Social background of officers and other ranks in the British Army, 1750–1815
Most recruits were young men from the lowest social classes who could not find a livelihood on the civilian labour market.
Aristocracy and gentry were over-represented in the higher ranks, but most officers came from a background of landowners, or were the sons of clergymen, lawyers, doctors or successful merchants.
The early modern British Army consisted of two distinct components that were kept separate in peacetime and at home.
"The Army" in a limited sense, included infantry and cavalry, and was politically subordinate to the War Office, and under the military command of the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces at the Horse Guards.
Contemporary social analysts placed the soldiery at the bottom of society, below common labourer's but above paupers and vagrants.
Their best options for employment centered around seasonal farm hand labour, a full year if lucky.
[11] Another analysis, this time of British soldiers stationed in North America during American Revolutionary War, found that a consistent link existed between recruitment and regional economic conditions in Britain.
Most army recruits found themselves either permanently or temporarily outside the labour market because of the structural changes of the British economy that came with the Industrial Revolution.
Trades with marked seasonal fluctuations in employment, including bricklayers and stone masons, also provided the army with many recruits.
Socially and economically stable working class occupations (miners, ironworks workers, or nailors for example) supplied very few soldiers.
In addition to the direct leadership of the rank and file entrusted them, the commissioned officers happily surrendered the routine administration of the companies and regiments to the sergeants.
Selection for this post was based on capability as a drill instructor, but to the same extent also of skills at writing and counting.
Later in the nineteenth century, however, membership in military Masonic lodges was restricted to those who were Freemasons previous to enlistment.
This was a substantially larger proportion than during the rest of the nineteenth century, when the officer corps obtained the character of a closed caste.
It was seen as a guarantee that the officer corps would identify itself with social elite, and not act as an independent force in the interest of the King or itself.
Only when George III's favourite son, the Duke of York, became commander in chief of the forces in 1795, a strict set of rules could be enforced.
The majority of the officers were competent professionals with long time in service, without private means, living on their pay.
[24] The lifestyle required of an officer with the King's commission meant, however, that the living costs often exceeded the income, with permanent money problems and indebtedness as a result.
Advancement was therefore very slow, and as there were no pensions, or commissions to sell, gunners and engineers remained in the service for a very long time, even as superannuated and unfit for combat.
[27] The following table outlines the different members of the nobility serving in the British Army in the period of the Napoleonic Wars, 1805–1816:
