East Anglia Bde Formation Sign Patch Arm Cloth Badge

East Anglian Brigade Formation Arm Badge. VGC.

The East Anglian Brigade (known as G Group until 1948) was an administrative brigade of the British Army from 1946 to 1968, that administered the regiments with recruiting grounds in East Anglia, and the East of England.


After the Second World War the British Army had fourteen infantry depots, each bearing a letter. The depots were territorially organised, and Infantry Depot G at Colchester was the headquarters for the county regiments of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Suffolk.1

In 1948, the depots adopted names and this depot became the East Anglian Brigade, with all regiments being reduced to a single battalion at the same time. The East Anglian Brigade was formed on 14 July 1948 at Gibraltar Barracks, Bury St Edmunds as an administrative apparatus for the infantry regiments from East Anglia:2

The Royal Norfolk Regiment (until 1959)
The Suffolk Regiment (until 1959)
The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment (until 1958)
The Essex Regiment (until 1958)
The Northamptonshire Regiment (until 1960)
Under the Defence Review announced in July 1957, the infantry of the line was reorganised: In 1958, the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was transferred from the Forester Brigade, and by 1960 the six individual regiments had amalgamated to form three "East Anglian Regiments":

Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment and Essex Regiment - 3rd East Anglian Regiment (16th/44th Foot) on 2 June 1958
Royal Norfolk Regiment and Suffolk Regiment - 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk) on 29 August 1959
Royal Lincolnshire Regiment and Northamptonshire Regiment - 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester's Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire) on 1 June 1960

Code: 1989