One, 1992. ISBN: 1872017541