Militia and Volunteers of County Durham


The Militia and Volunteers of County Durham are those military units raised in the County independent of the regular Army. The "modern" militia dates from legislation enacted during the Seven Years' War. The volunteers had several forms and separate periods of existence until made a permanent body in 1859.

Militia

After the invasion scare of 1745, and the later strain on the regular army during the Seven Years' War, bills for the reform of the militia were brought to parliament, but it was not until 1759 that the act would be passed. The act continued with the ballot to select men from each county, in numbers based on a return made by the county authorities of men of eligible age, initially between 18 and 50 years of age. As a substitute could be made on a payment of £10, the burden fell on the working classes. Subsequent explanatory legislation was required to curb rioting in 13 counties over fears of pay and overseas service, the militia would only be used in England and Wales. When not embodied for service the men had an annual training requirement of 28 days by 1762. The Legislation was continually amended, for example, by the end of the Napoleonic wars, to permit wider service in the country, fixed terms of service and paying a bounty for volunteering for the regular army.
The militia was under the control of the Lord Lieutenant of the county and was to be officered by the local gentry, their rank determined by a property qualification which was gradually reduced or ignored.

General Militia

button of the Durham Militia c. 1850s from the Durham Light Infantry museumThe regiment of the Durham Militia did not form until 1759, it was led by Henry Vane, 2nd Earl of Darlington, and had an initial strength of 369 men, with the headquarters at Barnard Castle. The first bandmaster of the regiment was William Herschel. The militia regiment in its early form was embodied on the following occasions:
The last annual training for balloted men was in 1825, and was held only once or twice in the next few years, as the militia was allowed to fall into disuse, and the Durham militia dwindled to only a small headquarters staff. At the end of 1833 this amounted to a captain, a serjeant-major, 12 serjeants, a drum-major and four drummers, and by 1844 was only the serjeant-major and six serjeants. In 1840 the Colonelcy of the Durham Militia was held by William Vane, 1st Duke of Cleveland, and after his death in 1842 it passed on to his son Henry Vane, 2nd Duke of Cleveland.

1852 Reformed Militia

In 1852 a new Militia Act was passed that revived the militia, and County Durham was ordered to provide 1096 men. However, with the ballot having been suppressed in 1830, the response was weak. The first recruits were trained in two batches at Barnard Castle at the end of the year. In 1853 the existing Durham Militia was split into two regiments: the 1st Durham Militia, with its headquarters at Barnard Castle and the 2nd Durham Militia, headquartered in Durham. An artillery brigade of four batteries, the Durham Artillery Militia, was newly raised at Bishop Auckland in July 1853, moving its headquarters to Hartlepool in 1861.
During the Crimean War both infantry regiments were embodied, the 1st regiment from December 1855 to May 1856, which remained at Barnard Castle and the 2nd regiment from March 1855 to May 1856, which spent the last few months at Burnley. Both were understrength, with a total of 630 man of all ranks between them. neither were among those embodied during the manpower shortage caused by the Indian Mutiny. However, the Durham Artillery Militia were embodied during the latter stages of the Mutiny from 5 April 1859 to 25 March 1861, serving in the garrison of Gosport and Portsmouth. In 1860 the 1st regiment was made a Fusilier regiment, the 1st Durham Militia. The revival of the Volunteer forces led to competition for the available manpower. The rise of local constabularies meant that the militia would be used less for keeping order than to replace regular soldiers on home service during large mobilizations.

Reforms and Amalgamation

New legislation increased ease with which militia officers and men could transfer to the regular army, and resulted it becoming, as Cardwell wanted, more of an auxiliary to the regular line regiments. In 1881, after being brigaded with, but seldom interacting with, the Volunteer units of the County since 1873, the 1st Durham Militia became the 3rd Battalion and the 2nd Durham Militia became the 4th Battalion of the newly created Durham Light Infantry. The 3rd battalion was embodied for six months in 1885, as a consequence of the Mahdist War, and was stationed at Colchester.
The nation's Artillery Militia was reorganised into 11 divisions of garrison artillery in 1882, and the Durham unit, with a sixth battery, became the senior Militia unit in the new Northern Division, taking the title of 2nd Brigade, Northern Division, RA. When the Northern Division was abolished in 1889 the title was altered to The Durham Artillery RA. The unit's HQ transferred from Hartlepool to Sunderland Barracks in 1895.
For the first and only time, the militia battalions would not only be embodied, but also see action during the Second Boer War. The 3rd battalion was embodied on 5 December 1899, with a strength of 826 officers and men. It served in the Cape Colony and the Orange Free State, guarding lines of communication and escorting convoys, and garrisoning Dewetsdorp for six months. During its time there it lost 29 officers and men. The 4th battalion was embodied twice, first from 23 January to 4 December 1900, when it remained in Aldershot, and from 6 January 1902 to 3 October 1902 when, with a strength of 852 officers and men, it was split into small detachments around the Cape and Free State. The 4th lost 16 men. The Durham Artillery was embodied 1 May to 11 October 1900, a Service Company volunteered for overseas service and was sent to Zululand where they distinguished themselves fighting as infantry in the defence of Fort Prospect.
From 1902 most units of the Militia artillery formally became part of the Royal Garrison Artillery, the unit at Sunderland taking the title of The Durham RGA '.

