The

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

is listed according to an order of precedence for the purposes of parading. This is the order in which the various corps of the army parade, from right to left, with the unit at the extreme right being highest. Under ordinary circumstances, the

Household Cavalry The Household Cavalry (HCav) is made up of the two most senior regiments of the British Army, the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons). These regiments are divided between the Household Cavalry Regiment st ...

parades at the extreme right of the line. Militia and Army Reserve units take precedence after Regular units with the exception of The

Honourable Artillery Company The Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) is a reserve regiment in the British Army. Incorporated by royal charter in 1537 by King Henry VIII, it is the oldest regiment in the British Army and is considered the second-oldest military unit in the w ...

and The

Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers The Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia) is the most senior regiment of the British Army Reserve. The regiment was formed in 1539 during the reign of by King Henry VIII, making it the second oldest regiment of the British Army (The Hono ...

Order of precedence

In the British Army's Order of Precedence, the Household Cavalry is always listed first and always parades at the extreme right of the line. However, an exception is taken when the Royal Horse Artillery is on parade with its guns in which case it takes precedence. *

Royal Horse Artillery The Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) was formed in 1793 as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery (commonly termed Royal Artillery) to provide horse artillery support to the cavalry units of the British Army. (Although the cavalry link ...

Royal Armoured Corps The Royal Armoured Corps is the component of the British Army, that together with the Household Cavalry provides its armour capability, with vehicles such as the Challenger 2 Tank and the Scimitar Reconnaissance Vehicle. It includes most of the A ...

Royal Regiment of Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

Corps of Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

Royal Corps of Signals The Royal Corps of Signals (often simply known as the Royal Signals – abbreviated to R SIGNALS or R SIGS) is one of the combat support arms of the British Army. Signals units are among the first into action, providing the battlefield communi ...

Infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

** Foot Guards **

Line Infantry Line infantry was the type of infantry that composed the basis of European land armies from the late 17th century to the mid-19th century. Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus are generally regarded as its pioneers, while Turenne and Monte ...

Rifles A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with bo ...

Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terro ...

Army Air Corps Army Air Corps may refer to the following army aviation corps: * Army Air Corps (United Kingdom), the army aviation element of the British Army * Philippine Army Air Corps (1935–1941) * United States Army Air Corps (1926–1942), or its p ...

Special Reconnaissance Regiment The Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) is a special reconnaissance unit of the British Army. It was established on 6 April 2005 and is part of the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF). The regiment conducts a wide range of classified activitie ...

Royal Army Chaplains' Department The Royal Army Chaplains' Department (RAChD) is an all-officer department that provides ordained clergy to minister to the British Army. History The Army Chaplains' Department (AChD) was formed by Royal Warrant of 23 September 1796; until the ...

Royal Logistic Corps The Royal Logistic Corps provides logistic support functions to the British Army. It is the largest Corps in the Army. History The Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) was formed on 5 April 1993, by the union of five British Army corps: * Royal Engine ...

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME ) is a corps of the British Army that maintains the equipment that the Army uses. The corps is described as the "British Army's Professional Engineers". History Prior to REME's for ...

Adjutant General's Corps The Adjutant General's Corps is a corps in the British Army responsible for many of its general administrative services, named for the Adjutant-General to the Forces (now the Commander Home Command). As of 2002, the AGC had a staff of 7,000 peopl ...

Royal Army Veterinary Corps The Royal Army Veterinary Corps (RAVC), known as the Army Veterinary Corps (AVC) until it gained the royal prefix on 27 November 1918, is an administrative and operational branch of the British Army responsible for the provision, training and ca ...

* Small Arms School Corps *

Royal Army Dental Corps The Royal Army Dental Corps (RADC) is a specialist corps in the British Army that provides dental health services to British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace. The corps is a part of the British Army's Army Medical Services. ...

* Intelligence Corps * Royal Army Physical Training Corps *

General Service Corps The General Service Corps (GSC) is a corps of the British Army. Role The role of the corps is to provide specialists, who are usually on the Special List or General List. These lists were used in both World Wars for specialists and those not allo ...

Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC; known as ''the QAs'') is the nursing branch of the British Army Medical Services. History Although an "official" nursing service was not established until 1881, the corps traces its heritage t ...

