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The 95th Foot, chose to drop its number, and proudly boasted as being thus the junior regiment of the line.
In India the native troops serving as part of the [[East India Company Army|Honourable East India Company]] staged a mutiny. After which, the infantry regiments of that organisation were brought onto the British Army books. (Not I might add popular with former John Company officers and men). These regiments were numbered the 101st to 109th Foot (with other titles and sub-titles).
The regiment nominated as the 103rd Foot was furious, as it claimed to have been in existence prior to the Royal Scots, and therefore thought it should be numbered the 1st Foot!
The first 25 regiments had two battalions, and Cardwell forced the remainder of the infantry regiments, to be formed into two battalion regiments. There were 66 recruiting regions in the United Kingdom, and each regiment was linked to, and given a name associated with that region. Thus, the Royal Scots (The Lothian Regiment), 13th Foot became Prince Albert’s (Somerset Light Infantry) and the 50th and 97th Foot became the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment.
Some regiment had strong links with their “new” recruiting areas – the 47th (Lancashire) Regt of Foot and the 81st (Loyal Lincolnshire) Regt of Foot became the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. [[32nd Regiment of Foot|32nd (Cornwall LI) ]] and the 46th (South Devonshire) became the [[32nd Regiment of Foot|Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry]].
Famously the 99th Foot a Scottish regiment became the 2nd Battalion the Wiltshire Regiment.
It would be true to say that many Counties and Towns made very little connections to “their” regiment until the First World War. For example, the authorities in County Durham tried every way possible to prevent the building of a Depot for the new regiment on their land. Eventually due to the opposition, the regimental depot was placed in Fenham Barrack, in Northumberland.
The British Army was not quite prepared for its next major conflict, and many faults were revealed in the Boar Boer War in South Africa. One more serious reform was to take place in and around 1908 to prepare it for the 1914/18 war. These reforms were forced on the Army by Richard Haldane his impression is with us even until today
== Haldane Reforms ==
