Social background of officers and other ranks in the British Army, 1750–1815 explains career paths and social stratification in the British Army from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The British army of the period was mainly recruited through volunteer enlistment. Most recruits were young men from the lowest social classes who could not find a livelihood on the civilian labour market. The non-commissioned officers were promoted soldiers sharing the social background of the rank and file. Literacy was a basic requirement for promotion to non-commissioned rank; writing and basic mathematical skills were compulsory for ranks above corporal. About ten percent of the commissioned officers were former sergeants, but the majority came from higher social strata. 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 purchase system was the mechanism through which the officer corps was structured according to social class.
Organisational overview 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. The "Ordnance" on the other hand, included the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers, and was subordinate to the Board of Ordnance at the Tower with the Master-General of the Ordnance as its senior political and military commander. The two components differed not only by uniform colors, but also by organisation, military ranks, promotion system, training, supply services, medical services, transportation, procurement, and budget. It was only in the field that a joint command was established.
Until the Union of Ireland with Britain in 1801, "the Army" was divided into a British and an Irish establishment. The British Establishment was funded by British taxes and had a budget fixed by the British Parliament; the Irish Establishment was funded by Irish taxes, with a budget set by the British government. The Irish Establishment was subordinate to the Viceroy of Ireland and his military staff. The viceroy also had his own ordnance master, and a separate Irish artillery, the Royal Irish Artillery, until 1801. The Irish Establishment was not a separate Irish army, although the units on the Irish Establishment usually were stationed in Ireland; regiments were freely moved between the establishments, and the regiments of foot were numbered consecutively through both establishments.
In the early nineteenth century, there were 13,140 officers in "the Army", 992 in the Royal Artillery, and 202 in the Royal Engineers. "The army" had 181,000 other ranks, while the Royal Artillery had 12,500.
Rank and file
The British Army filled their ranks through voluntary enlistment. The enlistment period lasted for life (in practice, 25 years), ending only by death or through wounding. During war, the army offered shorter enlistment periods to entice more recruits. The army faced a constant lack of men wanting to enlist. As such, the army often forcefully recruited vagrants in wartime periods. During the Napoleonic wars, the militia was mobilized, but it could not serve outside England. As a result, the government tried to induce the militiamen to enlist in the regular army. Starting 1803, the government also drafted men into an Army of Reserve, the real purpose being to form a recruitment surplus for the regular army. This proved very unpopular politically, and the government abolished the system after three years. The government also recruited foreigners, to include the King's foreign subjects, other Germans, and even Swiss and Royalist French, into special foreign regiments.
Since 1701, the recruitment of both Catholic and Protestant Irish was prohibited by the Irish Establishment. Yet, this exclusion did not encompass the officer corps, and, at the end of the eighteenth century, Irish Protestants occupied a full third of the Irish regimental positions. The British Establishment formally prohibited recruiting Catholics, a ban that was abolished from practice in 1771. In 1775, the Irish Establishment began recruiting both Protestant and Catholic Irish. Apprentices, indentured servants, and coal miners could not enlist. Seamen were reserved for the need of the Royal Navy.
The hardship of military life, low pay, and the low social standing of the soldiery filled the ranks with men driven by impoverishment or drinking to enlist as a last resort. Contemporary social analysts placed the soldiery at the bottom of society, below common labourers but above paupers and vagrants. Most enlistees were young and almost always unmarried. Elder and married men had hope for some stability in life, but young rural day labourers found the labour market to be unsecure. Their best options for employment centered around seasonal farm hand labour, a full year if lucky. About a third of the soldiers worked as common labourers in civilian life, while almost a fifth worked as handweavers, a tenth cobblers, and a twentieth tailors.
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. A higher proportion of recruits came from areas particularly vulnerable to economic cyclical fluctuations than areas with a stable economy. 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. A fifth of the recruits either worked as textile workers or had had some other connection with the textile industry. Among recruits with a background as craftsmen, the trades affected negatively by industrialization, such as shoemakers, dominated. 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.
Non-commissioned officers
Non-commissioned officers in the infantry were sergeants and corporals. 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. Senior non-commissioned posts, such as colour sergeant, introduced in 1813, and sergeant major, were strictly speaking not ranks, but appointments. Appointment as sergeant major was the capstone of a successful career as non-commissioned officer, symbolised by an officer like uniform. Selection for this post was based on capability as a drill instructor, but to the same extent also of skills at writing and counting.
No special pattern for promotion to non-commissioned officer has been found. Literacy was a basic requirement and surprisingly many were promoted to sergeants after just one year of service. In the cavalry, the circumstances were somewhat different. Until 1810, when it was replaced by the rank of troop sergeant major, each troop of horse had a troop quartermaster, a rank between commissioned and non-commissioned officer. During the eighteenth century, this rank began to be increasingly seen as suitable for promoted sergeants. Nevertheless, the rank was attractive enough for poor young gentlemen who could not afford to purchase a proper officer's commission. Warrants as troop quartermaster could sometimes be purchased, although George II did not like to commission troop quartermasters.
The social ambitions of the non-commissioned corps were reflected in the fact that it was often senior non-commissioned officers who were the leaders in the Masonic lodges who took a prominent place in the social life of many regiments. Later in the nineteenth century, however, membership in military Masonic lodges was restricted to those who were Freemasons previous to enlistment.
Rankers About ten percent of the officers had first served in the ranks before being commissioned. 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. The background of the rankers can be summarised into three different categories. Old and experienced sergeants, commissioned in order to get competent disciplinarians or administrators. Adjutants were often promoted from the ranks. At the end of the eighteenth century, quartermasters were exclusively recruited among the sergeants, with accompanying social stigma. Very skilled sergeants could also be commissioned, not rarely directly as lieutenants, skipping the rank of ensign. This category probably included the majority of the rankers. Most of them had many years of service behind them and it was very difficult for them to be promoted to higher ranks. Another category was other ranks receiving battlefield commissions for exceptional bravery. A third category was the volunteers; young gentlemen with the same background as the majority of the officer corps, but lacking the money or the connections necessary to purchase a commission. They enlisted as volunteers with the hope of being commissioned without purchase.
Officers
The basic prerequisites for receiving a commission in "the Army" were very simple in theory. The prospective officer must have reached the age of 16 but not yet 21 years, be able to read and write, and show a letter of recommendation from an officer with the rank of major or above. Rankers were excepted from the age requirement. In real life, a commission required being of "good family", having access to money or patronage. No formal military training was mandated. Sandhurst was founded in 1801, but passing out from it was not a precondition for a commission. Two thirds of the officers in the infantry and the cavalry had purchased their commissions. One third of the commissions were non-purchase, issued as a reward for long service and good conduct in the next rank below, through patronage, or when a ranker was commissioned.