Royal South Gloucestershire Light Infantry Militia

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] The Gloucestershire Trained Bands were called out in the Armada year of 1588, and again a century later during the Monmouth Rebellion and the Glorious Revolution (when they were among the few units to see action in a largely bloodless campaign).

The first or South battalion of the regiment was embodied for permanent duty at Gloucester on 27 July with eight companies under the command of Colonel Norborne Berkeley, who became Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire in 1762.

[23] The Seven Years War ended with the Treaty of Paris on 10 February 1763 and the two battalions of Gloucestershire militia were disembodied, but not before they became separate South and North regiments on 20 April.

was passed to 'Enable His Majesty to call out and assemble the Militia in all cases of Rebellion in any part of the Dominion belonging to the Crown of Great Britain' (raising the possibility that they may have to serve in North America).

In the event the militia was called out in its traditional role when Britain was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain.

[6][18][26][23][27] In the summer of 1781 the regiment, 600 strong, formed part of the 3rd Brigade of the Plymouth garrison, accommodated in the town's barracks.

[29] In view of the worsening international situation the militia was embodied for service in 1792, even though Revolutionary France did not declare war on Britain until 1 February 1793.

They resumed the routine of summer camps and winter quarters around the country, undergoing training, suppressing smuggling and guarding prisoners, all the while being depleted by men volunteering for the regulars.

During the summer of 1805, when Napoleon was massing his 'Army of England' at Boulogne for a projected invasion, the South Gloucestershire regiment with 723 men in 10 companies under Lt-Col John Wall was housed in the town and barracks at Brighton.

The two Gloucestershire regiments came together again in August 1808, when a large militia camp was held near Brighton, the excuse being the birthday of the Prince of Wales, but the opportunity being taken to carry out collective manoeuvres.

[6][18] Although officers continued to be commissioned into the militia and ballots were still held, the regiments were rarely assembled for training after the Battle of Waterloo.

[6][18][45] In this year the regiment was redesignated the Royal South Gloucestershire Light Infantry (RSGLI), or more pompously as the Royal South Battalion of the Gloucestershire Light Infantry Militia[6][18][20] The regiment was disembodied in 1856 and unlike the RNG was not embodied during the Indian Mutiny in 1857.

[46][48][49][50] 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.

The Militia Reserve, formed in 1868, consisted of present and former militiamen who undertook to serve overseas in case of war.

[46][53][54] 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.

[6][18][46][55] Although the battalion remained in the UK, some of its members did see overseas service: the 3rd Gloucesters provided 117 volunteers to the 4th (Royal North Gloucestershire Militia) Bn, which was sent to guard Boer prisoners of war on Saint Helena,[6] while Major Christopher Dering Guise, younger brother of the 3rd Bn's honorary colonel, served as a staff officer in South Africa 1900–02.

[46][62][63][64][65] The 3rd Battalion under Lt-Col George H. Burges completed its 1914 annual training at Perham Down Camp and returned to Bristol where the men were dismissed on 27 June.

Besides training, the role of the battalion was to guard Woolwich Arsenal and the huge dumps of explosives distributed over Abbey Wood Marshes.

Burges, retired from the 3rd Bn, was appointed Temporary Lt-Col to command the 12th (Service) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment (Bristol's Own).

He trained the battalion assiduously, but when it was ready to be sent to join the BEF he was considered too old for active service at the age of 59 and was ordered to relinquish command in August 1915.

By the time of his death in 1938, Col William Burges (as honorary colonel) was the only remaining officer listed for the battalion.

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

[20][79][80][81] The uniform of the South Gloucestershire Militia was red with blue facings, the officers wearing gold lace from at least 1800.

In the period 1814–20, when the regiment was seventh in the list of precedence, the officers' oval gilt shoulder-plates had the numeral '7' within a garter inscribed 'Honi soit qui mal y pense', superimposed on an eight-pointed star, the whole within a garter inscribed 'Gloucester Royal South', surmounted by a ducal Coronet.

In 1854 the regiment was ordered to be uniformed as light infantry and the officers' silver shoulder-belt plate of this period displayed an eight-pointed star with a bugle-horn within a garter.

A bugle-horn within a crowned garter inscribed with the regiment's title was adopted for the buttons and was also worn as the badge on the men's Forage caps 1874–81.

An illustration of Frederick Berkeley, 5th Earl of Berkeley in his South Gloucestershire Militia uniform.
Cap badge of the Gloucestershire Regiment.
Horfield Barracks, Bristol, regimental depot of the Glosters.