Surrey Militia


The Surrey Militia was an auxiliary military force in Surrey, England. From their formal organisation as trained bands in 1558 until their final service as the Special Reserve, the Militia regiments of the county served in home defence in all of Britain's major wars. They also saw active service during the Second Boer War, and trained thousands of reinforcements during World War I. After a shadowy postwar existence they were formally disbanded in 1953.

Early history

The English militia was descended from the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd, the military force raised from the freemen of the shires under command of their Sheriff. The universal obligation to serve continued under the Norman and Plantagenet kings and was reorganised under the Assizes of Arms of 1181 and 1252, and again by the Statute of Winchester of 1285. The men were arrayed by the Hundreds into which each county was divided. There is a reference to the men of Wallington Hundred in Surrey being mustered in the 14th year of the reign of King Henry VIII, and the great 1539 muster saw a number of hundreds in Surrey arrayed by the king's commissioners during March and April:
  • Blackheath Hundred: 85 archers, 167 billmen, 80 men in 'harness'
  • Tandridge Hundred: 109 archers, 281 billmen, 61 in harness
  • Reigate Hundred: 109 archers, 283 billmen, 76 in harness
  • Wotton Hundred: 31 archers, 116 billmen, 138 in harness
  • Wallington Hundred: 48 archers, 183 billmen, 56 in harness
Surrey was ordered to furnish 400 men when invasion threatened in 1545: each hundred was assessed at 4–8 archers and 16–32 billmen, the towns at 4–6 archers and 6–16 billmen each. This selected body of men was commanded by two captains, Thomas Hall of Compton and William Creswell of Farnham.

Surrey Trained Bands

Under the later Tudors the legal basis of the militia was updated by two acts of 1557 covering musters and the maintenance of horses and armour, which placed the county militia under a Lord Lieutenant appointed by the monarch, 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 county militia in England.
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 drills. From 1584 Surrey was rated as a 'maritime' county in danger from Spanish invasion, and was given extra training by professional captains. The Armada Crisis in 1588 led to the mobilisation of the trained bands and eight Surrey companies were present at the camp where Queen Elizabeth gave her Tilbury speech, when 500 Surrey men were specially selected as the Queen's bodyguard.

Civil Wars

With the passing of the threat of invasion, the trained bands declined during the following decades until King Charles I attempted to reform them into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the monarch rather than local officials. In 1638 the reformed Surrey Trained Bands totalled 1500 men organised into three foot regiments and one of horse. In 1640 Surrey was ordered to send 800 picked men for the Second Bishops' War.
Control of the trained bands was one of the major points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the First English Civil War. As the crisis deepened, Lord Digby and Sir Thomas Lunsford began raising Royalist volunteers and gathering arms and armour at Kingston. On 17 January 1642 Sir Richard Onslow, Member of parliament and Deputy Lieutenant for Surrey, raised the trained bands of the county, dispersed Digby's men at Kingston, and seized the county magazine for Parliament. He also put men into Farnham to watch the Portsmouth Road.
Once the Civil War developed, neither side made much further use of the Trained Bands except as a source of recruits and weapons for their own full-time regiments. However, Surrey Trained Bands participated in the Siege of Portsmouth in the summer of 1642 and in November they defended Kingston Bridge while the Battle of Brentford was fought nearby.
New Militia Acts in 1648 and 1650 replaced Lords Lieutenant with county commissioners appointed by Parliament or the Council of State. From now on the term 'Trained Band' began to disappear in most counties. Sir Richard Onslow was ordered to march a regiment of Surrey Militia to Scotland during Cromwell's invasion, but the order was countermanded after the Battle of Dunbar. During the Scots' counter-invasion in 1651, the Surrey Militia was moved to Dunstable and then Oxford to join the army, and part of the regiment was present at the Battle of Worcester.

Surrey Militia

After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the English Militia was re-established by The King's Sole Right over 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, and almost the whole burden of home defence and internal security was entrusted to the militia.
On 4 September 1666, Charles II called out the Surrey Militia to assist in fighting the Great Fire of London. In May 1667, under threat of a Dutch invasion, the militia of the maritime counties was ordered to assemble, and on 10 June, with the Dutch fleet in the Thames estuary, the Surrey regiment was ordered to send half its men to Southwark to defend the London area, while the remainder stayed for local defence. The militia was called out during the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, and several regiments saw action during the Sedgemoor campaign, but Surrey's was not involved in the fighting.
Musters of the Surrey Militia in 1690 and 1697 under the command of the Duke of Norfolk as Lord Lieutenant of Surrey saw the county regiment of Foot furnishing 1000–1200 men in nine companies from towns across the county, wearing red coats, and two troops of horse totalling 120–132 men, while Southwark supplied another six companies with the Duke as Colonel of both regiments. The county regiment had the following distribution of companies:
The Militia passed into virtual abeyance during the long peace after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1712, although a few counties were called out during the Jacobite Rising of 1745.

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. Surrey was given a quota of 800 men to raise, under the command of the Lord-Lieutenant, Richard Onslow, 3rd Baron Onslow.
Arms for the Surrey Militia were authorised on 23 February 1759 when 60 per cent of the quota had been raised, and the regiment was formed at Richmond-upon-Thames on 18 April 1759. By now Lord Onslow had resigned the colonelcy and had been replaced by Sir Nicholas Hacket Carew, 2nd Baronet, of Beddington, with his kinsman George Onslow as lieutenant-colonel.
The regiment was embodied for full-time service from 6 July 1759 and marched to Kent, where the companies were distributed. In August they were concentrated again and marched to Frindsbury. On 3 November the regiment was split into two battalions of five companies each, the 1st or Eastern commanded by Carew and the 2nd or Western by Onslow. They then went into winter quarters in Surrey, the 1st Bn at Kingston, the 2nd at Putney, Fulham and Wandsworth. Thereafter the regiments were frequently moved about the country, one of their duties being to guard French prisoners of war. The Peace of Fontainebleau was signed on 3 November 1762, ending the war, and the regiments were disembodied. The following year the two battalions were merged into a single regiment again; Sir Nicholas Carew had died in August 1762, so George Onslow was appointed colonel of the amalgamated regiment.

American War of Independence

The Militia was called out after the outbreak of the War of American Independence when the country was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain. The Surrey regiment was embodied on 26 March 1778, and that summer was at Coxheath Camp near Maidstone in Kent, which was the army's largest training camp, where the Militia were exercised as part of a division alongside Regular troops while providing a reserve in case of French invasion of South East England. In 1779 the regiment was at Gosport guarding 1500 Prisoners of War in a former seamen's hospital when they foiled an attempt to tunnel out and a plot to overcome the guards, who were increased. In 1780 some of the Surrey companies were stationed at Ringwood in Hampshire, where they were called upon to assist the Revenue officers against smuggling. In June that year the regiment was deployed on the streets of London against the Gordon Riots, clearing the streets and bridges with the bayonet when parties of rioters refused to disperse. The regiment was disembodied on 28 February 1783 after the signing of the Peace of Paris.
From 1784 to 1792 the militia were assembled for their 28 days' annual training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually called out each year.

French Revolutionary War

In view of the worsening international situation in late 1792 the militia was called out, even though Revolutionary France did not declare war on Britain until 1 February 1793. The Surrey Militia was embodied on 1 December 1792. 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.