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Militia (Great Britain)

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Members of the Norfolk Militia undergoing musket training in 1759

The British Militia was the principal military reserve force of the Kingdom of Great Britain. Militia units were repeatedly raised in Great Britain during the Georgian era for internal security duties and to defend against external invasions. The Militia Act 1757, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain after the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, led to the rapid expansion of the British Militia in order to defend from potential French invasions. In the Kingdom of Ireland, a client state of Great Britain, the equivalent force was the Irish Militia, which saw heavy service in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 alongside British militia units. The existence of militia units in Great Britain and Ireland played an important role in freeing regular troops from the British and Irish establishments for overseas service.

Background

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Following the restoration of Charles II in 1660, Parliament passed several acts empowering the lord-lieutenant of each county to appoint officers and raise men for the English Militia. Although the king commanded the forces, they were not centrally funded. The burden of supplying men and equipment fell on property owners, in proportion to their income from land or their property value. The militia could be called out for local police actions, to keep the peace, and in the event of a national emergency. It played a role in coastal defence during the second and third Anglo-Dutch Wars between 1665 and 1674, and contributed to the defeat of the Duke of Monmouth in 1685.

Great Britain

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An officer of the Norfolk Militia in 1759

The militia's usefulness as a military force, never great, declined thereafter, until by the middle of the 18th century it required a major overhaul. This was achieved by the Militia Acts 1757–1762, passed as a response to the threat of a French invasion during the Seven Years' War. Responsibility for raising and organising the force remained at county level, but funding was provided by central government. Officers were to be appointed from among the property-owning class. Men were to be chosen by ballot among the able-bodied men of the parish between the ages of 18 and 50, and would serve for three years (soon extended to five). If they wished not to serve, they could either provide a substitute or pay a £10 fine. [1]

There was considerable opposition to the reforms, both in Parliament and in the country at large. Riots occurred in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and elsewhere in 1757. These stemmed chiefly from an ill-informed fear that conscription and compulsory foreign service were being covertly introduced. In fact, the acts, which applied in England and Wales only, restricted service to the territory of Great Britain. However some militia regiments did volunteer for service in Ireland during the Rebellion of 1798. Local opposition to the acts resulted in some counties being slow to implement them. Six counties – Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Sussex and Worcestershire – were in default for many years, also defaulting on a large part of the fines imposed on them in consequence. The American Revolution, which drained the country of regular troops, provided the stimulus that brought the defaulters into line. By 1778 all English and Welsh counties had embodied their militias.[2]

Training of the disembodied militia took place over a period of several weeks each year, outside which officers and men would be largely free to pursue their civilian lives. When embodied, regiments would normally be quartered in public houses or barracks where available. Camps were also an option, and these were often sizeable affairs which brought troops together in large numbers for strategic and training purposes. Although overseas service was excluded from the militia's duties, embodied regiments were usually required to serve away from their home counties, and were frequently moved from one station to another. This was intended to reduce the risk of the men sympathising with the populace if they were required to quell civil unrest. Pay and conditions were similar to those of the regular army, with the additional benefit of money for family dependants. Unlike the army, the militia had no cavalry or, until 1853, artillery.

The militia was constitutionally separate from the army, but from the 1790s militiamen were encouraged to volunteer for the army, and did so in large numbers. During the French Revolutionary Wars the militia expanded to a total strength of 82,000 men in February 1799, reducing to 66,000 through an act of Parliament[which?] of that year designed to reinforce the regular army by encouraging militia volunteers through the offer of bounties for enlistment.[3] In 1802 peace with France led to the disembodying of the militia, which was embodied again in 1803, when hostilities resumed. Britain's increasing overseas troop commitments during the Napoleonic Wars resulted in growing pressure on recruitment for the militia, both for home defence and as a feeder for the army. During the period to 1815, 110,000 men transferred to line regiments as against 36,000 prior to 1802.[4] The militia continued to serve as a coastal defence force, as well as guarding dockyards and prisoners of war, and performing other duties including riot control during the Luddite unrest of 1811–1813. It was disembodied in 1815 but balloting continued until 1831.[5]

List of militia regiments

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An incomplete list includes:

Further reading

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  • Cookson, J. E. The British armed nation 1793–1815. Oxford, 1997.
  • Fortescue, J. W. The county lieutenancies and the army, 1803–1814. London, 1909.
  • Gee, Austin. The British volunteer movement 1794–1814. Oxford, 2003.
  • Knight, Roger. Britain against Napoleon: the organization of victory 1793–1815. London, 2014.
  • Western, J. R. The English militia in the eighteenth century: the story of a political issue 1660–1802. London, 1965.

