Lance sergeant

Lance-sergeant in the armies of the Commonwealth was an appointment given to a corporal so they could fill a post usually held by a sergeant.

The appointment originated in the British Army and Royal Marines, in which it could be removed by the soldier's commanding officer, unlike a full sergeant, who could only be demoted by court martial.

[citation needed] Lance-sergeants may have first appeared in the 19th century,[a] although they are mentioned in the late-18th century military essay "The Elements of Military Arrangement" (John Williamson, 1781):[2] "When from sickness or other causes there are not in a company a sufficient number of non-commission officers to do the duty, the captain can appoint corporals to do the duty of serjeants, who are called lance serjeants, and private men to do the duty of corporals, who are called lance corporals.

[4] The first official documentation for the rank appears in General Regulations for the Army of the United States (Article XVI, Paragraph 64), published on 25 January 1841.

The last recorded reference to the lance sergeant rank was in Regulations for the Army of the United States 1895, With Appendix Separately Indexed and Showing Changes to January 1, 1901 (Article XXXII, Paragraph 257).