A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



desiring the nobility and gentry to exercise their personal influence to promote 

 the levy of men in the speediest and most effectual manner, and when 

 300 men should be raised they should be incorporated with the 45th Regi- 

 ment of Foot to be thenceforward called the Nottinghamshire Regiment. 1 

 The remains of the ' 45th ' which had then been returned from service in 

 America numbering less than 100 men, was therefore ordered on recruiting 

 service into Nottinghamshire, an extra bounty of six guineas was paid to each 

 recruit out of the county subscription, and the '45th ' became incorporated 

 with the county. 3 Its services in the West Indies, in the attack on Buenos 

 Ayres, and in the Peninsular War, at Roleia, Vimiero, and Talavera, and at 

 Busaco earned for it the title of the ' Old Stubborns ' and won Wellington's 

 praise for steadiness and discipline. 3 It also saw service in South Africa from 

 1899 to 1902, and was at Vlakfontein in 1901.* 



By statute of 1808 a local militia was established, 6 and in 1809 the 

 various volunteer corps in Nottinghamshire were disbanded, and in most cases 

 the men transferred their services to the local militia in accordance with 

 clause xix of the statute. 6 Their services were at first confined to their own 

 counties, but in 1813 the crown was authorized to accept from the local 

 militia voluntary offers of service out of their counties for under forty days 

 in the year, and limited by the duration of the Act to 25 March i8i5. 7 In 

 February, 1814, the men and officers of the Nottinghamshire local militia 

 were assembled for the purpose of extending their services to forty-two days. 

 Those who agreed to do so were not to be called out for training or 

 exercising for the rest of the year. 8 The battle of Waterloo however gave a 

 death blow to the local militia, and in May, 1816, the ballot was suspended, 

 and the office of agent-general for local militia and volunteers was abolished. 9 

 When the aggressive policy of Napoleon III brought the possibility of a French 

 invasion the national need of a volunteer defence, voiced in a pamphlet of 

 i846, 10 was slowly realized by the nation at large, and led to the volunteer 

 movement of 1859 and to General Peel's circulars of that year. The volun- 

 teers of Nottinghamshire formed into battalions according to the general 

 regulations of 1891 are the 'Robin Hood' or, ist Nottinghamshire Rifle 

 Volunteers, with their headquarters at Nottingham, and the Nottinghamshire 

 volunteer battalions of the Sherwood Foresters, with the headquarters of their 

 B and C companies at Newark, and of their A company at East Retford. The 

 Southern Nottinghamshire Hussars (Imperial Yeomanry) have their head- 

 quarters in Nottingham, and the Sherwood Rangers (Imperial Yeomanry) at 

 East Retford. 



Apart from the development of the militia the history of the eighteenth 

 and early nineteenth centuries wrapped itself round the system of party 

 government, and all that party government involved. As early as 1696 

 bribery and corruption were evident, and the town of Nottingham petitioned 

 that measures might be adopted to abate or remove the evil, that the 

 election of members might be free. 11 Again, in 1699, on the return of Robert 



' Sutton, op. cit. p. 134. ' Ibid. p. 135. 3 R. de M. Rudolph, Hist, of Territorial Regiments. 



^id. Stat. 48 Geo. Ill, c. 1 1 1. Ibid. 



Stat. 54 Geo. Ill, c. 19, extended by 56 Geo. Ill, c. 76. 

 ' Nott. Gaz. Feb. 1814. Ibid . M , 8 , 6 _ 



Gen. Sir Chas. Napier, Defence of England by Volunteer Corps and Militia. 

 1 Bailey, Ann. of Notts, iii, 1,052. 



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