The Yorkshire Regiment: Three Famous Regiments, One White Rose

September 1, 2026

The Yorkshire Regiment is one of the newer names in the British Army and one of the oldest collections of history behind a single cap badge. It was formed in 2006 by bringing together three long-established Yorkshire regiments, each of which had centuries of its own record, its own traditions and its own devoted following.

That is why it is such a common name in surplus, and why anyone collecting Yorkshire insignia quickly finds themselves dealing with four badges rather than one.

The three that came together

The Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire — itself already an amalgamation, drawing on the West Yorkshire Regiment and the East Yorkshire Regiment.
The Green Howards — perhaps the most famous name of the three, and one of the very few British regiments universally known by a nickname rather than a number or a county.
The Duke of Wellington's Regiment — "the Dukes", the only line infantry regiment to be named after a person rather than a place or a royal title.

Each became a battalion of the new regiment, and each carried its old identity forward. That is the standard British compromise on amalgamation: the name changes, the traditions do not.

Why the Green Howards are called that

It is the question every Yorkshire collector gets asked. The traditional explanation goes back to a period when British regiments were known by the name of their colonel rather than by a number. With two regiments both commanded by a Howard, the two were distinguished by the colour of their facings — the contrasting cloth on cuffs and collars. One became the Green Howards, the other the Buff Howards.

The nickname stuck so thoroughly that it eventually became the official title, which is a very rare thing to happen in the British Army.

The white rose

The cap badge of the Yorkshire Regiment is the white rose of York within a wreath, surmounted by a crown. It is about as direct a piece of heraldry as the British Army produces: no Latin, no animals, no battle honours, just the county's own symbol.

That simplicity is part of why it is such a recognisable badge, and it is also why the crown matters so much for dating. A Yorkshire Regiment badge cannot predate 2006, so a Queen's crown example was made between 2006 and 2022, and a King's crown one after that. That is an unusually tight window for a British badge and it makes them easy to place.

What this means if you are buying

Four things worth knowing:

Predecessor badges are still plentiful. Green Howards and Duke of Wellington's insignia was made in enormous quantities over a very long period and is not scarce.
They are not interchangeable. A Green Howards badge is not a Yorkshire Regiment badge, and listing one as the other is a common mistake.
Battalion identity survives. Items associated with a specific battalion connect back to the old regiment, which is exactly what makes them interesting.
The 2006 date is a hard floor. Anything genuinely marked Yorkshire Regiment postdates it, whatever a seller says about the age of the history behind it.

Why so much Yorkshire kit reaches the market

Amalgamations produce surplus. When three regiments become one, three sets of regimental stores, three patterns of insignia and three sets of dress items become redundant at once, and a great deal of it is disposed of over the following years.

The result is that Yorkshire material — both the new regiment's and its predecessors' — is among the most available British regimental insignia there is. For a collector starting out, that is genuinely good news: an interesting, historically rich regimental group that can be built without chasing rarities.

Reading a Yorkshire battalion's lineage from its insignia

Because each battalion inherited a predecessor regiment, battalion-level items carry more information than the cap badge does. If you find something marked to a battalion, that battalion tells you which of the three older regiments the item connects back to — and that in turn tells you which recruiting area, which traditions and which battle honours sit behind it.

This is a general principle worth knowing about all the large regiments created in the 2000s restructuring. The Rifles, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the Mercian Regiment and the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment all work the same way: one cap badge on top, several distinct regimental histories underneath, sorted by battalion. Collect at battalion level and the older structure becomes visible.

Yorkshire regiments before 1881

Go back far enough and the county connection itself is a relatively recent invention. Before the reforms of 1881 the regiments that became Yorkshire units were numbered regiments of foot, and the county titles were bolted on later to create the recruiting link between a place and a regiment.

That has a practical consequence for anyone researching an old Yorkshire item. If you are working backwards from a badge or a button to a period before 1881, you are looking for a number rather than a name, and the county association may not help you at all. Both numbering and naming survived in parallel in regimental tradition for a long time afterwards, which is exactly why so much British regimental history is written with a number in brackets after the name.

Why Yorkshire is a good place to start collecting

If someone wanted to build a single regimental collection that taught them how the British Army actually works, Yorkshire would be a strong choice. It has the county tradition, a famous nickname, an amalgamation in living memory, three distinct predecessor lineages and a badge that is trivially easy to date. And because so much of it was made and so much was disposed of, almost none of it is expensive.