Hampshire 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 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.
Different districts were made responsible for guarding certain parts of the coastline, while other villages in the west and north-west of the county were to send reinforcements to the Isle of Wight, recognised as the most likely place for an invasion.
[18][19] However, when armies were assembled in 1639 and 1640 for service in Scotland in the Bishops' Wars, few of the men sent by the counties were actually trained bandsmen, and there was widespread disorder among the unwilling levies.
At the outbreak of hostilities a detachment of the Hampshire TBs served alongside Sir William Waller's Parliamentarian Southern Association Army at the Siege of Portsmouth in August 1642.
Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country.
Weapons were seized, and those held by individuals for militia use were taken and stored centrally by the local authorities or at the Great Magazine in Portsmouth.
Two days before, Gainsborough had been ordered to arrest Thomas Dore, the mayor of Lymington, a known Monmouth supporter, but his men missed him.
As Monmouth's rebels gathered, the government of James II responded by declaring him a traitor and calling out the militia on 13 June, while the regulars of the Royal army were assembled.
[39][40][41] James distrusted the militia under its county landed gentry, and after Sedgemoor he neglected it in favour of a greatly increased Regular Army.
However, when William of Orange landed in the West Country in 1688 he was virtually unopposed by the army or the militia, and deposed James II in the Glorious Revolution.
An adjutant and drill sergeants were to be provided to each regiment from the Regular Army, and arms and accoutrements would be supplied when the county had secured 60 per cent of its quota of recruits.
The Lord Lieutenant, Lieutenant-General Charles Powlett, 5th Duke of Bolton, commanded both regiments with the rank of Colonel ('Brigadier-General of Militia for the County of Southampton' from 13 January 1762).
The militia were called out on 28 March, and the North Hants regiment crossed to the Isle of Wight, reinforcing the local company, which had been assembled for the first time.
After wintering in small towns across Hampshire it moved to the Isle of Wight in 1779 to relieve the North Hants, which went to form part of the Plymouth garrison.
[5][30][1][60][65] 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] Over the following years the North Hants served on the Isle of Wight and then at Brighton Camp in 1794, across Sussex in 1795, at Plymouth Dock in 1796 and in Dorset in 1797.
However, great efforts were made in 1799 to induce militiamen to volunteer for the regular army, and the numbers with the regiments soon fell, the establishment for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight being reduced to just 638 men.
The North Hampshires did so, and at the end of August the regiment sailed from Bristol to Dublin, and was stationed at Strabane for its period of service in Ireland.
The South Hants Light Infantry was rushed north by hired carts in 1812 as part of a militia concentration in response to the Luddite riots.
Annual training was carried out on the heavy guns at these forts and batteries, though both units also had some light cannon for field days.
The Hampshire Militia was one of the first infantry units called out, on 29 May 1854, though its assembly was delayed until 1 August when sufficient accommodation was available at Haslar Barracks and Fort Monckton, Gosport.
[1][92][104] Under the 'Localisation of the Forces' scheme introduced by the Cardwell Reforms of 1872, infantry Militia regiments were brigaded with their local Regular and Volunteer battalions.
[57][93][97][105][107][108] The 2nd Brigade (the Hants Artillery) was one of only a handful of militia units called out for duty during the Panjdeh Crisis in 1885, when it manned the forts around Gosport from February until the end of September.
[30][93][97][105] The Submarine Mining Service had been founded in 1871 as a branch of the Royal Engineers (RE) with the task of installing and maintaining fixed minefields to defend seaports.
[111] The first such militia unit was formed in 1878 as the Hampshire Engineers (Submarine Miners) at Gosport, under the command of Capt Francis John Webber, formerly a lieutenant in the 21st Foot.
There were moves to reform the Auxiliary Forces (Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteers) to take their place in the six Army Corps proposed by St John Brodrick as Secretary of State for War.
[89] Under the sweeping Haldane Reforms of 1908, the Militia was replaced by the Special Reserve, a semi-professional force whose role was to provide reinforcement drafts for Regular units serving overseas in wartime.
In January 1915 it moved to Gosport, where it spent the rest of the war as part of the Portsmouth Garrison, carrying out its dual roles of coast defence and training reinforcement drafts for the battalions of the Hampshire Regiment serving overseas.