Royal Corps of Army Music The Royal Corps of Army Music (RCAM, widely known by its former acronym CAMUS) is a Corps of the British Army dedicated to the provision and promotion of military music. History The formation of the Corps of Army Music was triggered by a defen ...

(Militia) (

Army Reserve A military reserve force is a military organization whose members have military and civilian occupations. They are not normally kept under arms, and their main role is to be available when their military requires additional manpower. Reserve ...

) *

(Although Army Reserve Regiments, they are included in the order of arms Regular Army) *Remainder of the

Royal Gibraltar Regiment The Royal Gibraltar Regiment is part of British Forces Gibraltar for the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. It was formed in 1958 from the Gibraltar Defence Force as an infantry unit, with an integrated artillery troop. The regiment is ...

Royal Bermuda Regiment The Royal Bermuda Regiment (RBR), formerly the Bermuda Regiment, is the home defence unit of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is a single Territorial Army (United Kingdom), territorial infantry battalion#British Army, battalion tha ...

Household Cavalry, Royal Armoured Corps and Infantry orders of precedence

1937 Order of Precedence of the British Army

1945 Order of Precedence of the British Army

Cavalry, Tank and infantry regiments of the British Army are listed in their own orders of precedence, which dates back to when regiments had numbers rather than names. The order comes from the start of the regiment's service under the Crown, up to 1881 and the "

Cardwell Reforms The Cardwell Reforms were a series of reforms of the British Army undertaken by Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell between 1868 and 1874 with the support of Liberal prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone paid little attention ...

", when the use of numbers was abolished in favour of linking with and using county names. The regiments of the

Household Division Household Division is a term used principally in the Commonwealth of Nations to describe a country's most elite or historically senior military units, or those military units that provide ceremonial or protective functions associated directly with ...

are always listed first, as they are the most senior, followed by the line regiments. In today's army, which has many regiments formed through amalgamations of other regiments, the rank in the order of precedence is that of the more senior of the amalgamated units. It is for this reason that the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, one of the youngest in the army, is ranked second in the line infantry order – it is the direct descendant of the 2nd Regiment of Foot.

Cavalry and RTR order of precedence

The majority of line cavalry regiments in the British Army now form part of a wider administrative formation called the

, along with the Royal Tank Regiment. The two cavalry guards regiments are part of a separate administrative formation called the Household Cavalry.

Infantry order of precedence

The infantry is ranked in the order of Foot Guards,

Line infantry Line infantry was the type of infantry that composed the basis of European land armies from the late 17th century to the mid-19th century. Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus are generally regarded as its pioneers, while Turenne and Monte ...

, Rifles. The

Royal Marines The Corps of Royal Marines (RM), also known as the Royal Marines Commandos, are the UK's special operations capable commando force, amphibious light infantry and also one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy. The Corps of Royal Marine ...

, as the descendant of the old Army marine regiments of the 17th and 18th centuries, were included in the Order of Precedence after the descendant of the 49th Foot (the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry (RGBWLI)), which was the last line regiment of foot formed prior to the formation of the Royal Marines, when not on parade with the Royal Navy. On the completion of the infantry reorganisation in 2007, the RGBWLI, along with the Devonshire and Dorset Light Infantry, the Light Infantry and the Royal Green Jackets, were absorbed into what has become part of

The Rifles The Rifles is an infantry regiment of the British Army. Formed in 2007, it consists of four Regular battalions and three Reserve battalions, plus a number of companies in other Army Reserve battalions. Each battalion of The Rifles was formerly ...

, and moved last in the Order of Precedence. As of April 2008 the Royal Marines are considered to no longer be a separate arm of the Royal Navy, but rather an integral part of it. Therefore, they no longer have a place amongst the (Army) infantry regiments and now take their place as part of the Royal Navy and parade on the right of the line. Even if there is no other Naval contingent present they are the senior formation on ceremonial occasions. If other contingents of the Royal Navy are on parade, the Royal Marines take their place after them, but before all army regiments and corps.

Precedence within the Army Reserve

#The Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia) #The

#Royal Armoured Corps #*The

Royal Yeomanry The Royal Yeomanry (RY) is the senior reserve light cavalry regiment of the British Army. Equipped with Supacat Jackal variants, their role is to conduct mounted and dismounted formation reconnaissance. The Regimental Headquarters is located in ...

