REGIMENTAL NUMBERING

Initially regiments did not number their soldiers and they were referred to by their names. However after the Napoleonic Wars it became apparent that better records needed to be kept and so each regiment numbered their men in the order in which they had enlisted. Thus in 1829 a man who had joined the 36^th Regiment in 1793 aged 40 received the number 1 at the age of 76!!. In the case of our two predecessor regiments, the holder of number 1 in the 49^th remains unidentified but number 1 in the 66^th was allotted to J Ziegler who had enlisted 31^st July 1795 and who died in service 5^th August 1833.

In 1856 they decided to start again and by this time the 49^th had reached 4262 and the 66^th 4148. These second series lasted until 1873 by which time the 49^th had got to 1519 and the 66^th to 1789. At this point Edward T Cardwell, the Secretary of State for War grouped the 49^th and the 66^th together to form the 41^st Brigade. This time however, to avoid confusion, the new numbers were prefixed by B/. The way things had been organised previously was that when a regiment was sent overseas its depot was looked after by another regiment on home deployment. The grouping was intended to make these relationships more permanent and so within a brigade one regiment would be deployed at home and the other overseas.

This arrangement did not last long, partly because a brigade had a somewhat different meaning when on active service and so in 1881 they merged the two regiments into the Berkshire Regiment with the 49^th becoming the 1^st Battalion and the 66^th the 2^nd Battalion. The Berkshire Militia became the 3^rd Battalion and the Berkshire Volunteers the 4^th Battalion These latter retained their own numbering system but the Berkshire Regiment started all over again with men retaining their B/ or 49^th or 66^th number so long as there was no confusion. Where there was confusion one of the men would be renumbered using a vacant number. By this time the 41^st Brigade had reached 2415 and there were still plenty of old 49^th and 66^th numbers around. As new recruits joined the regiment they were allocated the lowest number vacated by a man who had just left the regiment who had been holding a 49^th, 66^th or 41^st number. Numbers vacated by a man holding a Berkshire Regimental number were not reused.

The 1908 reorganisation of the Territorial Army saw a new series of numbers used for the 4^th Battalion and men of the 3^rd Battalion had their own series. Thus by the start of the First World War the Royal Berks had three series in operation, Regulars, Territorials and Reservists – a situation guaranteed to cause confusion.

To follow the story through to 1920 when Army numbers were introduced click here.

H18 17/5/2008