MILITARY HISTORY 



Kent. Each part was put under an officer, called lieutenant ' of the division. 

 The Duke of Cambridge was in supreme command. In an official return 

 quoted by Colonel Davis' there were in 1803, 8,105 volunteers in 

 Surrey, but according to a return of 1806 furnished to Mr. Manning' 

 the infantry numbered 4,846 and the cavalry 509. This was after 

 Trafalgar, when invasion was not expected. The organization was 

 clearly different from what it had been in 1799. Different places gave 

 their names to corps. Remote country villages made a good show, Thurs- 

 ley with 6 1 volunteers, Lingfield and Crowhurst with 70, Witley 131, 

 Godalming 203. Guildford had only 1 12, but 64 cavalry belonged to it. 

 Lord Leslie's yeomanry, 3 1 8 strong, were still the bulk of the cavalry. 

 If we consider the strength of the militia, over 1,600 men, and the 

 number of regular soldiers in the country, these figures are highly 

 creditable to a county whose population in 1801 numbered 269,043. In 

 1 804 the militia received the title of a Royal Regiment and consequently 

 assumed blue facings.* 



In 1809 new measures were taken to raise what was called a local 

 militia. The regular militia, about 80,000 in the whole United King- 

 dom, was constantly embodied ; some of the regiments were serving in 

 Ireland, whither the second Surrey Militia went in 181 1, and volunteer- 

 ing from the militia into the regular army was sedulously encouraged. 

 A man received a bounty of 10 guineas on enlisting into an embodied 

 militia regiment, and for enlisting into the regular army from the militia 

 he received 10 guineas for a seven years service, or 14 guineas for an 

 unlimited term. Any young country fellow could get 24 guineas in a 

 year besides his pay, a magnificent sum a hundred years ago, approxi- 

 mating to two years agricultural wages. The regular militiamen accord- 

 ingly passed into the line rapidly. They fought in the Peninsula ; and 

 in 1 8 1 5 there were men in the ranks of the Guards at Waterloo in their 

 Surrey militia jackets.* But a strictly local force, answering to the old 

 militia was required, to utilize men who could not afford the time for 

 constantly embodied service, and who did not wish to enlist in the line. 

 The Local Militia Act was therefore passed.' The real meaning of the 

 creation of this local militia was that the patriotic impetus which made 

 men zealous members of the volunteer corps could not be counted upon 

 as a permanent influence, when once the fear of invasion had become 

 very remote. It was necessary to introduce a new organization, and to 

 pay the men, in order to retain the services in some military force of 

 those who had been the infantry volunteers. The mounted corps, com- 

 posed of men of a rather higher social condition generally, were able to 

 continue. The three regiments of Surrey local militia were intended to 

 number 3,584 men. They actually mustered 2,730 rank and file, or 

 rather over 3,000 of all ranks. Their headquarters were at Guildford, 

 Kingston and Croydon, and they were evidently partly drawn from those 



» Times, 9 July 1803. ' Davis, Royal U^est Surrey Militia, p. 151. 



3 Manning and Bray, Hist. ofSurr.i. 678. * Davis, Royal West Surrey Militia, p. 149. 

 » Cotton, A Voice from Waterho, p. 10. « Stat. 48 Geo. III. cap. in. 



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