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][5] The Sussex Trained Bands were on coast defence duties during the Armada campaign of 1588, and some elements saw active service during the English Civil War, at the sieges of Chichester and Arundel Castle and at the Battle of Muster Green.

Sussex was given a quota of 800 men to raise, but failed to do so – possibly because the Leader of the Opposition, the Duke of Newcastle, and his Pelham family members were powerful in the county.

Newcastle had opposed the Militia Acts, but even he felt that Sussex, a county standing right in the path of potential invasion, should raise its men.

It was raised and embodied at Chichester on 29 June 1778, the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex, Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, taking personal command as colonel.

The force was still unpopular in Sussex: the imposition of the Militia Ballot caused riots in the county, but the officers took over from the parish constables the task of raising subscriptions from those who were liable, and used the money to hire volunteers.

[8][16][18][19] Richmond appointed one of the Pelhams, his young friend Thomas, later 2nd Earl of Chichester, as a captain, even though they were at the time political opponents, later promoting him to major and to lieutenant-colonel.

Inoculation required three weeks' sick leave in an isolation hospital; the duke was able to provide a building for this, but it could only take 60 men at a time, so it took from May to August 1779 before the whole regiment was immunised.

(A surprisingly large number of Sussex militiamen were prosperous enough to be electors and claimed their statutory leave of absence to return home to vote in this election.)

[8][18] 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.

[15][25][26] While encamped in 1796 the Sussex Militia introduced a scientific plan for feeding its men, using special boilers invented by SirBenjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.

[8][18] Although Richmond and Pelham wanted the militia to remain local, they resumed the round of coast defence and garrison duties across the country, and increasingly became a source of recruits for the regulars.

For lack of suitable senior officers, Richmond and Pelham had to stay on, despite their heavy ministerial duties and the duke's increasing age.

Although officers continued to be commissioned into the militia and ballots were still held, the regiments were rarely assembled for training and the permanent staffs of sergeants and drummers were progressively reduced.

[30][42][43][44] War having broken out with Russia in 1854 and an expeditionary force sent to the Crimea, the militia began to be called out for home defence.

The Militia Reserve introduced in 1867 consisted of present and former militiamen who undertook to serve overseas in case of war.

[38] Under the 'Localisation of the Forces' scheme introduced by the Cardwell Reforms of 1872, the militia were brigaded with their local Regular and Volunteers battalions.

[18] On the outbreak of World War I the Special Reserve was embodied on 4 August and the 3rd Royal Sussex mobilised at Chichester.

[18][64][65] Its role throughout the war was to prepare reinforcement drafts of reservists, special reservists, recruits and returning wounded for the regular battalions serving overseas: the 1st Royal Sussex remained in India throughout the war, but the 2nd Bn went to France with the British Expeditionary Force and fought on the Western Front until the Armistice with Germany.

The officers' silver oval shoulder-belt plates in 1810 carried the Royal cypher within a crowned garter bearing the motto 'Honi soi qui mal y pense', with the title 'Sussex' on a scroll underneath.

The shako plate of this period had the Garter star within the strings of a bugle horn, with a scroll inscribed 'Royal Sussex' beneath.

The ORs' forage cap badge of 1874–81 was a Garter star surmounted by a bugle horn, with a scroll beneath inscribed 'Royal Sussex'.

[37][71] When the Royal Sussex Regiment was formed in 1881 the RSLIM's Garter star was combined with the Roussillon plume of the 35th Foot to produce the badge that was worn until 1966.

When camped together, militia regiments drew lots to decide their relative order of precedence; this determined their position in the line of battle and which colonel was in command.

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.

[37][72][73][75] Members of the 3rd Battalion who died in the Second Boer War are commemorated on the Royal Sussex Regiment memorial in Brighton.