The Carnarvonshire Militia, later the Royal Carnarvon Rifles, was an auxiliary regiment reorganised in the county of Caernarfonshire (then spelt Carnarvonshire) in North Wales during the 18th Century from earlier precursor units. Primarily intended for home defence, it served in Britain and Ireland through all Britain's major wars until it was disbanded in 1908.
Carnarvon Trained Bands
The universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England and was extended to Wales.Fissel, pp. 178–80, 218.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 12.Hay, pp. 60–1.Holmes, pp. 90–1. King Henry VIII called a 'Great Muster' in 1539, which showed 2429 men available for service in the County of Anglesey, of whom 729 were foot soldiers with 'harness' (armour) the rest 'without any harness, weaponed with bills, spears, clubs or staves. And as for any horsemen there be none within the said county able to do the King service'.Hay, p. 84.Hay, pp. 308–9.Owen, Anglesey & Caernarfonshire, pp. 13–6.
The legal basis of the militia was updated by two acts of 1557 covering musters (4 & 5 Ph. & M. c. 3) and the maintenance of horses and armour (4 & 5 Ph. & M. c. 2). 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 Militia of England and Wales.Cruickshank, p. 17.Fissel, pp. 184–5.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 12, 16, 125. Hay, pp. 11–17.Hay, p. 88. 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.Cruickshank, pp. 24–5.Fissel, pp. 178–87.
In the 16th Century little distinction was made between the militia and the troops levied by the counties for overseas expeditions. However, the counties usually conscripted the unemployed and criminals rather than send the trained bandsmen. Between 1585 and 1602 Carnarvonshire supplied 556 men for service in Ireland. The men were given three days' 'conduct money' to get to Chester, the main port of embarkation for Ireland. Conduct money was recovered from the government, but replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy cost on the counties.Cruickshank, pp. 25–7, 61, 92, 126; Appendix 2.
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.Fissel, pp. 174–8, 190–5.Hay, pp. 97–8. The Carnarvon Trained Bands of 1638 consisted of 200 men armed with 100 muskets and 100 Corslets (body armour, signifying pikemen). They also mustered 25 horse.Caernarvon TBs at BCW Project Regimental Wiki. Carnarvonshire was ordered to send 160 men overland to Newcastle upon Tyne for the Second Bishops' War of 1640. However, substitution was rife and many of those sent on this unpopular service would have been untrained replacements.Fissel, pp. 208, 262–3.
Civil Wars Control of the militia was one of the areas of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 198–9.Wedgwood, pp. 28, 38, 41, 65–8, 95. When open war broke out between the King and Parliament, neither side made much use of the trained bands beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops. Most of Wales was under Royalist control for much of the war, and was a recruiting ground for the King's armies. The Carnarvon TBs probably garrisoned Carnarvon Castle. In January 1645 a contingent was ordered to Conway under the command of Colonel Sir William Williams.Sir William Williams’ Caernarvonshire Trained Band Regiment of Foot at BCW Project Regimental Wiki. Colonel John Bodvel was appointed governor of Caernarfon Castle in March 1646 and the castle was besieged by Parliamentary forces from April. Bodvel commanded the garrison and negotiated its surrender in June 1646 at the end of the First English Civil War.Colonel John Bodvel's Caernarvon Trained Band Regiment of Foot at BCW Project Regimental Wiki.Bodvel at Dictionary of Welsh Biography. Thomas Glynn, MP for Carnarvonshire was appointed governor of Carnarvon Castle after its surrender.Glynn at Dictionary of Welsh Biography.
Carnarvon Militia After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Militia was re-established by the Militia Act 1661 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.Grierson, pp. 6–7.Hay, pp. 104–6.
The militia forces in the Welsh counties were small, and were grouped together under the command of the Lord President of the Council of Wales.Western, pp. 10, 19, 37. As Lord President, the Duke of Beaufort carried out a tour of inspection of the Welsh militia in 1684, when the Carnarvon Militia consisted of a Troop of horse commanded by Captain Bulkeley and three companies of foot. In 1697 the Carnarvon and Merioneth militia were combined and consisted of a troop of 48 horse and 530 foot commanded by Col Hugh Nanney, MP for Merioneth.British Library, Egerton MSS 1626, summarised in Hay; Illustrated Naval & Military Magazine, Vol VI, January–June 1887, pp. 317–8; and Camden Miscellany, 1953, Vol 20, pp. 8–10.Nanney at Dictionary of Welsh Biography.
Generally the militia declined during the long peace after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.Western, pp. 73–4. Jacobites were numerous amongst the Welsh Militia, but they did not show their hands during the Risings of 1715 and 1745, and bloodshed was avoided.Owen, Denbigh & Flint, p. 12.
