Royal Cardigan Militia
The Cardiganshire Militia, later the Royal Cardigan Rifles, was an auxiliary regiment reorganised from earlier precursor units in the Welsh county of Cardiganshire during the 18th century. Primarily intended for home defence, it saw active service at the Battle of Fishguard in 1797 and served in Britain and Ireland through all Britain's major wars. It was converted into garrison artillery in 1877 and continued until it was disbanded in 1909.
Cardigan Trained Bands
The universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England and was extended to Wales. King Henry VIII called a 'Great Muster' in 1539, which showed 2858 men available for service in the County of Cardiganshire, of whom 609 had 'harness', and 184 horsemen.The legal basis of the militia was updated by two acts of 1557 covering musters and the maintenance of horses and armour. The county militia was now under the Lord Lieutenant, assisted by the Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace. The entry into force of these Acts in 1558 is seen as the starting date for the organised Militia of England and Wales. Although the militia obligation was universal, it was clearly impractical to train and equip every able-bodied man, so after 1572 the practice was to select a proportion of men for the Trained Bands, who were mustered for regular training.
In the 16th century little distinction was made between the militia and the troops levied by the counties for overseas expeditions. However, the counties usually conscripted the unemployed and criminals rather than send the trained bandsmen. Between 1585 and 1602 Cardiganshire supplied 500 men for service in Ireland and 30 for the Netherlands. The men were given three days' 'conduct money' to get to Chester or Bristol, the main ports of embarkation for Ireland. Conduct money was recovered from the government, but replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy cost on the counties.
With the passing of the threat of invasion, the trained bands declined in the early 17th century. Later, King Charles I attempted to reform them into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the king rather than local control. The Cardigan Trained Bands of 1638 consisted of 300 men, half armed with muskets and half 'Corslets'. They also mustered 35 horse. Part of this force may have been organised as the North Cardigan Trained Band. Cardiganshire was ordered to send 150 men overland to Newcastle upon Tyne for the Second Bishops' War of 1640. However, substitution was rife and many of those sent on this unpopular service would have been untrained replacements.
Civil Wars
Control of the militia was one of the areas of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War. When open war broke out between the King and Parliament, neither side made much use of the trained bands beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops. Most of Wales was under Royalist control for much of the war, and was a recruiting ground for the King's armies. In 1644 Colonel John Jones of Nanteos raised a regiment in Cardiganshire for Charles I.Once Parliament had established full control in 1648 it passed new Militia Acts that replaced lords lieutenant with county commissioners appointed by Parliament or the Council of State. At the same time the term 'Trained Band' began to disappear in most counties. Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country. By 1651 the militias of the South Welsh counties appear to have been combined, with the 'South Wales Militia' being ordered to rendezvous at Gloucester to hold the city during the Worcester campaign.
Cardiganshire Militia
After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Militia was re-established by the Militia Act 1661 under the control of the king's lords lieutenant, the men to be selected by ballot. This was popularly seen as the 'Constitutional Force' to counterbalance a 'Standing Army' tainted by association with the New Model Army that had supported Cromwell's military dictatorship.The militia forces in the Welsh counties were small, and were grouped together under the direction of the Lord President of the Council of Wales. As Lord President, the Duke of Beaufort carried out a tour of inspection of the Welsh militia in 1684, when the Cardiganshire Militia consisted of one troop of horse and three companies of foot. The 1697 militia returns showed the Cardigan Regiment as consisting of 142 foot and 60 horse under Col Viscount Lisburne.
Generally the militia declined in the long peace after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Jacobites were numerous amongst the Welsh Militia, but they did not show their hands during the Risings of 1715 and 1745, and bloodshed was avoided.
1757 reforms
Seven Years' War
Under threat of French invasion during the Seven Years' War a series of Militia Acts from 1757 re-established county militia regiments, the men being conscripted by means of parish ballots to serve for three years. There was a property qualification for officers, who were commissioned by the lord lieutenant. An adjutant and drill sergeants were to be provided to each regiment from the Regular Army, and arms and accoutrements would be supplied when the county had secured 60 per cent of its quota of recruits.Cardiganshire was given a quota of 120 men to raise. The Welsh counties were slow to complete their regiments: the problem was less with the other ranks raised by ballot than the shortage of men qualified to be officers, even after the requirements were lowered for Welsh counties. Arms were issued to the Cardiganshire Militia at Aberystwyth on 1 October 1762, and it appears that the regiment carried out a short period of training. However, the war was now drawing to an end, and no further militia were required. The regiment was not embodied for permanent service, and the embodied militia regiments were stood down in 1763.
