The Staffordshire Militia was an auxiliary military force in Staffordshire in the West Midlands of England. From their formal organisation as Trained Bands in 1572 and their reorganisation in 1662 and 1777, the Militia regiments of Staffordshire served during times of international tension and all of Britain's major wars. They provided internal security and home defence but in the Crimean War were stationed in the Mediterranean relieving regular troops from routine garrison duties. They also acted as a source of trained officers and men for the Regular Army. By the later 19th Century there were four battalions, assigned to the South and North Staffordshire Regiments. All the battalions went on active service during the Second Boer War and all served as Special Reserve training units in World War I, with two battalions seeing considerable action on the Western Front. After 1921 the militia had only a shadowy existence until its final abolition in 1953.
Early history The English militia was descended from the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd, the military force raised from the freemen of the shires under command of their Sheriff. It continued under the Norman kings, notably at the Battle of the Standard (1138). The force was reorganised under the Assizes of Arms of 1181 and 1252, and again by King Edward I's Statute of Winchester of 1285.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 12.Fissell, pp. 178–80.Grierson, pp. 6–7.Hay, pp. 60–1.Holmes, pp. 90–1.Maitland, pp. 162, 276.Oman, pp. 110, 359–60.
Under this statute 'Commissioners of Array' would levy the required number of men from each shire. The usual shire contingent was 1000 infantry commanded by a millenar, divided into companies of 100 commanded by centenars or ductores, and subdivided into platoons of 20 led by vintenars. Edward I regularly summoned the men of the nearest shires, including Staffordshire, to fight in his Welsh Wars and for his Scottish campaign of 1300, when 216 Staffordshire men in two companies were present at the Siege of Caerlaverock.Morris, pp. 92–7, 301. This procedure was continued for border campaigns under later kings, with the shire levies of Staffordshire and other northern counties being called out in 1327 during the campaign that ended in the Battle of Stanhope Park.Fissell, p. 180.Nicholson, p. 16. By now the infantry were mainly equipped with the English longbow. Edward III called out the Staffordshire levies in 1333, when they served at the Siege of Berwick and the Battle of Halidon Hill. In 1335, 247 Staffordshire archers (57 of them Mounted infantry) served under two ductores and 10 vintenars.Nicholson, pp. 117, 130; Appendix VI, p. 252. King Henry VIII strengthened the military capability of the country and in 1539 he called out a 'Great Muster' across the country, when armed men in the various hundreds of Staffordshire ranged from 300 to 1100.Hay, p. 70.Hay, pp. 348–50.
Staffordshire Trained Bands The legal basis of the militia was updated by two Acts of 1557 (4 & 5 Ph. & M. cc. 2 and 3) covering musters and the maintenance of horses and armour. The county militia was now under the Lord Lieutenant, assisted by the Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace (JPs). The entry into force of these Acts in 1558 is seen as the starting date for the organised county militia in England.Beckett, Amateur Tradition, p. 20.Boynton, Chapter II.Cruickshank, p. 17.Fissell, pp. 184–5.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 125.Hay, p. 88.Maitland, pp. 234–5, 278.
Although the militia obligation was universal, it was clearly impractical to train and equip every able-bodied man, so after 1572 the practice was to select a proportion of men for the Trained Bands, who were mustered for regular training. The government aimed for 10 days' training a year, with a two-day 'general muster' at Michaelmas, and two 'special musters' lasting four days for detailed training at Easter and Whitsun. Staffordshire offered to train 300 out of 1500 able men. The government progressively stepped up the organisation and training: in 1580 the Earls of Warwick and Leicester and Sir Christopher Hatton were assigned a group of shires (including Staffordshire) to oversee and reinforce the work of the county commissioners for horses. When war broke out with Spain training and equipping the militia became a priority. From 1583 counties were organised into groups for training purposes, with emphasis on the invasion-threatened 'maritime' counties. Staffordshire was in the second group of 'inland' counties organised from May 1585 onwards. When the counties levied troops for overseas expeditions they usually conscripted the unemployed and criminals rather than the Trained Bandsmen.Boynton, pp. 13–7, 81, 91–2, 96.Cruickshank, pp. 24–5.Fissell, pp. 187–9. The Armada Crisis in 1588 led to the mobilisation of the trained bands. Staffordshire was assessed at 400 trained men, but actually furnished 100 trained and 200 untrained (or pioneers) with 28 lancers, 50 light horsemen and 26 armed with 'petronelles' (the Petronel was an early cavalry firearm).Beckett, Amateur, pp. 24–5.Hay, pp. 92, 96
With the passing of the threat of invasion, the trained bands declined in the early 17th Century. Later, King Charles I attempted to reform them into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the king rather than local control. In 1638 the King's Sergeant major general of infantry, Sir Jacob Astley, and his officers reviewed the TBs in several counties, when the Staffordshire contingent comprised 400 foot (with 248 muskets and 152 'corslets' or pikemen with armour), together with 73 cuirassiers and 30 light horse. The TBs were called out in 1639 and 1640 for the Bishops' Wars, though many of the men who actually went were untrained hired substitutes. Staffordshire was ordered to send 300 men for the 1640 expedition.Fissell, pp. 4, 10–6, 43–4, 174–8, 198, 208, 212, 246-63.Kenyon, p. 42.Staffordshire TBs at BCW Project Regimental Wiki. When the Staffordshire contingent returned to be discharged after the 1639 campaign, some of the men took the opportunity to destroy the hated Enclosure fences of the Royal forests, and the riots were repeated when they were mustered for the 1640 campaign.Fissell, pp. 275–7.
