Quote:
Originally Posted by colin 17
When Hemel Hemptead is in Hertfordshire why is it the 2nd VB Bedfordshire?
Colin
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Like several Counties, e.g. Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, Cambridgeshire, the County of Hertfordshire was not allocated a regular infantry regiment in the Childers reforms of July 1881. Accordingly the RVC for those Counties had to be aligned with a nearby County that did have a regular regiment and in the case of Herts, that was Bedfordshire. As a result the Herts RVC became a VB of the Bedfordshire Regiment.
In 1908 the Territorial Force was created from the VBs and the Yeomanry, and the issue of unrepresented Counties was raised and resolved by creating some TF only infantry regiments, and Hertfordshire became one of these. However, Hertfordshire men continued to give excellent service as a part of the Bedfordshire Regiment throughout WW1 and so in recognition of this the Bedfordshire Regiment proposed a change of its title to Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment after the war (1919). Ironically this meant that the men of Hertfordshire could join TF battalions of whichever regiment that they preferred because the County had gone from not having any regiment affiliated to it to having two.
NB. Hertfordshire had previous to 1881 had a numbered line infantry regiment, the 49th, affiliated since 1782, but as with all other numbered regiments given a secondary County title in that year, it was wholly meaningless as the regiment had no permanent presence or meaningful association within the County boundary. In 1881, the 49th was aligned with Berkshire, together with the 66th.