Haldane Reforms

In 1908, in large part due to the Militias' resistance to more reform, the militia were reduced to the Special Reserve, a draft finding and training organisation, by the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907. Now renamed the "Reserve", the militia battalion would take over the running of the regimental Depot, being part of the local garrison. War office plans for the 3rd battalion to stay in the depot and any 4th battalion to be mobilized for action, led to the two Durham battalions swapping numbers, as the older battalion wished to remain as a fighting unit. Both battalions remained in Britain during World War One. They were not reformed after the war, the role of the original militia no longer existing, and were finally disbanded after a long period of suspended animation in 1953.
Although most of the Durham RGA volunteered to transfer to the Special Reserve Royal Field Artillery, these units were disbanded in March 1909.

Volunteers

It was initially intended in an Act of 1778 to permit volunteers to augment the militia, however only 14 companies had been added nationwide by 1780. In 1782 a new act, , allowed raising of volunteer forces by local subscription, with a wealthy land-owners or businessman providing most of the funding, but with the government paying them for any service and allowing the men to be court-marshalled only under volunteer officers.

Early Volunteers and Fencibles

The first "modern" raising of volunteers in County Durham occurred in 1745 during the Jacobite Rebellion when the neglect of the militia in previous years meant that, in effect, there was none. The Durham Association Regiment was raised in September by George Bowes and consisted of six troops of cavalry of 25 to 30 men each. It was disbanded by the authorities in November due to its over-zealous patrolling and the inhibition of the movements of "Papists and Non-Jurors".
During the Revolutionary Wars the county would raise two Fencible regiments, composed of volunteers under regular officers, they could not be sent overseas. The first raised in 1794 was the Durham Fencible Cavalry, changing its name the next year to the Princess of Wales's Fencible Cavalry as a genuine expression of loyalty. It was led by William Vane, who was also Colonel of the Militia. After spending three years in Scotland, in June 1798 it was sent to Ireland with a strength of around 250 men, where it operated against the Irish rebels on the River Boyne, it was disbanded at Clonmel in September 1800. The second regiment was raised in 1795, the Loyal Durham Regiment of Fencible Infantry, and after spending time in Gurnsey was sent to Ireland in May 1797. Sent to Dublin from Ulster when the rebellion broke out, some 315 of them were sent to Arklow in impressed carriages, arriving there a few hours before the battle. Here, under their fiery commander, Colonel John Skerrett, they formed a line South of the Coolgreany Road and with the two battalion guns they had brought with them, aided the militia and regulars in beating back the rebels. It was disbanded in 1802.

Volunteer Corps

Volunteer recruitment early on in the Revolutionary wars proceeded slowly, mostly in the counties most likely to face an invasion. Even with the right to avoid the militia ballot, it remained slow until boosted by the act of 1798 which allowed the raising of "Armed Associations". These were again raised by local subscription, with the local gentry or a rich businessman providing the bulk of the capital who often then commanded the formation. The rank of commandant depended on the number of men in the formation, two or three score for a Captain-commandant, up to 500 for a Lt. Colonel-commandant.
The first to form was the Sunderland Loyal Volunteers in 1794 by Robert Hayton, and consisted of three companies of 100 men, many of whom were Keelmen. Disbanded in 1802 they were re-raised in 1803 and disbanded in 1812.
The large numbers of volunteers encouraged by Pitt's 1798 Act formed many small units in County Durham, as listed below:
Under the threat of conscription into the militia by the Levy en masse if sufficient numbers were not raised, and the inducement of exemption from the militia ballot if a man joined a volunteer corps before 22 July, the volunteers reformed with even greater numbers in 1803. Most of the previous units were reformed, with some joining together with other new or enlarged units to form mixed infantry and cavalry "Legions".
Other new corps raised in 1803:
Due to the large numbers of small Volunteer units, and the radical politics of a number of them around the country, they were encouraged to merge into larger Local Militia battalions by the gradual withdrawal of financial support.
Towards the end of the war many of the cavalry corps merged into Yeomanry Regiments used to keep the peace. These were:
Aside for training and exercising, none were called out, except for those in the North of the County in 1804 for a false alarm, and by 1818 all of the infantry, cavalry and artillery volunteers had disbanded.

