It was converted to the Special Reserve under the Haldane Reforms and supplied reinforcements to the Middlesex Regiment's fighting battalions during World War I.

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.

It was an important element in the country's defence at the time of the Spanish Armada in the 1580s, and control of the militia was one of the areas of dispute between King Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War.

[1][2][3][4] During the Civil War a great ring of fortifications (the 'Lines of Communication') was constructed round London, encompassing Westminster and the suburban parishes of east Middlesex, whose trained bands came under the London Militia Committee and saw active service as part of the Westminster Trained Bands.

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.

[18] Claiming insufficient numbers of qualified officers, Newcastle suspended the execution of the Act in Middlesex for two years.

However, opinion in the county shifted and in July 1760, the lieutenancy began forming three regiments (Western, Eastern and Westminster) and the arms and accoutrements were supplied from the Tower of London on 7 and 12 August.

[3][17][19][22][23][24] In the summer of 1780 the East Middlesex formed part of a brigade under Lieutenant-General Simon Fraser in a training camp at Waterdown Forest, near Tunbridge Wells.

[22] From 1784 to 1792 the militia were assembled for their 28 days' annual peacetime training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually mustered each year.

Middlesex remained the worst 'black spot' for militia recruitment: in November 1793 the Eastern Regiment was 90 men short of the number it should have embodied.

[14][15][31] In June 1793 both the East and West Middlesex regiments marched to join a large militia training encampment at Broadwater Common, Waterdown Forest.

The whole camp moved to Ashdown Forest at the beginning of August and then to Brighton for two weeks before returning to Broadwater Common.

The Earl of Mansfield complained in November 1798 that the Eastern Regiment had only received 120 of the supplementary men instead of over 700 it was due, and half of them were unfit.

[3][19][22][42][43][44] During the summer of 1805, when Napoleon was massing his 'Army of England' at Boulogne for a projected invasion, the regiment with 1068 men in 12 companies under Lt-Col John Gibbons was at Ipswich Barracks as part of a militia brigade under Lt-Gen Lord Charles Fitzroy.

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.

War having broken out with Russia in 1854 and an expeditionary force sent to the Crimea, the militia began to be called out for home defence.

The Royal East Middlesex Militia was embodied at Hampstead by the beginning of February 1855,[22][3][52] when the unit's strength was put between 600 and 700 men.

[36] After Wood's death in 1860 his lieutenant-colonel (since 1850), Thomas St Leger Alcock, formerly a major in the 95th Foot, continued as lt-col commandant.

[40][43] Alcock became the regiment's first Honorary Colonel in July 1871 and was succeeded in the command by Capt Frederick Robertson Aikman of the Bengal Army, who had won a Victoria Cross in the Indian Mutiny.

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

[60] Under the 'Localisation of the Forces' scheme introduced by the Cardwell Reforms of 1872, the militia were brigaded with their local Regular and Volunteer battalions.

The militia now came under the War Office rather than their county lords lieutenant and battalions had a large cadre of permanent staff (about 30).

Instead the regulars used Woolwich while the militia used Warley Barracks in Essex, the Royal East Middlesex retaining its regimental HQ at Hampstead.

[22][3][19][43][68] 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.

When the crisis was over, the battalion moved to Green Point, Cape Town, on 29 May to guard the Boer Prisoners of War being held there.

Later, detachments were sent to Karoo Poort, Gydo Pass, Wellington, Porterville, Waterfall and Brede River bridges, Clanwilliam and Calvinia.

On 14 November the same company, forming part of Lt-Col Calwell's column, seized a kopje near Vogelfontein that had been occupied by the enemy.

Even after adopting the Middlesex Regiment's insignia in 1881 the officers of the 6th Bn continued to wear it as a collar badge on their mess uniform until 1914.

[citation needed] The version of the badge worn on the undress Glengarry cap[b] in 1874–81 consisted of the seaxes surrounded by a circle bearing the title 'Royal East Middlesex Militia', the whole surmounted by the Saxon crown.

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.