Under the Cardwell and Childers Reforms it became part of the North Staffordshire Regiment and saw active service during the Second Boer War.

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.

The following year the militia quotas were reduced, the 2nd and 3rd Staffordshires were disbanded and their remaining men incorporated into the 1st Regiment.

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.

[26][31][32] War having broken out with Russia in March 1854 and an expeditionary force sent to the Crimea, the militia were called out for home defence.

By May 1859 it was serving at Cork, moving to the Curragh the following month, and then to Dublin in December, where it stayed until the end of its embodied service.

The Hon Edward Littleton succeeded as 2nd Baron Hatherton in 1863; he continued in command until 1883, when he became the regiment's Honorary Colonel.

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

[44] 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.

[18][38][40][47] Although Cardwell's army corps scheme had been abandoned, the Stanhope Memorandum of 1888 proposed that the home defence army should consist of three corps, of which the first two would be regular, and the bulk of the third would be militia, while the rest of the militia and the volunteers would be assigned to fixed defences round London and the seaports.

[18][48][49] 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 called out to replace them for home defence.

[23][25][26][21][50][51] The battalion embarked with a strength of 27 officers and 525 other ranks (ORs) and disembarked at Cape Town on 26 March 1902.

Then it was sent south to guard 38 miles (61 km) of railway, constructing and manning blockhouses at half-mile intervals.

A 100-strong party from the battalion took part in a big 'drive' to the north of Vryburg which resulted in 20,000 head of cattle being captured and 600 Boers surrendering.

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.

While there it formed the 10th (Reserve) Battalion, North Staffs, to provide reinforcements for Kitchener's Army units (see below).

As well as its defence responsibilities, the battalion's role was to train and form drafts of reservists, special reservists, recruits and returning wounded for the 1st Bn North Staffs serving with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front (the 2nd Bn spent the war in India and would have required fewer reinforcements).

After the war ended it was converted into a service battalion on 8 February 1919 and was sent to the British Army of the Rhine, where it was disbanded on 28 March 1919.

[24] Its badge was the Stafford knot common to all regiments of the county, combined with a light infantry bugle horn.

On coatee and tunic buttons the knot was displayed below a crown with the letters 'K' and 'O' either side and a scroll below inscribed 'Stafford Lt.

After Army Order 251 of 1910, Special Reserve units carried the same battle honours as their parent regiment.