Regimental & Family History Research
Historical Enquiries
The Regimental Archives does not hold any personal records or details about individual soldiers. These may be obtained from the Army Personnel Centre (APC), at Kentigern House, Glasgow. See their Deceased Personnel Records application details for further information, research application forms and fees.
The information we hold relates to the historical records of events of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and its various Battalions, although we do have details of some ‘notable’ individuals, including those who were either killed in action (kia), died of wounds (dow), died from illness or accident during their service, or were awarded Gallantry or Civil awards and medals.
The APC holds Officers’ and Soldiers’ records dating back to 1920. If you require information of soldiers who served prior to 1920, you need to contact the National Archives, at Kew, Surrey. Please note that approximately 60% of all personnel records were lost, or badly damaged, as a result of a bombing raid, in the German Blitz on London, during World War Two.
Please note:
The West Yorkshire Regiment (14th Regiment of Foot) is not the same Regiment as the West Riding Regiment (33rd Regiment of Foot).
The 49th (West Riding) Division was an infantry division of the British Army, composed of multiple military units. It is not the same as the West Riding Regiment (33rd Regiment of Foot).
We do not hold any information about those units history or members. For the West Yorkshire Regiment (14th Regiment of Foot) contact the York Army Museum.
A full set of our Regimental Journals, The IRON DUKE, is available to researchers and family members, in the Regimental Library, adjacent to the Halifax Central Library section at Bankfield Museum. Most are available for downloading as PDF format files, for personal use, from the List of Iron Dukes Page. Other research books are held in our library and again, where copyright permitted, they are available for downloading from the Regimental Research Books List.
Archives Staff:
Our archives is manned by volunteer Archivists working on a ‘spare time’ basis, usually on Wednesday and Thursday. Therefore it may be several days before your email is read. Please be aware that some information may take time for our Archivists to obtain, including from a home based Archives Team member or other external research source.
We have no telephone contact, therefore cannot take research requests over the phone.
The Regimental Association Office is a separate entity, open on Tuesday’s only, with no access to the archives repository. They will forward all research requests to the Archives volunteers, however this takes longer than directly emailing the archives.
Research Requests:
Although we will endeavour to reply within four weeks, from receipt of a completed form, we cannot guarantee it.
Initial requests received by email, or forwarded by the Association Office or Calderdale Museums, require the research request form (below) to be completed prior to any research starting.
It will speed up your enquiry if you send a completed form attached to your initial email.
Research requests received without a form will be returned with a copy of the form to complete. Research will not start until the completed form is received.
DWR Archive Research Request Form (MS Word Format)
E-Mail: historical.enquiries@dwr.org.uk
Postal address for completed request forms:
The Duke of Wellington’s Regimental Museum
Archives Department
Bankfield Museum, Boothtown Road
HALIFAX
West Yorkshire
HX3 6HG