The Pembrokeshire Militia, later the Royal Pembroke Rifles, was an auxiliary regiment reorganised from earlier precursor units in the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire during the 18th Century. Primarily intended for home defence, it served in Britain and Ireland through all Britain's major wars. It was converted into garrison artillery in 1853 and continued until it was disbanded in 1909.
Pembroke 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.Owen, Carmarthen, Pembroke & Cardigan, pp. 11–4. King Henry VIII called a 'Great Muster' in 1539, which showed the following available in the newly reorganised county of Pembrokeshire: Hay, p. 84. County of Pembrokeshire: 1166 men available for service, of whom 139 had 'harness' (armour) Lordship of Haverfordwest: 454 (43 with harness) Tenants of Thomas Jones in both those places and in the Hundred of Dewisland: 380 with 4 'nags' (horses) Cilgerran Hundred: 254
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. During the Armada crisis of 1588 Pembrokeshire furnished 800 trained foot and 30 'petronel's (the petronel was an early cavalry firearm).Hay, pp. 95–6.
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 Pembrokeshire supplied 610 men for service in Ireland and 30 for the Netherlands. The levies were commanded by professional captains rather than local men: in 1601 a captain who had raised 100 troops in Gloucestershire was ordered to take the 50 from Pembrokeshire under his command as well. The men were given 'conduct money' to get to the embarkation ports. This 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, 61–2, 65, 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 Pembrokeshire Trained Bands of 1638 consisted of 557 men, 276 armed with muskets and 281 'Corslets' (body armour, signifying pikemen). They also mustered 57 horse. Part of this force may have been organised as the North Pembroke Trained Band.Pembroke Trained Bands at BCW Project Regimental Wiki. Pembrokeshire was ordered to send 300 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. 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. However, Pembrokeshire was divided, with the coastal towns of Pembroke and Tenby leaning towards Parliament. These were vital for the Royal army to land supplies and reinforcements from Ireland. On 18 September 1643 during his campaign to take these two towns, the Earl of Carbery as the King's Lieutenant-General for Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire, summoned the Pembrokeshire TBs to Haverfordwest, where they declared for the King and were presumably absorbed into his army. However, Pembroke and Tenby were later recovered by Rowland Laugharne for Parliament.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 198–9.Wedgwood, pp. 28, 38, 41, 65–8, 95, 114, 119–20, 287.
Once Parliament had established full control in 1648 it passed new Militia Acts that replaced lords lieutenant with county commissioners appointed by Parliament or the Council of State. At the same time the term 'Trained Band' began to disappear in most counties. Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country.Hay, pp. 99–104. By 1651 the militias of the South Welsh counties appear to have been combined, with the 'South Wales Militia' being ordered to rendezvous at Gloucester to hold the city during the Worcester campaign.Militia of the Worcester Campaign 1651 at BCW Project.
Pembrokeshire Militia After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Militia was re-established by The King's Sole Right over 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 Pembroke Militia was called out in 1667 during the Second Dutch War when there was an invasion panic following the Raid on the Medway and the Battle of Landguard Fort. On 11 July the appearance of a fleet of 38 sail approaching Milford Haven caused great alarm. The deputy lieutenants called out the militia to line the waterside, and Sir Erasmus Phillipps' troop and the 'County Troop' of horsemen, with many volunteers, made ready. However, when the fleet moored in the haven it was seen to consist of cattle boats bound for Ireland.Hussey, p. 110.
The militia forces in the Welsh counties were small, and were grouped together under the direction 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. On 11 August, when he inspected the Pembrokeshire Militia near Haverfordwest, it consisted of a regiment of foot ('all of firelocks', ie musketeers with no pikemen) and one Troop of horse. The 1697 militia returns showed the foot as 456 strong under Colonel Sir Thomas Stepney, 5th Baronet, High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire, organised in seven companies (one commanded by the Mayor of Pembroke), and the troop of 36 horse under Captain Arthur Owen, MP for Pembrokeshire.Hay, pp. 214–5.British Library, Egerton MSS 1626, summarised in Hay, p. 134.; Illustrated Naval & Military Magazine, Vol VI, January–June 1887, pp. 317–8; and Camden Miscellany, 1953, Vol 20, pp. 8–10.Litchfield, p. 126.
Generally the militia declined in 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
Seven Years' War 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.
Pembrokeshire was given a quota of 160 men to raise. Some of the Welsh counties were slow to complete their regiments: 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. On 29 July 1758 Sir William Owen, 4th Baronet, of Orielton, the Lord Lieutenant of Pembrokeshire, advertised for suitably qualified men to come forward, and must have obtained a sufficient number: he appointed his eldest son, Hugh Owen (later 5th Baronet) as colonel. The militia ballot was then enforced and the Pembrokeshire regiment received its arms on 7 September 1759. It was embodied for permanent service at Haverfordwest, Pembroke Town and Narberth on 15 December that year.Frederick, pp. 165, 981.Owen, Carmarthen, Pembroke and Cardigan, pp. 20, 69–70.Western, Appendices A & B.
After a short period of training and organised into four small companies the regiment marched off in January 1760 to take up garrison duties at Bristol. In February it was posted to Monmouthshire, where it alternated between Monmouth and Chepstow until the end of May. It was then posted to Carmarthen, arriving on 6 June, and remained there before returning to Pembrokeshire in October. The following spring it served in Cardiganshire, with companies in various towns including Cardigan and Aberystwyth. It went back to Pembrokeshire in August 1761, with various detachments until it concentrated at Haverfordwest in November 1762. The war was coming to an end, and the warrant to disembody the regiment was executed on 4 December 1762. The disembodied regiment was kept up to strength by means of the ballot over subsequent years, but it was rarely assembled for training.
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 embodied, and the Pembrokeshires were called out on 26 March, assembling at Haverfordwest shortly afterwards under the command of Major Wyriot Owen. His second-in-command was Capt John Colby, brother-in-law of the former colonel, now Sir Hugh Owen, 5th Baronet of Orielton and Lord Lieutenant of Pembrokeshire.Owen, Carmarthen, Pembroke and Cardigan, pp. 70–2.Owen, Carmarthen, Pembroke and Cardigan, Appendix 1.
On 1 May 1778 the regiment was ordered to Bristol, and from there it was marched to Coxheath Camp near Maidstone in Kent. 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 (Montgomery, Radnor and Pembroke) were attached to guard the artillery park of the division. On 4 November the camp broke up and the Pembrokeshires marched into Maidstone for winter quarters, sending parties back to Haverfordwest to collect recruits. The regiment spent the summer of 1779 in Essex, where it joined other militia regiments at Warley Camp. By November detachments were billeted in villages north and east of London, but the regiment then marched off to winter quarters in Haverfordwest, arriving on 18 December.Herbert.