After a shadowy postwar existence it was formally disbanded in 1953 The universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England and its legal basis was updated by two acts of 1557 (4 & 5 Ph.

[1][2][3][4] The Surrey Trained Bands formed part of the army at Tilbury during the Armada campaign of 1588, and some elements saw active service during the English Civil War.

[7][18][28] 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.

[7][18][29] 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 (though restricted to service within the British Isles), which the regular army increasingly saw as a prime source of recruits.

[17][22][23][25][35] Prior to the French Revolutionary War, the order of precedence for militia regiments had been decided by lot at the start of each camping season.

However, preliminaries of peace had been signed, so in December the regiment was marched back to Surrey, where its companies were billeted in several villages until it was concentrated at Guildford to be disembodied on 25 April 1801.

Once more Surrey was a black spot for militia recruitment, and of the quota of 288 men that should have been balloted for in Southwark only 22 arrived, many substitutes deserting as soon as they had pocketed their bounty.

On 18 May, the day was war was declared, the 2nd Surreys marched from Guildford via Reigate, Sevenoaks and Maidstone to barracks at Ashford, Kent, arriving on 21 May.

During the summer of 1805, when Napoleon was massing his 'Army of England' at Boulogne for a projected invasion, the 2nd RSM was part of a militia brigade under Maj-Gen Alexander McKenzie defending Hull.

In April 1807 the 2nd RLM began a march to the Medway towns in Kent, but en route it was diverted to Barnet and Whetstone, north of London.

The threat of invasion had heightened after the Treaty of Tilsit between France and Russia, all leave was cancelled, and a ballot was held in Surrey to bring the militia up to full strength.

In the crisis there was another drive to induce militiamen to volunteer for the regulars: the 2nd RLM was given a quota of 68, but over 100 men elected to join the 56th (West Essex) Regiment of Foot, including many of the sergeants and drummers.

From July 1810 to May 1811 it was at Playden Barracks, then moved to join the Portsmouth area garrison, being quartered at Fareham, Titchfield, Havant, Emsworth and Westbourne.

The regiment 485 strong embarked from Portsmouth on 1 August under the command of Lt-Col Robert Frederick (eldest son of the original second-in-command) and after arrival in Dublin marched to Mullingar.

Ten officers and 158 other ranks (ORs) of the 2nd RSM volunteered for this service, though a number changed their mind and transferred to the regular army instead (mainly to the 51st Foot).

Although many militia regiments were embodied again after Napoleon's return to power in 1815, leading to the short Waterloo Campaign, the 2nd RSM was not one of them, though it did recruit 'by beat of drum' to maintain its numbers[22][23][55] Although officers continued to be commissioned into the militia and ballots were still held during the long peace after the Battle of Waterloo, the regiments were rarely assembled for training and the permanent staffs of sergeants and drummers were progressively reduced.

In that year the King drew the lots for individual regiments and the resulting list remained in force with minor amendments until the end of the militia.

Under the Act, militia units could be embodied by Royal Proclamation for full-time home defence service in three circumstances:[58][59][60][61] The quota set for the 2nd RSM was 990 men in 10 companies, with a permanent staff of 28.

It was called out for its first 28 days' training in April 1853 (though almost 400 of the enrolled men failed to appear), for which 40 drill instructors were borrowed from the regular army garrison at Chatham.

By this time many were drunk and the 24 remaining men of the Grenadier Company had to be deployed with fixed bayonets across the entrance to the drill field before the 10-man guard was turned out from the barracks.

The 2nd RSM left Guildford on 13 February 1856 (having remained billeted there until an outbreak of smallpox was over) and went into the newly built North Camp at Aldershot.

[22][17][23][25][68] After the disembodiment the 2nd RSM was not called out for training again until 1858, but the permanent staff continued to be periodically inspected and worked as recruiters for the regular army, raising 144 men in 1857 and 157 in 1858.

[74][75][71][76][77] Although often referred to as brigades, the sub-districts were purely administrative organisations, but in a continuation of the Cardwell Reforms a mobilisation scheme began to appear in the Army List from December 1875.

[12][22][17][23][25][74] After the disasters of Black Week at the start of the Second Boer War in December 1899, most of the regular army was sent to South Africa, and many militia units were embodied to replace them for home defence and to garrison certain overseas stations.

On its arrival at Beaufort West the Boers were close by, so the companies with HQ were pushed on to De Aar to reinforce the blockhouse line and protect convoys passing through the district.

There were moves to reform the Auxiliary Forces (Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteers) to take their place in the six Army Corps proposed by the Secretary of State for War, St John Brodrick.

It the latter part of 1915 the battalion also began supplying drafts to the 6th and 7th (Service) Bns composed of 'Kitchener's Army' volunteers, which were by then serving with the BEF, supplementing the work of the 9th (Reserve) Bn (see below).

[89][90][91] During the war the battalion's honorary colonel, Col Frederick Fairtlough, CMG, came out of retirement to command the 8th (Service) Bn, Queen's, a Kitchener's Army unit, and was killed in action on 26 September 1915 at the Battle of Loos.

However, on 18 June the Light Division began moving to the Cologne area in case the German delegates rejected the Treaty of Versailles and Allied troops were ordered to occupy the Ruhr.

[74] There is a marble memorial plaque in the Chapel of the Queen's Royal Regiment at Holy Trinity Church, Guildford, to the 12 men of the battalion who died during the Second Boer War.