Rifle Volunteers

In another invasion scare in 1859 circulars were issued by the government based on the provisions of the 1804 Volunteer Consolidation act for the raising of corps of volunteers in the counties. As an inducement 25 Enfield rifles were to be issued by the government for every 100 volunteers, with a corps needing 60 men to become established, and candidates for membership having to be approved by the corps committee. In addition to finding the cost of the uniform and equipment, an average of £10, a subscription was payable:
The "effectives" were the backbone of the corps.
As the volunteer corps were predominantly middle class, this placed them in direct competition with the non balloted militia and enticed many of the landed gentry in search of commissions away and left the militia almost the preserve of the working class.
The volunteer corps, each under the title of Durham Rifle Volunteer Corps, formed in County Durham by February 1861 were:
In August 1861 the corps were grouped into Administrative battalions:
The 3rd Corps was large enough not to join with other corps, being five companies strong. In December the 4th Administrative Battalion was formed from the 1st, 15th, 16th and 19th corps taken from the 2nd Administrative Battalion.
In April 1862 the strength of the Durham Volunteer corps was:
In 1863 the Lord Lieutenant of the county standardised the uniform to one of rifle green. In November, the 7th Yorkshire RVC at Startforth moved to Barnard Castle and was renamed as the 21st Durham RVC in the 4th Admin battalion. In 1877 the 21st Yorkshire RVC at Middlesbrough also joined the 4th Admin Bn, without changing its designation. There was little interaction between these battalions, and the individual corps did not always prosper, the 10th, 14th, 17th and 18th corps dissolving by the end of the century and new ones, not always in the same location, replacing them. The primary concern of many was solvency.

Reform and Amalgamation

After being brigaded with the militia and the regulars' depot from 1873, but still having little interaction with them, and still with each other, in 1880 the Administrative battalions were renamed:
In 1881 with the amalgamation of the regulars, militia and volunteers into the Durham Light Infantry, the use of regular officers as battalion adjutant began, beginning a closer connection to the regulars of the new territorial regiment. In 1887 the Rifle Volunteers were renamed as Volunteer Battalions of the Durham Light Infantry with no change in numbering. About this time annual battalion camps became usual.
During the Boer War volunteers from the five battalions together provided four companies of 116 of all ranks, for one years service to reinforce the army in South Africa. The first three reinforced, in sequence, their regular battalion from April 1900 to July 1902, the fourth reinforced the 2nd Buffs then the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers from March 1901 to May 1902. These attachments greatly increased the connections between the volunteers and the county regiment, and coupled with another invasion scare caused by the small numbers of regular troops left in the country, caused a surge in volunteer numbers.

Artillery Volunteers

A number of Artillery Volunteer Corps were also raised at the same time as the Rifle Volunteers:
In 1863 the 1st Durham AVC was attached to the larger 2nd AVC for administrative purposes, then in 1873 to the 1st Admin Brigade of Northumberland AVCs. It regained its independence in 1888.
The 2nd Durham AVC had all the other Durham AVCs attached to it until 1873, when the 1st, and 3rd joined other units, the 4th becoming independent in 1886.
The 3rd Durham AVC absorbed the 6th Durham Rifle Volunteers at South Shields in 1863. After leaving the 2nd AVC in 1873 the 3rd was attached to the 1st Newcastle-upon-Tyne Artillery Volunteers until it regained its independence in 1890.
All the Durham Artillery Volunteers became part of the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1902.

Engineer Volunteers

A volunteer unit of the Royal Engineers was also raised:
In 1869 the smaller 1st Newcastle upon Tyne EVC was attached to the unit, and from 1874 they were united in the 1st Admin Battalion, Durham Engineer Volunteers. In 1888 the battalion was split into three separate units: the 1st Durham RE , at Jarrow, the Tyne Division RE, Submarine Miners and the 1st Newcastle-on-Tyne RE.
The 1st Durham RE sent a detachment of one officer and 25 other ranks to assist the regular REs during the Second Boer War in 1900, and a second section the following year.

Haldane Reforms

As part of the reforms to the volunteers, and in return for increased financial support on an often heavy burden for the commanding officer, the volunteer would undertake a regular annual camp and a training obligation of six months if mobilised, with the volunteer battalions coming under the control of the newly formed county association. As the reforms were announced and debated in the prelude to the formation of the Territorial Force there was a fall in numbers joining the volunteers.
On 31 March 1908 the Volunteer Force was dissolved and the next day the Territorial Force put in place with the volunteer battalions under the control of the county associations. The volunteer battalions were renumbered, in sequence after the old militia battalions: in County Durham as the 5th to 9th Battalions of the Durham Light Infantry. They were formed into part of the Northumbrian Division, with the 5th battalion in the York and Durham Brigade and the remainder comprising the Durham Light Infantry Brigade.