The 1st Royal Lancashire Militia (The Duke of Lancaster's Own) was an auxiliary regiment raised in the county of Lancashire in North West England during the 17th Century. Primarily intended for home defence, it saw active service in Ireland under King William III, as well as against the Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745. It spent long periods on defence duties during the wars of the 18th Century and early 19th Century, and was stationed on the Ionian Islands during the Crimean War. It later became part of the King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) and saw active service in the Second Boer War. After its conversion to the Special Reserve under the Haldane Reforms, it supplied reinforcements to the fighting battalions during World War I. After a shadowy postwar existence the unit was finally disbanded in 1953.
Background
Universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England, and its legal basis was updated by two acts of 1557 (4 & 5 Ph. & M. cc. 2 and 3). This legislation placed selected men, the 'trained bands', under the command of a Lord Lieutenant appointed by the monarch; this is seen as the starting date for the organised county militia in England. The trained bands were an important element in the country's defence at the time of the Armada in the 1580s, and control of the bands was an area of dispute between King Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 5, 12, 16, 125, 133–40, 194–7.Grierson, pp. 6–7.Hay, pp. 11–17, 25–6, 60–1, 89, 99–104.Hay, pp. 242–6.Holmes, pp. 90–1. Lord Wharton had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire by Parliament in 1641, and on the outbreak of hostilities in July 1642 he attempted to seize the trained bands' magazine at Manchester. However, he was forestalled by Lord Strange and William Farington (appointed Commissioner of Array by the King), who had already gained control of the magazines at Liverpool and Preston for the Royalists. The resulting skirmish at Manchester on 15 July, when Strange and his men were driven out by Wharton's Parliamentarians, was among the first battles of the war.Kenyon, p. 34.Wedgwood, pp. 79, 100–1.'Townships: Leyland', in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 6, (William Farrer and J. Brownbill eds), London:Victoria County History, 1911, pp. 10-17, at British History Online [accessed 24 January 2021.
Once Parliament had established full control in 1648 it passed new Militia Acts that replaced lords lieutenant with county commissioners, who were appointed by Parliament or the Council of State, after which 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.
Old County Regiment
After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the English 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. It was popularly seen as the 'Constitutional Force' to counterbalance a 'Standing Army', a concept that was tainted by association with the New Model Army that had supported Cromwell's military dictatorship, and almost the whole burden of home defence and internal security was entrusted to the militia.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 294–5.Hay, pp. 104–6.Holmes, pp. 94–100.
The Lancashire Militia were called out in 1663 when there were rumours of plots against the new regime, and no sooner had they been sent home in October than they were called out again on receipt of new information. Some counties were slacking in training and equipping their men: in 1674 most of the weapons of the Lancashire Militia were found to be defective, and many had to be replaced again in 1689.Western, pp. 29, 39.
Nine Years' War Following the Glorious Revolution, in which King William III supplanted James II, the militia were called out in 1689. The Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, William Stanley, 9th Earl of Derby, organised three regiments of foot and three Troops of horse from the County palatine of Lancaster:Militia at Museum of the Manchester Regiment.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 1–8; 373–4. Colonel the Earl of Derby – 7 companies Colonel Roger Nowell – 7 companies Colonel Alexander Rigby – 8 companies The Earl of Derby's Troop Captain Thomas Greenhalgh's Troop Captain Sir Roger Bradshaigh's Troop.
These regiments volunteered for service in William's campaign in Ireland. After training on Fulwood Moor, near Preston, the Lancashire brigade, commanded by the Earl of Derby's brother, Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon James Stanley (1st Foot Guards), sailed with the army from Wallasey and landed at Carrickfergus on 14 June 1690. It played a full part in the campaign, serving in the Siege of Carrickfergus, at the Battle of the Boyne, and the Siege of Athlone. After a short tour of garrison duty in Dublin, the Lancashire brigade embarked at Howth in September to return to England to be disembodied on 15 October. Lieutenant-Colonel Stanley then recruited a number of veterans from the brigade for the regiment he was joining in Flanders. He succeeded to the command after his colonel was killed at the Battle of Steenkerque, after which the unit became 'Stanley's Regiment' (later the Bedfordshire Regiment). Colonel Stanley succeeded his brother as 10th Earl of Derby and Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire in 1702.Burke's, 'Derby'.
At the end of the Nine Years War in 1697 the militia in Lancashire consisted of 1601 men organized into 22 companies and three regiments, with 150 horsemen in three Troops. The three colonels were Major-General the Earl of Macclesfield (lord lieutenant), Roger Kirkby, MP, and Sir Ralph Assheton, 2nd Baronet, of Middleton, MP.Hay, p. 121.
