WFR Museum - Sherwood Foresters Collection Education Service
Origins of the Regimental Badge
Badges have been used by fighting troops as distinguishing marks since the very earliest times and several of the badges of the British regiments are as old as the regiments themselves, but the present importance of regimental badges date from the re-organisation of 1881. Until that year the regiments of the Line were designated by numbers which were displayed on their caps and shakos. The old numbers were superseded by county titles, but most regiments still retained in some form their number of precedence ie. 29th/36th (Worcestershire) Regt and 45th/95th (Derbyshire) Regt. It was also decided that distinctive badges should take the place of the banished numerals. This was no easy matter, for to design sufficient badges of really different character to enable all the sixty-nine Line regiments to be easily distinguishable took both time and considerable imagination - for both parts of the newly formed regiments wanted to be represented in some form in the new badges.