#*The

Royal Wessex Yeomanry The Royal Wessex Yeomanry (RWxY) is a Reserve armoured regiment of the British Army Reserve consisting of five squadrons. Formerly part of 43 (Wessex) Brigade, the regiment joined 3rd (UK) Division in July 2014, to provide armoured (main battle ...

#*The

Queen's Own Yeomanry The Queen's Own Yeomanry (QOY) is one of the Army Reserve(United Kingdom), Army Reserve light armoured reconnaissance regiments. History The Queens Own Yeomanry was initially formed on 1 April 1971 as the 2nd Armoured Car Regiment from five of th ...

#*The

Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry The Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry (SNIY) is a reserve Light Cavalry Regiment, formed in 2014, created out of the restructuring of the British Army's Territorial Army. It is operationally paired with The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, (SCOTS D ...

#Royal Regiment of Artillery #Corps of Royal Engineers #Royal Corps of Signals #Infantry #* 52nd Lowland, 6th Battalion

The Royal Regiment of Scotland The Royal Regiment of Scotland is the senior and only Scottish line infantry regiment of the British Army Infantry. It consists of three regular (formerly five) and two reserve battalions, plus an incremental company, each formerly an indiv ...

#* 51st Highland, 7th Battalion

#*3rd Battalion, The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (Queen's and Royal Hampshires) #*4th Battalion, The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (Queen's and Royal Hampshires) #*4th Battalion,

The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment (King's, Lancashire and Border) The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment (King's, Lancashire and Border) (LANCS) is an infantry regiment of the line within the British Army, part of the King's Division. Headquartered in Preston, Lancashire, Preston, it recruits throughout the North Wes ...

#*5th Battalion,

The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (often referred to as the Royal Fusiliers or, simply, the Fusiliers) is an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Queen's Division. Currently, the regiment has two battalions: the 1st battalion, part of ...

#* 3rd Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment #*4th Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment (14th/15th, 19th & 33rd/76th Foot) #*4th Battalion,

The Mercian Regiment The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire, Worcesters and Foresters, and Staffords) is an infantry regiment of the British Army, which is recruited from five of the counties that formed the ancient kingdom of Mercia. Known as 'The Heart of England's Infant ...

#*3rd Battalion, The Royal Welsh #*2nd Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment (27th Inniskilling), 83rd, 87th & Ulster Defence Regiment #*4th Battalion, The Parachute Regiment #*6th Battalion,

#*7th Battalion,

#Special Air Service #* 21st Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) #* 23rd Special Air Service Regiment #Army Air Corps #The Royal Logistic Corps #Royal Army Medical Corps #Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers #Adjutant General's Corps #Intelligence Corps

Precedence of the UK Auxiliary Forces

Reserve Forces (generally known, after the 1859 creation and re-organisation under the Reserve Force Act, 1867 of the Regular Reserve of the British Army, as ''Local Forces'' or ''Auxiliary Forces''), including the Militia (or ''Constitutional Force''), Yeomanry, Volunteer Force, and Fencibles, were not originally considered parts of the British Army (which, prior to the 1855 abolishment of the Board of Ordnance was not the only ''Regular Force'', being composed primarily of cavalry and infantry units while the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, and Royal Sappers and Miners belonged to the Board of Ordnance and were known collectively as the Ordnance Military Corps in distinction to the board's civilian Commissariat, ordnance stores, transport and other departments). During the latter 19th Century and early 20th Century, the auxiliary forces (each of which had its own order or precedence: Yeomanry order-of-precedence; Militia order-of-precedence; Volunteer Force order-of-precedence) in the UK were increasingly integrated with British Army units, while maintaining separate force hierarchies. In the process, they were removed from the control of the Lords-Lieutenant of Counties and administered directly by the War Office. The only point of distinction between a British Army unit and an auxiliary, whether in the UK-proper or a colony, was whether or not it was wholly or partly funded by the War Office (from Army funds). As Militia Tax and other funds were replaced for UK auxiliary units, they were added to the British Army order of precedence. Although most auxiliary units had in 1881 (after the Cardwell and

Childers Reforms The Childers Reforms of 1881 reorganised the infantry regiments of the British Army. The reforms were done by Secretary of State for War Hugh Childers during 1881, and were a continuation of the earlier Cardwell Reforms. The reorganisation was ...

