Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment

Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)
Royal West Kent Regiment (Queen's Own)
Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment
Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment); Royal West Kent Regiment (Queen's Own); Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment
	Officer's helmet plate of the Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), 1902–1914
Active	1881–1961
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Infantry
Role	Line infantry
Size	1–2 regular battalions; 1–2 militia battalions; 2–4 Territorial and Volunteer battalions; Up to 12 hostilities-only battalions
Garrison/HQ	Invicta Park Barracks, Maidstone, Kent
Nickname(s)	The Blind Half Hundred, The Celestials, The Devils Royals, The Dirty Half Hundred
Motto(s)	Invicta (Invincible), Quo Fas et Gloria Ducunt (Whither Duty and Glory Lead)

The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army based in the county of Kent in existence from 1881 to 1961. The regiment was created on 1 July 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms, originally as the Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), by the amalgamation of the 50th (Queen's Own) Regiment of Foot and the 97th (The Earl of Ulster's) Regiment of Foot. In January 1921, the regiment was renamed the Royal West Kent Regiment (Queen's Own) and, in April of the same year, was again renamed, this time as the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment.

After distinguished service in the Second Boer War, along with both the First and the Second World Wars, on 1 March 1961, the regiment was amalgamated with the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) to form the Queen's Own Buffs, The Royal Kent Regiment, which was destined to be short-lived. On 31 December 1966, the Queen's Own Buffs was merged with the other regiments of the Home Counties Brigade—the Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment, the Royal Sussex Regiment and the Middlesex Regiment—to form the Queen's Regiment, which was in turn amalgamated with the Royal Hampshire Regiment, on 9 September 1992, to form the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (Queen's and Royal Hampshires). Throughout its existence, the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment was popularly and operationally known as the Royal West Kents.