Scottish Militia

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John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll

In the late 17th century, while the Kingdom of Scotland was still an independent country sharing a monarch with England, there were calls for the resurrection of the country's militia, with the understated aim of protecting the rights of Scots in Great Britain.[6] A historical account of the debate which followed on Fletcher's work is given in John Robertson's 1985 The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue.[7]

During the Jacobite rising of 1745 in Scotland, militias were raised in Argyll, the Isle of Skye and the northern counties. They are often confused with Loudon's Highlanders regiment and the Independent Highland Companies who also supported the Government.[8] The Campbell of Argyll Militia also known as the Campbell militia,[9] the Argyll militia,[10] or the Argyllshire men,[10] was an irregular militia unit formed in 1745 by John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll to oppose the rising.[11][12]

Following the merger of Scotland into the new Kingdom of Great Britain, the British Militia Act 1757 did not apply in Scotland. There the traditional system continued, so that militia regiments existed in some places and not in others. This was resented by some, and the Militia Club, soon to become the Poker Club, was formed in Edinburgh to promote the raising of a Scottish militia. This and several other Edinburgh clubs became the crucible of the Scottish Enlightenment.

The Militia Act 1797 empowered the Lord Lieutenants of Scotland to raise and command militia regiments in each of the "Counties, Stewartries, Cities, and Places" under their jurisdiction. At first the Act was opposed due to some believing the militia ballot would be used to enable the Crown to remove men from Scotland.[13]

Irish militia

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The earliest history of the Militia in Ireland dates to the Cromwellian period with the raising of two regiments of Militia in Dublin in May 1659.[14] However the legal position of the pre-existing Militia in Ireland was only formalised when the Parliament of Ireland passed an act in 1715[15] raising regiments of militia in each county and county corporate. Membership was restricted to Protestants between the ages of sixteen and sixty. In 1793, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Irish militia were reorganized to form thirty-eight county and city regiments. While officers of the reorganized force were all Protestants, membership of the other ranks was now opened up to members of all denominations, including Roman Catholics. The provisions of the Act called for lists to be drawn up of eligible men in each locality and with enlistees been drawn by ballot. The result of this was to cause widespread discontent in Ireland resulting in riots and close to 230 deaths over an eight week period.[16]

List of militia regiments

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The list of Militia regiments as raised after the passing of the 1793 Act. The regimental numbers were assigned by ballot on the 8th of August 1794.[17]

Further reading

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  • McAnally, Sir Henry William Watson (1949). The Irish Militia, 1793-1816: A Social and Military Study. Clonmore and Reynolds.
  • Bartlett, Thomas; Jeffery, Keith (9 October 1997). A Military History of Ireland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-62989-8.
  • Nelson, Ivan F. (2007). The Irish Militia, 1793-1802: Ireland's Forgotten Army. Dublin: Four Courts Press. ISBN 978-1-84682-037-3.
  • Reid, Stuart (20 September 2011). Armies of the Irish Rebellion 1798. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84908-939-5.
  • Garnham, Neal (2012). The Militia in Eighteenth-century Ireland: In Defence of the Protestant Interest. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-724-4.

Channel Islands

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Western, J. R. The English militia in the eighteenth century. p.129
  2. ^ Western, p.158.
  3. ^ Western, p. 222.
  4. ^ Knight, Roger. Britain against Napoleon. p.439.
  5. ^ Knight, p.469.
  6. ^ Andrew Fletcher (1698) A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias, ISBN 0-521-43994-9
  7. ^ Robertson, John (1985). The Scottish Enlightenment And The Militia Issue. Edinburgh: J. Donald. ISBN 978-0-85976-109-3. OCLC 13358513.
  8. ^ MacLeod, Ruairidh (1984). Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness. Vol. LIII. p. 310. Retrieved August 4, 2023. Wider research led me to discover confusion about the role of Lord Loudoun's new highland regiment, raised in 1745; the independent companies, raised for the duration of the rebellion, and the militia companies raised during the rebellion. There still remains work to be done on the role of the militia companies raised for short periods during the rebellion in Argyll, Skye and the northern counties
  9. ^ Scobie, Ian Hamilton Mackay (1946). The Argyll or Campbell Militia of 1745–1746. Society for Army Historical Research.
  10. ^ a b Pollard, Tony (2009). Culloden: The History and Archaeology of the last Clan Battle. South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Books. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-84884-020-1.
  11. ^ Fremont-Barnes, Gregory (2014). The Jacobite Rebellion 1745–46. Osprey Publishing. p. 27.
  12. ^ McKerracher, Mairead (2013). Jacobite Dictionary. Neil Wilson Publishing.
  13. ^ Scobie, Ian Hamilton Mackay (1914). An Old Highland Fencible Corps The History of the Reay Fencible Highland Regiment of Foot, or Mackay's Highlanders, 1794–1802, With an Account of Its Services in Ireland During the Rebellion of 1798. p. 3
  14. ^ Garnham, Neal (2012). The Militia in Eighteenth-century Ireland: In Defence of the Protestant Interest. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-724-4.
  15. ^ "An Act to make the Militia of this Kingdom more useful. (2 Geo I c.9 (1715))". librarycollections.law.umn.edu. Retrieved 17 June 2024.
  16. ^ Bartlett, Thomas (1983). "AN END TO MORAL ECONOMY: THE IRISH MILITIA DISTURBANCES OF 1793". Past and Present. 99 (1): 41–64. doi:10.1093/past/99.1.41. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  17. ^ Richey, Henry Alexander (1894). A Short History of the Royal Longford Militia, 1793-1893. Dublin, Ireland: Hodges, Figgis, and Company, limited. pp. 83–84. Retrieved 17 June 2024.
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