) become companies or battalions of regular army corps or regiments, they were not grouped with their regular companies or battalions in the British Army order of precedence. Instead, each entire force was added separately to the order of precedence of the British Army, with its respective units retaining their original orders of precedence within that (where the force contained units of more than one corps, they were grouped and took precedence also in accordance with their parent corps of the regular army; eg., Militia Artillery units took precedence ahead of Militia Infantry, with Militia Artillery units having their own internal order of precedence, starting with the Antrim Artillery Militia, numbered 1st, whereas for the Militia Infantry of England and Wales the 3rd West York (Light Infantry) numbered 1st (in 1855), and was also titled the ''First Regiment of Militia''. The most senior Volunteer Force artillery corps was the 1st Northumberland Artillery Volunteer Corps formed on 2 August, 1859. The

Exeter and South Devon Volunteers The Exeter & South Devon Volunteers was the premier unit of Britain's Volunteer Force. Formed in 1852 it went on to become a battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. Both its active service battalions went to garrison India on the outbreak of the F ...

numbered first in the order of precedence of the Volunteer Infantry. The senior Yeomanry unit, numbering 1st, was the

Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry (RWY) was a Yeomanry regiment of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom established in 1794. It was disbanded as an independent Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Territorial Army unit in 1967, a time when t ...

. None of these were to be confused with, by example, the 1st Foot Guards (

Grenadier Guards "Shamed be whoever thinks ill of it." , colors = , colors_label = , march = Slow: " Scipio" , mascot = , equipment = , equipment ...

), 1st Regiment of Foot of the British Army (

Royal Scots The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment), once known as the Royal Regiment of Foot, was the oldest and most senior infantry regiment of the line of the British Army, having been raised in 1633 during the reign of Charles I of Scotland. The regimen ...

)). The Yeomanry, as cavalry, took precedence over the Militia, despite being far younger. The older Militia took precedence over the younger Volunteer Force. In 1908, the auxiliary forces in the UK were reorganised, with the Yeomanry and Volunteer Force becoming the Territorial Force (in 1921 renamed the Territorial Army), and the Militia becoming the Special Reserve (which was allowed to lapse after 1921). The Territorial Army remained nominally a separate force from the British Army until renamed under the Defence Reform Act (2014) as the ''Army Reserve''. Its units remain grouped together separately in the British Army order of precedence from their regular army companies and battalions as 26th in order of precedence.

Precedence of the Colonial and Crown Dominion units

Not all colonial and Crown Dominion regular or reserve units had been considered part of the British Army and placed on the order of precedence (although those of the Channel Islands and the

Imperial fortress Imperial fortress was the designation given in the British Empire to four colonies that were located in strategic positions from each of which Royal Navy squadrons could control the surrounding regions and, between them, much of the planet. His ...

colonies generally were), and Imperial reserve units did not follow the same process of re-organisation and consolidation as the UK ones. Originally, the part-time reserve units in

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

, the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

and

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

had (in 1945) numbered collectively as 28th in order of precedence, but were ordered within that according to the order of their parent corps in the regular army. This meant, by example, that the

Bermuda Militia Artillery The Bermuda Militia Artillery was a unit of part-time soldiers organised in 1895 as a reserve for the Royal Garrison Artillery detachment of the Regular Army garrison in Bermuda. Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies were in ...

(BMA), raised in 1895, as part of the

, preceded the

Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) was created in 1894 as a reserve for the Regular Army infantry component of the Bermuda Garrison. Renamed the ''Bermuda Rifles'' in 1951, it was amalgamated into the Bermuda Regiment in 1965. Formation A ...

(BVRC), raised in 1894. Today, the

, an amalgam of the BMA and BVRC, is ordered 28th.The Quarterly Army List, DECEMBER, 1946. Corrected generally to 8th October, 1946. Volume 1. Page 14. ORDER OF PRECEDENCE OF REGIMENTS, ETC., IN THE ARMY. His Majesty's Stationery Office, London. #(27th) The

(As a Colonial Force The Royal Gibraltar Regiment comes after the Army Reserve) #(28th) The Royal Bermuda Regiment

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:British Army Order Of Precedence British Army