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.

[1][2][3] Although control of the militia was one of the areas of dispute between King Charles I and Parliament that led to the First English Civil War, most of the county Trained Bands played little part in the fighting.

Two, later four (Exeter, North, East and South), battalions were formed in Devon under the command of the Duke of Bedford as Lord Lieutenant.

In December 1762 the battalions were stood down ('disembodied') and the following year were reorganised into three peacetime regiments: the 1st or East, 2nd or North and 3rd or South Devon Militia.

[21] The militia was called out when Britain was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain, and the regiment was embodied at Plymouth on 26 March 1778.

American independence was recognised in November 1782, and peace was settled with France and Spain early in 1783, so the militia could be stood down.

[17][2][12][22][23] From 1787 to 1793 the South Devon Militia was assembled at Plymouth for its annual 28 days' training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were mustered each year.

In view of the worsening international situation the whole Devonshire Militia was embodied for service on 22 December 1792, even though Revolutionary France did not declare war on Britain until 1 February 1793.

[17][2][24][25] In June 1793 both the South and North Devon regiments marched to join a large militia training encampment at Broadwater Common, Waterdown Forest, outside Tunbridge Wells.

[28] The militia were frequently moved around the country but in the winter of 1795–6 all three Devon regiments were at Plymouth guarding the fortifications and the French prisoners of war.

[30] In August 1798 the Colonel of the South Devons, Lord Rolle, offered his regiment for service in Ireland during the Rebellion of 1798–99, but found his men unwilling to follow him on board ship.

He suggested to the authorities that the men who stayed behind should be given a spell of really hard duty, but that they should be moved elsewhere before the taunts onf the regular soldiers in their barracks led to a fight.

This caused a dispute between Lord Rolle, who opposed the legislation, and his second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Elford, Member of Parliament for Plymouth, who had voted for it and had obtained around 50 volunteers from the regiment.

Although he remained colonel, Lord Rolle was no longer serving with the regiment, and was concerned with raising the Beer and Seaton Volunteers, which he offered to help the 1st Devon Militia in putting down rioting in Plymouth in 1801.

[17][2][33] Rewards were posted on 1 August 1803 for the apprehension 23 men who had not rejoined the regiment and were listed as deserters, though a number were believed to be serving on naval warships, in the Regular Army or working in London or Newfoundland.

[34] During the summer of 1805, when Napoleon was massing his 'Army of England' at Boulogne for a projected invasion, the South Devons, with 575 men in 10 companies under Lt-Col Sir William Elford, were stationed at Bristol as part of a brigade under Maj-Gen Josiah Champagné.

[2] In the summer of 1813 the South Devons rejoined the Plymouth garrison, but the regiment was detached in camp on Dartmoor; it moved into the city for winter quarters.

So although officers continued to be commissioned into the regiment and the ballot was regularly held, the selected men were rarely mustered for drill.

The permanent staff of a militia regiment in 1819 was reduced to the adjutant, paymaster and surgeon, sergeant-major and drum-major, and one sergeant and corporal for every 40 men and one drummer for every two companies plus the flank companies, but these were progressively reduced so that by 1835 there were only the adjutant, sergeant-major and six sergeants, while the other long-serving men were pensioned off.

[17][53][2][18][59][60] Training was now more realistic, often carried out at annual camps, but there was a falling-off in recruitment and the Devon Militia regiments were each reduced by two companies in 1876, and by a further two, to a total of six, in 1890.

There were moves to reform the Auxiliary Forces (Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteers) to take their place in the six Army Corps proposed by St John Brodrick as Secretary of State for War.

The badge from about 1800 to 1881 was a lion rampant (derived from the coat of arms of the early Earls of Devon) within a garter inscribed with the regimental title.