Militia and Volunteer Lists Part Two
See Militia and Volunteer Lists Part One for Militia
II - Volunteer Lists
There is some dispute concerning the precise origins of the volunteer movement. Certainly there were volunteers during the English Civil War, but it was not until 1794 that the government regarded the volunteers as a distinct entity from the militia. The rise of revolutionary France and the imminent threat of invasion prompted the Secretary of State for War to send a circular letter to Lords Lieutenant in March 1794, suggesting that subscription funds be opened in their counties to support locally raised defence forces. These measures were enacted in April 1794 but unfortunately no lists for this period survive at Bedfordshire Archives.
Further legislation for the raising of volunteers was passed during the later invasion scares of 1798 and 1803-1805. The Defence of the Realm Act, 1798 and the 1st and 2nd Defence Acts 1803, were intended to create reserves of men for the defence of Britain against French invasion. The background to the surviving lists is described in Militia Lists and Muster Rolls by J. Gibson and M. Medlycott, p. 8. Bedfordshire Archives has no schedules created under the first two Acts but some of the schedules created by the 2nd Defence Act 1803 survive for Barford, Stodden and Willey Hundreds, north Bedfordshire (ref: HA15/1-4). As well as lists of volunteers (giving parishes, occupations and frequently ages and disabilities) there are also schedules of bakers and millers (with quantities of flour and bread produced each week) and owners of waggons, carts, horses and drivers. There are no duplicates of these records at the National Archives, Kew merely abstracts of the numbers serving (ref: class H0 50).
Some records of the Potton Volunteers, 1803-4, survive in the Rugeley papers (ref: X202). Nominal rolls of this and the other local companies are at The National Archives (ref: class WO 13) but parishes of origin are seldom given.
By 1809 many of the volunteer infantry corps had disbanded, but, with the threat of a revitalised France under Napoleon’s nephew, Napoleon III, new Rifle Volunteer Corps (RVC) were authorised in 1859. RVC muster rolls were required to be kept by the county lieutenancy but the survival of these records and company muster books in other archives is largely a matter of chance. Virtually no muster rolls survive in the War Office papers at The National Archives apart from an incomplete set of pay lists for volunteer permanent staff 1873-8 (ref: WO 12/4622-4675). At Bedfordshire Archives the rolls of the Bedfordshire RVC in the lieutenancy records 1860-92, (ref: LCV5/1-5) and LCG68) give names, parishes and dates of enrolment and discharge. The only surviving muster book, that of the Bedford town companies, 1860-1901 (ref: X550/6/2) is more detailed for it gives civilian occupations, ages, heights and frequently reasons for leaving the Corps.
Eight companies of the RVC were formed in Bedfordshire, the headquarters usually being at a market town. The 8th (Woburn) and 9th (2nd Bedford) companies are of particular interest, the former being recruited from the Duke of Bedford’s estate tenants, the latter from the employees of the Britannia Ironworks. The 3rd (Leighton Buzzard) company was never embodied.
In 1887 the RVC was redesignated the 3rd (Bedfordshire) Volunteer Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment (VB Bedfs Regt) and in 1908 amalgamated with the 4th (Huntingdon) VB Bedfs Regt to form the 5th Battalion Bedfs Regt part of the new Territorial Force. The battalion was raised locally by the Bedfordshire Territorial Forces Association and for this reason there are no lists at The National Archives. No lists survive in the papers of the local Association (ref: X372) either and there are few elsewhere except for 1911-1913 (ref: X550/6/4-7), printed First World War casualty lists and Second World War rolls, 1941-5 (ref: X550/6/15, 49-50). There are a number of surviving lists in the last category because the 5th Battalion was captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore in February 1942 and surviving non-commissioned officers carefully preserved all casualty lists.
Let us now turn to the records of the mounted volunteers, the Bedfordshire Yeomanry. The history of the Bedfordshire Yeomanry and its successors is a complicated one as the unit was frequently disbanded and re-embodied under a different name. [For records of the Bedfordshire Yeomanry Historical Trust see ref: X468].
The yeomanry was first raised in 1794 and by 1804 had squadrons at Bedford and Odell, Warden (Loyal) and Woburn. The unit was eventually disbanded in 1827. At the time of writing no lists for this period have been discovered. In 1803 Major John Harvey of Ickwell Bury raised the Bedfordshire Dismounted Horse Artillery Volunteers and it appears that this unit later became yeomanry. The muster roll of 1803-9 (ref: HY832) lists some 200 men, with heights, from about seventeen parishes in and around Northill. Similar, less detailed rolls, are at The National Archives (ref: class WO 13).
In 1859 in the light of the threat from France, the yeomanry was revived by the Duke of Manchester of Kimbolton Castle, Hunts, as the Duke of Manchester’s Light Horse Volunteers. There were four troops: (A) Huntingdon, (B) Bedford, (C) Sharnbrook and (D) Cambridge. Comprehensive records of the unit are in the Duke of Manchester’s papers at Cambridgeshire Record Office, Huntington. Photocopies of the more important muster books are held here (ref: FAC59/3-4). The regiment was disbanded in 1882 when agricultural depression was causing increasing hardship to the farmers who comprised most of the recruits.
On the outbreak of the South African War in 1899 the yeomanry was raised by Lord Alwyne Compton and named Compton’s Horse. Bedfordshire Archives has no lists of this period apart from Boer War casualties, 1899-1902 (ref: LCG15) but service papers of the period are at The National Archives (ref: WO 128-129). After the war Compton’s Horse was disbanded but almost immediately re-embodied as the Bedfordshire Imperial Yeomanry from 1901 to 1920. There are few records of the period apart from the printed sources, namely the War Office casualty list and nominal rolls and casualty lists in Southern’s book The Bedfordshire Yeomanry in the Great War (available in our searchroom library). There are also some lists in scrapbooks of 1914-16 kept by Lady Delia Peel, wife of commanding officer Lt. Colonel Viscount Peel (ref: X344/163-4).
The Bedfordshire Yeomanry was converted to artillery in 1920 and after five changes of title, emerged as the 201st (Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire Yeomanry) Field Battery Royal Artillery (Volunteers) in 1980. There are no records of this period at Bedfordshire Archives apart from a memorial and address book of the Bedfordshire Yeomanry 148th Field Regiment (Luton and Dunstable) Royal Artillery, published as a tribute to the men who died at Singapore (pamphlet. 140 searchroom library)
Last but not least there are the rolls of the Bedford company of the 2nd Tower Hamlets Engineers Volunteer Corps, 1887-1892 (ref: LCG69). Little is known about the early history of the unit but it appears to have formed part of the Bedford (Grammar) School Corps. In 1908 on the formation of the Territorial Force it became the 54th (East Anglian) Division Royal Engineers which served in the two World Wars as the 248th and 249th Field Companies, Royal Engineers. However, apart from the early nominal rolls mentioned previously, no other records are known.
[It must be emphasised that our guides to militia and volunteer lists can provide only brief summaries of the principal sources.]