1757 Reforms
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. 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.Fortescue, Vol II, pp. 288, 299–302.Hay, pp. 136–44.Holmes, pp. 94–100.Western, pp. 124–57, 251.
Carnarvonshire's quota was a company of just 80 men, but Major-General the Earl of Cholmondeley, who was Lord Lieutenant of Caernarvonshire and several other counties, found that he was unable to raise militia in any of his Welsh counties other than Flintshire.Owen, Anglesey & Caernarfonshire, pp. 47–9.Western, pp. 124–5. The problem was less with the other ranks raised by ballot than the shortage of men qualified to be officers, even after the requirements were lowered for Welsh counties. Thomas Wynn of Glynllifon became Lord Lieutenant of Carnarvonshire in 1761 and the Carnarvon Militia was finally raised under his command, receiving its arms on 28 August 1762. The company was immediately put under training and on 28 September was ordered to be embodied for permanent service. This was carried out at Carnarvon on 5 October. However, by now the war was drawing to a close and the militia were disembodied in early 1763.Frederick, p. 302.Western Appendices A & B.Burke's: 'Newborough'.
The disembodied company – sometimes known unofficially as the 'Royal Carnarvon Grenadiers' – was kept up to strength by periodic use of the ballot, and was probably called out for annual training. The arms and equipment were kept at 'Fort Williamsburg', Glynllifon, by the commanding officer, who succeeded as Sir Thomas Wynn, 3rd Baronet of Bodvean, in 1773 and was created Lord Newborough in 1776.
American War of Independence
The American War of Independence broke out in 1775, and by 1778 Britain was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain. The militia were called out, and orders to embody the Carnarvon Militia were issued to Lord Newborough on 26 March 1778. The company was marched to Holyhead in Anglesey, where it carried out garrison duty.Owen, Anglesey & Caernarfonshire, pp. 50–4.
The Carnarvon company remained in Anglesey until the spring of 1779, when it was marched to Kent to join Coxheath Camp near Maidstone. This was the army's largest training camp, where the Militia were exercised as part of a division alongside Regular troops while providing a reserve in case of French invasion of South East England. The understrength militia units from small counties (Anglesey, Carnarvon and Rutland) were attached to guard the artillery park of the division, and they were later criticised as having worked as artillery and forgotten their infantry training. Lord Newborough was replaced as commanding officer in 1781 by Ellis Wynn. The Carnarvon Militia remained in South East England for the rest of its embodiment. In 1782 it moved into Essex and was still there when hostilities ended in 1783 and it was marched back to Carnarvon to be disembodied.Herbert.Western, p. 416.
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars The Carnarvon Militia was embodied again in 1793 when Revolutionary France declared war against Britain. The unit was stationed on the South Coast of England to meet the invasion threat, with its headquarters (HQ) at Eastbourne, later moving into Kent. 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. They served in coast defences, manning garrisons, guarding prisoners of war, and for internal security, while their traditional local defence duties were taken over by the part-time Volunteers and mounted Yeomanry.Knight, pp. 78–9, 111, 255, 411.
In a fresh attempt to have as many men as possible under arms for home defence in order to release regulars, in 1796 the Government created the Supplementary Militia, a compulsory levy of men to be trained in their spare time, and to be incorporated in the Regular Militia in emergency. Carnarvonshire's new quota was fixed at 176 men.Fortescue, Vol V, pp. 167–8, 198–204.Hay, pp. 148–52.Western, pp. 220–3. However, the militia ballot was unpopular in the county, and protest meetings took place at Penmachno, Dolwyddelan, Ysbyty Ifan and Capel Curig, while at Cerig y Druidion a balloted man was snatched from the hands of the militia by protesters. Carnarvon's militia quota was further increased to 239 in 1799. On 8 July 1798 a general order was issued to form temporary battalions from the flank companies (Grenadier and Light companies) of militia regiments in the Southern District. The Grenadier Company of the Glamorgans joined those of the Bedfordshire, Denbighshire, Derbyshire, Middlesex and Northamptonshire Militia in the 3rd Grenadier Battalion at Shoreham-by-Sea, commanded by Lt-Col Payne of the Bedfordshires.Burgoyne, p. 47. The regiment was designated the Royal Carnarvon Fuzileers (Fusiliers) in 1800.
The Treaty of Amiens was signed in March 1802, and the Carnarvon Militia were disembodied. However, the Peace of Amiens was short-lived and the militia were re-embodied in 1803. By June the Carnarvon Militia were serving on the South Coast once more. The right of several Welsh militia units, including the Carnarvon, to use the 'Royal' prefix was confirmed in 1804, and the regiment was now referred to simply as the Royal Carnarvonshire Militia.Parkyn. Richard Edwards, who had commanded the regiment since its embodiment in 1793, was promoted to colonel on 21 February 1804.War Office, 1805 List.