Regimental & Family History Research

We regret to advise that as of today 25th April, 2025,

due to unforeseen technical issues the

Historical Enquiries service is temporarily closed.

When the service is able to resume this notice will be removed

The Regimental Archives does not hold any individual personal records or details about our regimental veterans.  These may be obtained from the Army Personnel Centre (APC), at Kentigern House, Glasgow. 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.

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, such as 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.

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.

Regimental Research:

A full set of our Regimental Journals, The IRON DUKE, is available to researchers and family members, in our Library, adjacent to the Regimental Association Office, within 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 staff are all unpaid volunteers, working on a ‘spare time’ basis, usually on Wednesday, between 10.30am and 2.30pm, though we cannot guarantee staff will be in attendance at any given time.

We have no telephone contact.

The Regimental Association Office is a separate entity to the archives. It is open on Tuesday’s only, with no access to the archives repository.

Research Requests:  Currently closed, until further notice.

For any enquiries, other than research requests, the archives can be contacted by email at:- archives@dwr.org.uk

Postal address:

The Duke of Wellington’s Regimental Museum
Archives Department
Bankfield Museum, Boothtown Road
HALIFAX
West Yorkshire
HX3 6HG