Civil War Control of the trained bands was one of the major points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War. However, with a few exceptions neither side made much use of the trained bands during the war beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops.Cruickshank, p. 326. Nevertheless, the Stafford TBs (Horse and Foot) under Colonel William Comberford were part of the Royalist garrison of Stafford when the town was besieged in February 1643. The threat to Stafford was raised after the Battle of Hopton Heath in March.Reid, pp. 32–3.Rogers, pp. 63–4.
During the Royalist uprising of 1648 (the Second English Civil War) the Staffordshire Militia (two troops of Horse and a regiment of Foot) provided the garrison of Leek.Wylly, pp. 5–6. Once Parliament had established full control it passed a new Militia Act on 2 December 1648 that replaced lords lieutenant with its own county commissioners (at the same time the term 'Trained Band' began to disappear in most counties). The first name on the list of commissioners for Staffordshire and the City of Lichfield was Sir William Brereton, who had commanded the Parliamentarian forces in the area during the First Civil War, but he declined to sit as one of the King's judges a few weeks later and retired from public life. In 1650 the Staffordshire Militia were commanded by Col Henry Danvers (Foot) and Col John Ashenhurst (Horse, with Danvers as major).Hay, pp. 99–104.Brereton at BCW Project.
Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country.Gardiner, Vol I, p. 267. During the Scottish invasion in the Third English Civil War in 1651, the Cheshire and Staffordshire Militia (Horse and Foot) joined Major-Generals Thomas Harrison and John Lambert's cavalry in trying to halt the invaders. At the skirmish known as the Battle of Warrington Bridge (16 August) they tried to hold the bridge, but the country was unsuitable for cavalry action and the foot were outnumbered and forced to fall back.Gardiner, Vol II, pp. 13, 35–6.Rogers, pp. 302–3. On 24 August Cromwell joined Harrison and Lambert with the main army and the Staffordshire Militia were engaged at the subsequent Battle of Worcester that destroyed the Scottish Royalist army.Militia of the Worcester Campaign 1651 at BCW Project.Gardiner, Vol II, pp. 40–6.Reid, p. 247 & fn 22.
The Staffordshire Militia were called out following the death of Cromwell in 1659 to help deal with Booth's Uprising in neighbouring Cheshire. They were not present at Sir George Booth's defeat at the Battle of Winnington Bridge. At the time the regiment comprised 490 foot in six companies under the command of Col Crompton, and a troop of 67 horsemen.Farrow.
At the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, Col John Bowyer of Knypersley Hall commanding the Staffordshire Militia arrested Maj-Gen Harrison as one of the Regicides of Charles I. Harrison was living in retirement in Staffordshire and made no attempt to escape. Bowyer was created a Baronet shortly afterwards.
Staffordshire Militia
After the Restoration, The King's Sole Right over the Militia Act 1661 and the Militia Act 1662 re-established the English Militia under the control of the king's lords-lieutenant, the men to be selected by ballot. This was popularly seen as the 'Constitutional Force' to counterbalance a 'Standing Army' tainted by association with the New Model Army that had supported Cromwell's military dictatorship.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 294–5.Hay, pp. 104–6.Kenyon, p. 240.Maitland, p. 326.
During the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1666 the Militia were called out, with the cavalry of the inland counties, including the Staffordshire Militia Horse, moving up towards the East Coast. They were stood down on 6 August after the naval victory of the St. James's Day Battle when the threat of invasion receded.Western, p. 41. Training for the militia was usually perfunctory, so when the Duke of Monmouth became Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire in 1677, he ordered that there should not only be an annual muster of the whole county force in May, but that each captain of a company or troop should hold local musters as often as he conveniently could.Western, p. 26.
The Staffordshire Militia consisted of five companies of foot (500 men) and two troops of horse (120 men) in 1697, but the militia was allowed to decline thereafter, especially after the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. There was a half-hearted attempt to raise a force in Staffordshire during the Jacobite Rising of 1715, but generally the militia disappeared thereafter.Western, p. 73. Under threat of French invasion during the Seven Years' War a series of Militia Acts from 1757 re-established county militia regiments, the men being conscripted by means of parish ballots (paid substitutes were permitted) to serve for three years. There was a property qualification for officers, who were commissioned by the lord lieutenant. The Midland counties were generally apathetic: Staffordshire was given a quota of 560 men to raise, but the county leaders failed to do so, and paid a fine instead.Fortescue, Vol II, pp. 288, 299, 301–2, 521.Hay, pp. 136–44.Holmes, pp. 94–100.Western, Appendices A & B.Western, pp. 125, 251.Staffordshire Militia at School of Mars.
American War of Independence