The South Staffordshire Regiment was an infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

 regiment

Regiment

A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...

 of the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot and the 80th (Staffordshire Volunteers) Regiment of Foot. In 1959 the regiment was amlagamated with the North Staffordshire Regiment

North Staffordshire Regiment

The North Staffordshire Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Army, which was in existence between 1881 and 1959. It can date its lineage back to 1756 with the formation of a second battalion by the 11th Regiment of Foot, which shortly after became the 64th Regiment of Foot...

 to form the Staffordshire Regiment (Prince of Wales's). The lineage of the South Staffords is continued by the Mercian Regiment

Mercian Regiment

The Mercian Regiment is an infantry regiment of the British Army, formed by the amalgamation of three existing regiments on 1 September 2007.The regiment has three regular army battalion's and one Territorial Army or reserve battalion...

.
The regiment was formed as part of the Childers Reforms

Childers Reforms

The Childers Reforms restructured the infantry regiments of the British army. The reforms were undertaken by Secretary of State for War Hugh Childers in 1881, and were a continuation of the earlier Cardwell reforms....

 on July 1, 1881 by the amalgamation of the 38th and 80th regiments of foot, which became the regular 1st and 2nd Battalions of the regiment.