Royal Glamorgan Light Infantry

[9][22][23] When open war broke out between the King and Parliament, neither side made much use of the trained bands beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops.

From August 1643 Mansel and Sir Richard Bassett, each with a regiment of Glamorgan TBs, were engaged in the fruitless Siege of Gloucester, which was relieved by the Earl of Essex on 5 September.

In 1697 it consisted of 483 foot in nine companies under the command of Sir Edward Mansel, and a troop of 40 horse under Captain Martin Button[8][9][40][41] Generally the militia declined in the long peace after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

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.

Shortly afterwards they were marched to Warley Camp in Essex, where a division of Regular and Militia battalions was concentrated and exercised together, the Glamorgans being part of the 'Reserve of the Left'.

At the time Lancaster and Preston were disturbed by the 'No Popery' agitation: there was unauthorised military drilling among young men, the American flag was raised, and the king was cursed.

[52] From 1784 to 1792 the militia ballot was used to keep up the numbers and the regiments were assembled for their 28 days' annual peacetime training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually mustered each year.

Under Col Lord Mount Stuart (son of the previous colonel, who was now Earl of Bute) the regiment marched to Plymouth to begin garrison duty.

[2][60][61] 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.

The Glamorgan Militia had already been re-embodied in April, and by June it was stationed at Winchester in Hampshire, later moving to the encampment at Stokes Bay, Gosport, here it was reinforced with supplementary militiamen.

It left in March 1804 and moved along the South Coast, with short periods iof duty at Southbourne, Eastbourne and other places before arriving at Pevensey Barracks on 22 June.

With 432 men in 6 companies under Lt-Col Henry Knight, it was stationed with the Royal Carnarvonshire Militia, forming part of Brigadier-General Moore Disney's brigade.

It then moved into Cornwall, with the main body at Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, from 7 May, where it was joined by the signal post guards once they had been relieved by the North Hants Militia.

In mid-October 1816 a series of strikes at the ironworks of South Wales led to the permanent staff of the RGLI being called out to aid the civil power.

The adjutant, Capt Ray, led his 24 armed sergeants and buglers by coach to Merthyr Tydfil, reporting to the magistrates at the Castle Inn on 18 October.

The regimental band was privately funded by the colonel, the Marquess of Bute, and gave weekly public concerts in the grounds of his residence, Cardiff Castle.

The magistrates thereupon handed over to Lt-Col Morgan who, giving the words of command slowly and clearly, ordered the Highlanders and Militia to load, and the Yeomanry to draw sabres.

[76] After 1831 neither ballots nor training were held for the militia, though officers continued to be commissioned: following the death of the Marquess of Bute, Charles Kemeys-Tynte, MP, formerly lt-col of the West Somerset Yeomanry, was appointed colonel of the RGLI on 4 January 1849.

Under the Act, militia units could be embodied by Royal Proclamation for full-time service in three circumstances:[76][78][79][80][81] The RGLI was rapidly revived, with recruitment well advanced by early 1853.

Although the RGLI volunteered to serve in overseas garrisons and was rumoured to be going to the West Indies, the regiment did not leave Cardiff during its embodiment, which ended on 27 May 1856 [8][2][84] From 1858 the militia regularly assembled for their annual training.

The Militia Armoury and Store was moved from the Old Guild Hall in 1860 to a new site at Blackweir, while the men assembled for training were accommodated at Longcross Barracks or in billets.

[85][89] 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.

[91] The battalion left Pembroke Dock aboard two trains on 12 February and at Southampton was embarked on the RMS Majestic with a large draft for other regiments, with Lt-Col Thrale Perkins of 3rd Bn Welsh acting as office commanding troops.

On 29 September the 3rd Welsh moved from Vryburg to Kimberley from where small detachments were widely spread to man the line of blockhouses and to guard railways.

On 27 October it transferred to the South Wales Borderers as 51st (Graduated) Battalion, moving to Stowlangtoft in April 1918, where it remained as part of 68th Division until the end of the war.

The centrepiece of the blue flag has the Royal cypher inside a garter inscribed 'WEST GLAMORGAN LOCAL MILITIA', surmounted by a crown and surrounded by a Union Wreath of roses, thistles and shamrocks.

[89][90][107] The earliest recorded badge of the Glamorgan Militia was the Prince of Wales's feathers, coronet and 'Ich Dien' motto in white metal worn on the front of the caps of the Light Company in 1778.

By 1844 the centre featured a bugle horn with the prince of Wales's device inside the strings, a scroll beneath bearing the inscription 'ROYAL GLAMORGAN', but later versions reverted to the earlier cypher and pendant bugle-horn.

The officers' Home Service helmet plate was a crowned star with at the centre the Royal cypher within a circle inscribed 'ROYAL GLAMORGAN LIGHT INFY.

[89] A memorial plaque to the 31 officers and men of the 3rd Bn Welsh Regiment who were killed in action or died of disease during the Second Boer War was unveiled at Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, on 4 July 1903.

Supplementary-Militia, turning-out for Twenty Days Amusement : 1796 caricature by James Gillray .
Stapleton Prison, Bristol, used to house PoWs during the Napoleonic Wars.
Hythe, showing the Royal Military Canal and the line of Martello towers along the coast.
Later depiction of the Merthyr Rising, with armed rioters raising the red flag.
Maindy Barracks, ca 1900.