Eventually in 1880 as a result of the Childers Reforms the regiment was re-designated to the 1st Dorsetshire Rifle Volunteers. Just a year later it moved under control of the Dorsetshire Regiment as the volunteer battalion.[2]
The 2nd Battalion was stationed in Ireland from 1893 to 1897, then in Malta from 1899. Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War in late 1899, they were sent to South Africa, participating in the Relief of Ladysmith.[6] The battalion stayed in South Africa throughout the war, which ended in June 1902 with the Peace of Vereeniging. Four months later 300 officers and men left Cape Town on the SS German in late September 1902, and arrived at Southampton in late October, when they were posted to Portland.[7]
In 1908, the Volunteers and Militia were reorganised nationally, with the former becoming the Territorial Force and the latter the Special Reserve;[8] the regiment now had one Reserve battalion and one Territorial battalion.[a][3][9]
First World War
During the First World War, nine hostilities-only battalions were formed, six battalions serving overseas. The 1st Battalion and 6th (Service) battalion served on the Western Front throughout most of the war. Additional battalions (1/4th Battalion, 2/4th Battalion and 3/4th Battalion) were formed as part of the Territorial Force to meet the demand for troops on the Western Front.[3][10][11]
The 2nd Battalion was in Poona, India, when war broke out and was shipped, as part of the 16th Indian Brigade, to Mesopotamia, where it was trapped in the Siege of Kut and captured by the Turks. (Of the 350 men of the battalion captured, only 70 survived their captivity.) During the siege, returning sick and wounded, and the few replacements who had been sent out, were unable to re-join their battalion, so they, and similar drafts of the 2nd Norfolk Regiment, were amalgamated into a scratch battalion forming part of the force attempting to relieve Kut.[12] This battalion was formally titled the Composite English Battalion, but was more commonly known as The Norsets; it was broken up in July 1916, when the 2nd Dorsets was re-constituted.[11] The battalion then served in Egypt as part of 9th Indian Brigade in the 3rd Indian Division.[10][11]
Special Reserve
The 3rd (Reserve) Battalion remained in the UK fulfilling its role of training reinforcement drafts for the Regular battalions (including the 'Norsets'). It was also instrumental in setting up the 7th (Reserve) Battalion to do the same for the 5th and 6th (Service) Battalions, and the 1st and 2nd (later 8th) Home Service Battalions. [3][10][13]
Territorial Force
The 1/4th Battalion of the Territorial Force served in India and Mesopotamia and 2/4th Battalion in India and Egypt.[10][11]
New Army
The 5th (Service) Battalion took part in the Gallipoli Campaign, and having been evacuated from there in December 1915, went to Egypt before joining the war on the Western Front in July 1916.[11] The 6th (Service) Battalion was shipped to Boulogne in France in July 1915 as part of 50th Brigade in the 17th (Northern) Division and saw action on the Western Front.[10][11]
After First World War and Anglo-Irish War
The 3/4th (Reserve) Battalion was moved to Ebrington Barracks in Derry in April 1918.[10][11] The 3rd (Reserve) Battalion also served in Ireland, at Derry from March 1919, absorbing the 3/4th Bn as postwar demobilisation progressed. The remaining personnel were drafted to the 1st Battalion in August 1919.[3][14]
In April 1920, during the Anglo-Irish War, soldiers from the regiment fired into a protesting crowd on Bridge Street, leading to riots and skirmishes which saw it fight alongside the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and (later) Ulster Volunteers (UVF) against the Irish Republican Army (IRA).[15][16] Sporadic violence in the city continued until another large engagement in June, when the Dorsets and the UVF attacked the Bogside area of the city. A large IRA counter-offensive from the west ended the disturbances, which had seen 40 people killed since April.[17][18] Some RIC officers threatened to resign over the Dorsets' fraternisation and co-operation with the UVF.[18]
On 7 February 1920 4th Battalion was reformed in the TF (soon afterwards reorganised as the Territorial Army (TA))with its headquarters in Dorchester and four companies (A–D).[2]
The Officers and Men from the Dorset Regiment who lost their lives while taking part in the suppression of the revolt are commemorated in a brass tablet at the St. Mark's Cathedral, Bangalore.[21]
The 30th Battalion, previously the 6th (Home Defence) Battalion, was with the 43rd Infantry Brigade in North Africa and the invasion of Sicily, after which it spent the rest of the war in Gibraltar.[3][25]
The 7th Battalion, which was raised in 1940, was later converted to the 110th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery. The regiment served with the 43rd (Wessex) Division in North-West Europe from June 1944 to May 1945.[3][26]
The regiment was awarded the following battle honours. Those from the two World Wars that are emblazoned on the Queen's Colour are indicated in bold:[29]
From 39th Regiment of Foot: Plassey, Gibraltar 1779–83, Albuhera, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, Peninsula, Maharajpore, Sevastopol
From 54th Regiment of Foot: Marabout, Egypt, Ava
Martinique 1794 (awarded in 1909 for service of the 39th Regiment), 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
Victoria Cross
The following member of the regiment was awarded the Victoria Cross:
^ abcdefghijkJ.B.M. Frederick, Lineage Book of British Land Forces 1660–1978, Vol I, Wakefield: Microform Academic, 1984, ISBN 1-85117-007-3, pp. 88–90.
^ abc"The Dorset Regiment". regiments.org. Archived from the original on 3 March 2007. Retrieved 2 February 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ abcdefgBrig E.A. James, British Regiments 1914–18, London: Samson Books, 1978, ISBN 0-906304-03-2/Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2001, ISBN 978-1-84342-197-9, p. 81.
C.T. Atkinson, The Dorsetshire Regiment: the Thirty-Ninth and Fifty-Fourth Foot and the Dorset Militia and Volunteers (Oxford : Privately printed at the University Press, 1947).