Jacobite Rising of 1715
After the outbreak of the Jacobite Rising of 1715 the Lancashire Militia was ordered in August to assemble at Lancaster Castle under the command of Col Philip Hoghton. He found that fewer than half of the balloted men turned out, only 560 in all, enough to organise a single battalion. When a force of reputedly 3–4000 Scottish Highlanders and English Jacobites advanced from Carlisle, Hoghton was ordered to fall back from Lancaster to Preston to await further orders. He marched out early on 7 November and the Jacobites entered Lancaster the same day, taking over the ordnance stores in the castle. From Preston the Lancashire Militia and a newly arrived regiment of dragoons were ordered to Wigan, and the Jacobites occupied Preston on 9 November, where they built street barricades and placed the town in a state of defence. However, they were disappointed by the small number of Lancashire Jacobites who joined them, about 1200 badly-armed men. Major-General Charles Wills reached Wigan from Manchester on 11 November with a considerable force of government troops. Further troops under Lieutenant-General George Carpenter were also approaching from Clitheroe.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 9–16.'General History of the Highlands 1715' at Electric Scotland.
Wills advanced on Preston next day, and finding the bridge over the River Ribble unguarded, began his attack on the town. Brigadier-General Philip Honywood led the Lancashire Militia together with three dismounted troops of dragoons against the barricade at the west end of Fishergate. They first stormed the houses west of the churchyard and set fire to them as a diversion to assist the column attacking the churchyard barricade, and then moved against Fishergate, preceded by skirmishers. Colonel Hoghton detached the left wing of the Lancashire Militia and a troop of dragoons to attack the Friargate barricade while he led the right wing and remaining dragoons in columns of attack against Fishergate. Hoghton and his men reached the top of the barricade but were driven back by heavy musketry fire from the neighbouring houses, having suffered serious casualties; Honywood ordered them to withdraw. The attack at Friargate fared no better. But the Government troops renewed the attack after dark, Col Hoghton leading his men silently up to the Fishergate barricade then rushed it with the bayonet. The rebels took refuge in the houses, which were set on fire, and the street fighting continued by the light of the fires. Carpenter's troops arrived in the morning, to relieve the exhausted militia and completely invest the town, poised to complete the task of capturing it. A brigade of Dutch troops was also about to arrive, having marched from London. The rebel commanders, realising that they could hold out no longer, surrendered.Western, p. 57.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 16–24.
The Lancashire Militia had four officers killed, seven wounded, and 105 non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and privates killed and wounded, around a third of the total government casualties at the Battle of Preston. On 16 November the regiment marched back to Lancaster with 250 prisoners to be lodged in the castle. It remained there for the rest of the year, escorting parties of prisoners for trial, until it was disembodied about 15 January 1716.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 21, 25–7.
Jacobite Rising of 1745 The Lancashire Militia was next called out for service against the Jacobite Rising of 1745. Orders to embody the militia were issued to the lord lieutenant, Edward Stanley, 11th Earl of Derby, on 26 September after the government's forces had been defeated at the Battle of Prestonpans. Derby complained that although there were sufficient weapons (though of poor quality), the three regiments of foot and three troops of horse had not been called out for training in the 30 years since the Battle of Preston. He and his deputy lieutenants scrambled to raise money and find officers and army pensioners who could train the raw troops gathering at Bury. By 5 November Derby had assembled a regiment of eight companies. The Lancaster and Lonsdale Company, under the command of Captain William Bradshaw, was left at Lancaster to guard the ordnance stores and prison there. Major William Ffarington of Shaw Hall, Leyland, was sent with a detachment of two companies to guard Chorley. In the meantime, the Corporation of Liverpool had raised a 648-strong volunteer regiment, the Liverpool Blues, which was fully armed and could be put into the field.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 31–55.
On 17 November the Jacobite army reached Carlisle, which soon surrendered, and began moving south. Two days later Derby ordered the companies at Bury and Chorley to concentrate at Liverpool, and ordered Bradshaw to requisition as many waggons and carts as he could to move the ordnance stores out of Lancaster to 'a secure and secret place' at Ulverston. These moves were carried out next day, regimental headquarters (HQ) was established at the Talbot Hotel in Liverpool, and the Earl handed over command to Maj Ffarington. The commander of the government forces, Field Marshal George Wade, advised the militia to operate in small bodies to harry the advancing rebel army, firing from hedges and preventing it from sending out plundering parties. The Jacobites reached Lancaster on 24 November and Preston on 27 November, while detachments marched through Wigan, Chorley and Bolton. They hoped to gather recruits in Lancashire but were disappointed until they reached Manchester on 28 November, where there were sufficient volunteers to form the Manchester Regiment.Fortescue, Vol II, pp. 134–5.Thomason & Buist, pp. 84–9.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 51–63.