After 1763 militia training was sporadic, and the Cardigan regiment rarely assembled in a single body: instead the companies trained separately at convenient places in the north, centre and south of the county. In 1764 the adjutant and four men of the permanent staff were called out to salvage and guard the cargo of a ship stranded on the coast. In 1766 and 1769 quantities of weapons and stores held at the town of Cardigan were moved to storage at Aberystwyth, while in 1777 other stores arrived at Cardigan from Carmarthen, probably having been transported by sea.
American War of Independence
The American War of Independence broke out in 1775, and by 1778 Britain was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain. The militia were called out, and the Cardigan regiment was embodied for the first time at Aberystwyth on 31 March 1778 under its Major-Commandant, Viscount Vaughan of Trawsgoed, son of the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Lisburne. It marched to Swansea to begin garrison duties, but had returned to Aberystwyth by May. It then moved through Ross-on-Wye back to Swansea. In March 1779 the Cardigan Militia moved to Carmarthen, and in June into Pembrokeshire, where its main duty was to guard French prisoners-of-war confined in Pembroke town. On 24 May 1780 Viscount Vaughan was succeeded as major-commandant by John Campbell of Stackpole Court and the regiment marched to Hampshire to take up garrison duties at Portsmouth.Despite substitutes replacing many of the balloted men, the regiment's ranks contained many relatively well-to-do men. In 1780 a high proportion of the men requested leave to go home to vote in the general election that year: only three officers but 42 other ranks present with the main body and perhaps another 70 on the march had applied, proportionately much higher than for any English regiment for which figures remain.
In 1781 the regimental establishment was increased from 120 privates to 228, the augmentation being achieved by recruiting two volunteer companies paid for by public subscription. The regiment was now organised in six companies and Maj Campbell was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. The regiment remained in Hampshire, at Bishop's Waltham in October 1781 and at Winchester before the end of the year. In June 1782 it was back in the Portsmouth area. In October the regiment returned to South Wales to winter quarters in Carmarthen. In February 1783 the Cardigan Militia marched through Aberystwyth on the way to take up duties at Monmouth. However, the Treaty of Paris ended hostilities, and the militia was ordered to stand down on 28 February. In March the regiment returned to Aberystwyth to be disembodied.
From 1784 to 1792 the militia were assembled for their 28 days' annual peacetime training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually mustered each year. The Cardigans, however, were ordered to be completed and trained in 1788.
French Revolutionary War
The militia was already being embodied when Revolutionary France declared war on Britain on 1 February 1793. In August the Cardigan Militia under the command of Maj William Lewis marched via Gloucester to take up duties on the invasion-threatened Sussex coast. The French Revolutionary Wars saw a new phase for the English militia: they were embodied for a whole generation, and became regiments of full-time professional soldiers, which the regular army increasingly saw as a prime source of recruits. They served in coast defences, manning garrisons, guarding prisoners of war, and for internal security, while their traditional local defence duties were taken over by the Volunteers and mounted Yeomanry.In the autumn of 1793 the Cardigan Militia marched to join the garrison of Chester for the winter, with one company detached to Northwich. Early in 1794 it concentrated at Northwich, but rejoined the Chester Garrison in April 1795. In June that year the regiment was called upon to send a detachment to Wrexham to stand by to aid the civil magistrates, but it was not called upon and rejoined the main body. In July the Cardiganshires moved to Cumberland and were stationed in Whitehaven and other towns. On being relieved by the Carmarthenshire Militia in April 1796 the regiment returned to Chester. In August it moved back to West Wales to carry out duties in Pembrokeshire. Regimental headquarters was established in Haverfordwest and detachments were employed at Pembroke Dock and other key points. On the march south the regiment had dropped a company at Aberystwyth, where in October it was placed at the disposal of the Revenue officers to assist in preventing smuggling.
In an attempt to have as many men as possible under arms for home defence in order to release regulars, in 1796 the Government created the Supplementary Militia, a compulsory levy of men to be trained for 20 days a year in their spare time, and to be incorporated in the Regular Militia in emergency. Cardigan's new quota was fixed at 474 men, and the regiment sent a party back from Haverfordwest to Aberystwyth to train the supplementaries. Despite the increase, Cardiganshire's quota was less burdensome than the average county: in 1796 only one man in 30 was required, whereas most counties had to supply one in 12–18.