Kent Militia

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.

The coastal towns of Kent forming part of the Cinque Ports also had a legal obligation to supply ships, seamen and marines for the Royal Navy.

Two thousand of the Kent trained men were sent to join the main Royal army at St James's Palace in London, and 4000 foot and 725 horse were to be sent into the neighbouring county of Sussex if the Spanish landed there.

In 1639 the county was ordered to select 1200 men for Sir Thomas Morton's Regiment of Foot in the Marquess of Hamilton's army, which was to make an amphibious landing in Scotland.

Morton's Regiment took part in the abortive expedition, suffering serious casualties from an outbreak of smallpox before the army was dispersed to its homes.

[25][26] The Sutton at Hone TB Volunteers were represented in the Parliamentary army that relieved the Siege of Gloucester and fought the First Battle of Newbury on their return,[27][28] and a number of Kentish TB units joined the Sir William Waller's Southern Association army for the successful Siege of Arundel from December 1643 to January 1644.

[32][33] However, the trial of those arrested led to further protests in May 1648, which former Royalist officers turned into an organised revolt, sparking off the Second English Civil War.

The Royalists seized numerous towns in Kent and the Prince of Wales landed at Sandwich to put himself at the head of the rebellion.

Many of the gentleman of Kent joined and trained bandsmen could not be relied upon,[34] but Sir Thomas Fairfax led the New Model Army into the county and defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Maidstone on 1 June.

[36][37] Large numbers of Trained Band units were called out across England in 1650 during the Scottish invasion of the Third English Civil War, including those of Kent.

[17] Twistleton's Kent Dragoons were ordered to join a concentration at Oxford, before the Scots army was defeated at the Battle of Worcester.

In June the Dutch fleet suddenly appeared off Deal, and 160 townsmen turned out in two hours to help the embodied militia company.

The Dutch fleet then sailed into the Thames Estuary and detached a squadron to carry out a Raid on the Medway, with the aim of damaging the ships and dockyard facilities.

The fort contained 16 guns manned by a small detachment of permanent gunners assisted by seamen from HMS Monmouth, and a company of Douglas's Regiment, all under the command of the Governor, Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Spragge.

When intelligence of the Dutch approach was received, a company of West Kent Militia was added to the garrison, bringing it to a strength of about 250 men.

The Dutch squadron appeared off the entrance to the River Medway at about 17.00 on 10 June and three ships of the line engaged Garrison Point Fort while a force of about 800 soldiers and marines under an English renegade, Colonel Thomas Dolman, was landed from small boats.

The Dutch now controlled the river below Chatham and Rochester, and proceeded to burn Sheerness Dockyard and the laid-up warships at anchor, towing away the flagship, HMS Royal Charles, as a prize.

[42][43] In May 1672, on the outbreak of the Third Dutch War, the Lord Lieutenant of Kent, Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Winchilsea, warned of the danger of invasion before the Royal Navy could be fully mobilised, and set up a system of guards along the coast.

[47] In Kent, which hourly expected a French invasion in support of the Jacobites in December 1745, all that could be done was for the Deputy Lieutenants to ask anyone willing to fight to assemble with whatever arms they had – a reversion to the shire levy or posse comitatus.

The regiment's weapons were issued from the Tower of London on 20 November 1758 when it had reached 60 per cent of its establishment strength – one of the first units in the country to achieve this.

At the end of May 1780 it was ordered to Portsmouth for the sumer, but diverted to Tottenham and Highgate, north of London, to assist in quelling the Gordon Riots in the city.

[57] The militia was stood down at the conclusion of the war and from 1784 to 1792 the regiments were supposed to assemble for 28 days' annual training, even though to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually called out each year.

[17][52][55][58][59] 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 in the British Isles), which the regular army increasingly saw as a prime source of recruits.

[67][68][69][70] Meetings of the Kent Lieutenancy to set up the Local Militia were held at the Bell Inn at Maidstone in April 1809[71][72] and the Lord Lieutenant of Kent (Earl Camden) began issuing commissions to officers in the new regiments: Viscount Marsham, who had just succeeded his father as Earl of Romney, resigned and Lt-Col Hon John Wingfield-Stratford was appointed to replace him as Commandant of the Bearsted and Malling Regiment on 4 April 1811[79][80] The 19-year-old George Sackville, 4th Duke of Dorset, was commissioned as captain of the Sevenoaks and Bromley Regiment on 27 April 1813,[81] then on 26 July the same year he was promoted to Lt-Col Cmdt after Viscount Whitworth resigned.

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.

[17][52][55][58][59][89] The East Kents were among the small number of militia regiments embodied during the Indian Mutiny, again serving at Portsmouth and Woolwich from December 1857.

[52][59][101] 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.

It saw a good deal of action in the Orange Free State and in the pursuit of Christiaan de Wet, then spent most of 1901 as convoy escorts and to man the lines of blockhouses.

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.

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.