Though incomplete, the surviving Worcestershire lists are very detailed, giving the numbers of men for each ward of the city of Worcester and for each parish and township of the hundreds, together with the wealthier individuals charged with providing 'harness' (armour).

The foot joined Lord Hunsdon's army at Tilbury defending the Queen and were formed with the Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Huntingdonshire TBs into Sir Henry Goodere's Regiment, 2,100 strong.

After the discovery of the plot, their leader Robert Catesby and others withdrew to Holbeche House, where they were surrounded by a 200-strong detachment of Worcestershire TBs under the High Sheriff, Sir Richard Walsh.

Another TB party under Sir Henry Bromley of Holt Castle, acting on information from one of the prisoners, then searched Hindlip Hall and captured two Jesuit priests linked to the plot.

Concerned at the prevalence of Roman Catholicism among the gentry, the Worcestershire troops demanded that their officers take Anglican Communion with the men and pledge that the campaign against the Scottish covenanters would not be to the disadvantage of the Protestant faith.

Major Mercer with the Worcestershire Horse was sent with Col Robert Lilburne's force to secure Bewdley bridge north of Worcester and block the Royalists' line of retreat.

The County and City of Worcester under Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury as Lord Lieutenant, mustered a Foot regiment of seven companies totalling 786 men with Shrewsbury himself as Colonel, and Sir James Rushout, 1st Baronet, MP for Evesham, as his Lieutenant-Colonel, together with two troops of horse, each 60 strong, under Captains Lord Herbert of Chirbury and William Bromley of Holt Castle, MP for Worcester.

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.

The Worcestershires raised their company at Kidderminster and Halesowen in March and April 1779 and trained it as Light Infantry, then coming into favour in the North America campaign.

On 14 August the regiment left Coxheath to camp at Chatham Lines, with the exception of a detachment that returned to Worcester with the time-expired men and remained there while the next ballot was carried out.

In mid-November the camps round Plymouth were broken up and the Worcestershire Militia marched to Dorset, where it was scattered in winter quarters among the towns and villages around Dorchester and Wareham.

Lieutenant-Col Walsh resigned in 1787 and was succeeded by James Wakeman Newport of Hanley Court, formerly a lieutenant in the 6th Dragoons, but who had begun his military career as an ensign in the Worcestershire Militia 1779–80.

[7][58][73][74] The French Revolutionary Wars saw a new phase for the English militia: they were embodied for a whole generation, and became regiments of full-time professional soldiers (though restricted to service in the British Isles), which the Regular Army increasingly saw as a prime source of recruits.

[55][81] In July 1799 the Supplementary Militia was reduced, the surplus men being encouraged to volunteer for the regular army: 78 of the 2nd Worcestershires joined the 46th and 62nd Regiments of Foot and the Royal Artillery.

The French force had already been defeated, but to prevent the planned uprising in Westmeath a brigade of Foot Guards was sent to Mullingar in early October, accompanied by the Worcestershires with their battalion guns.

On the night of 28 October a party of rebels armed with rifles, cutlasses and pikes, attacked Mrs Kelso's house at Clonard, killing in their beds the three privates of the regiment posted there for her protection.

Later that year Wilson's Hospital was converted into a temporary barracks for five companies of the regiment, which with the Bedfordshire and Londonderry Militia and the Northumberland Fencibles formed Maj-Gen Charles Barnett's brigade.

early in 1805 encouraged volunteering into the regular army and 196 men left the Worcestershires, mainly to the 43rd Light Infantry and Royal Marines; this reduced the regiment to eight companies once more, forcing the surplus officers to retire.

[7][58][90] In July 1805 the regiment moved to Lympstone Camp, where it joined Lt-Gen Charles Lennox's militia brigade for the summer while Napoleon's 'Army of England' massed at Boulogne and threatened invasion.

Another round of volunteering for the regulars saw the Worcestershires give up another 233 men, mainly to the Royal Fusiliers and the 43rd Light Infantry; at the same time counties that did not keep their militia up to at least three-quarters of establishment strength were fined.

In May 1811 the regiment foiled a breakout attempt by French prisoners held at Porchester Castle: six of them managed to scale the wall, but three were caught in the act, the other three recaptured soon afterwards.

The regiment remained in Bristol until 25–26 March 1812, when it returned to Colwert Barracks at Portsmouth under Lt-Col Coventry (now Viscount Deerhurst since his father had succeeded to the earldom).

First ordered to the Peninsula, then to Bergen op Zoom, the convoy finally arrived off the Garonne estuary to join the Earl of Dalhousie's division that had occupied Bordeaux.

Leaving a small depot detachment at Worcester, the regiment embarked at Bristol on 2 October and landed at Waterford, marching to the barracks at Birr, King's County, where it spent the winter.

The permanent staff of NCOs and drummers under the adjutant maintained the armoury and stores at St Nicolas Street (rebuilt in 1807 and expanded in 1813), and were available to assist the civil powers, though their numbers were repeatedly reduced.

A Reform Act riot began in Worcester on 5 November 1831 and lasted for several days; the magistrates had made preparations for this eventuality, and the Worcestershire Militia staff was on duty at the county and city gaols where the rioters threatened to free the prisoners.

Under the Act, Militia units could be embodied by Royal Proclamation for full-time home defence service in three circumstances:[112][113][114] Colonel Bund resigned the command of the Worcestershire Militia on grounds of ill-health in July 1852 and Thomas Clutton-Brock was promoted to command the regiment on 3 August 1852 with Maj Thomas Clowes promoted to Lt-Col. Enlistment for the reformed regiment opened on 1 September 1852 and the first 'division' began its training on 12 April 1853 in a field behind the Talbot Inn on the Tything at Worcester, assisted by drill instructors from the 77th Foot.

Some 332 men of the Worcestershire refused to re-attest, and together with large numbers transferred to the regulars this meant that the effective strength of the regiment was too low to allow it to serve overseas.

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.

[64][77][111][121][109][116][159][161] There are two books of remembrance in a display case outside St George's Chapel in Worcester Cathedral with the names of the men of 'other battalions' of the Worcestershire regiment (including the 5th, 6th, 12th, 13th and 1st Garrison) who died during World War I.