The Royal West Middlesex Militia, later the Edmonton Royal Rifle Regiment, was an auxiliary regiment reorganised in Middlesex in the Home counties of England during the 18th Century from earlier precursor units. It later became part of the King's Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC). Primarily intended for home defence, it served in England and Ireland (and briefly in Southern France) during Britain's major wars. It was converted to the Special Reserve under the Haldane Reforms and supplied reinforcements to the KRRC's fighting battalions during World War I. After a shadowy postwar existence the unit was finally disbanded in 1953.
Background
The 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), which placed selected men, the 'trained bands', under the command of Lords Lieutenant appointed by the monarch. This is seen as the starting date for the organised county militia in England. It was an important element in the country's defence at the time of the Spanish Armada in the 1580s, and control of the militia was one of the areas of dispute between King Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 12, 125.Hay, pp. 11–17, 60–1, 88–90, 97–8.Holmes, pp. 90–1.
During the Civil War a great ring of fortifications (the 'Lines of Communication') was constructed round London, encompassing Westminster and the suburban parishes of Middlesex, whose trained bands came under the London Militia Committee. Middlesex was left with a single regiment recruited from the rural parishes outside the lines, largely in the north and west of the county. This regiment saw some service during the war.Nagel, pp. 106, 230.Middlesex Trained Bands at BCW Project Regimental Wiki.
The English Militia was re-established under local control in 1662 after the Restoration of the monarchy.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 294–5.Grierson, pp. 6–7.Hay, pp. 20, 104–6. Middlesex had three regiments: the 'Red Regiment of Westminster', the 'Blewe Regiment' recruited from 'within the Bills of mortality' (ie the suburban parishes included within the London health district), and the 'County Regiment', recruited from rural parishes. In 1697 the latter was commanded by Colonel R. Shoreditch and consisted of 603 men in six companies, together with a County Troop of Horse with 85 men. These arrangements appear to have continued until at least 1722, but thereafter the militia was allowed to decline.Hay, pp. 123, 126.JHL & ACW.
West Middlesex Militia 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, 521.Hay, pp. 136–44.Holmes, pp. 94–100.Western, p. 251. Middlesex was given a quota of 1600 men to raise,Western, Appendices A & B. but failed to do so – possibly because the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, the Duke of Newcastle, was Leader of the Opposition, who had opposed the Militia Acts. A patriotic ballad of the time declared: All over the land they'll find such a stand, From our English Militia Men ready at hand, Though in Sussex and Middlesex folks are but fiddlesticks, While an old fiddlestick has the command (the 'old fiddlestick' was Newcastle, who was also powerful in Sussex).Western, pp. 125, 159–60.
Claiming insufficient numbers of qualified officers, Newcastle suspended the execution of the Act in Middlesex for two years. However, opinion in the county shifted and in July 1760, the lieutenancy began forming three regiments (Western, Eastern and Westminster) and the arms and accoutrements were supplied from the Tower of London on 7 and 12 August. By then the war was going in Britain's favour and the threat of invasion had lifted: no further militia were required, and the Middlesex regiments were not actually embodied before the war ended in 1762. Parliament did however provide the money to continue training the militia in peacetime (two periods of 14 days or one period of 28 days each year).Parkyn.Western, pp. 189–94.
The militia were called out in 1778 after the outbreak of the War of American Independence, when the country was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain.Fortescue, Vol III, pp. 173–4, 295. The three regiments of Middlesex Militia were 'embodied' for permanent duty for the first time on 31 March 1778, with the 1st Middlesex Western Militia at Uxbridge.Frederick, pp. 243–5.Frederick, pp. 212, 284.Hay, pp. 388–9.Sainsbury, p. 5.
During the summer of 1778 the West Middlesex Militia under Colonel G.J. Cooke was at Coxheath Camp near Maidstone in Kent, which was the army's largest training camp. Here the completely raw militia were exercised as part of a division alongside regular troops while providing a reserve in case of French invasion of South East England.Herbert. Afterwards, the regiment was sent to the usual winter quarters, spread out amongst inns over several towns and villages. The regiment was ordered to enlarge these quarters, even though Col Cooke complained that his men were already so dispersed that he could not be held responsible for their discipline and 'oeconomy' (internal economy). He had 32 men absent with leave because there were no quarters for them, 40 could not be given medical care, and one detachment had to march in from away every time there was a parade.Western, p. 379.
The Peace of Paris ended the war in 1783, but the militia had already been disembodied in 1782.
From 1784 to 1792 the militia were assembled for their 28 days' annual peacetime training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually mustered each year.Davis, p. 112.Fortescue, Vol III, pp. 530–1. Nicholas Bayly was appointed Colonel of the West Middlesex Militia on 15 April 1788.WO, 1805 list.
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars The militia were already being embodied when Revolutionary France declared war on Britain on 1 February 1793. Middlesex remained the worst 'black spot' for militia recruitment: in August 1793 the Western Regiment was 90 men short of the number it should have embodied. Only 11 out of 477 men in the regiment were balloted men serving as principals, all the others being hired substitutes.Western, pp. 256, 281–2.
In June 1793 both the East and West Middlesex regiments marched to join a large militia training encampment at Broadwater Common, Waterdown Forest, outside Tunbridge Wells. The whole camp moved to Ashdown Forest at the beginning of August and then to Brighton for two weeks before returning to Broadwater Common. The camp broke up in the autumn and the regiments went to their separate winter quarters.'Broadwater Common 1793' at Royal Collection Trust.
The French Revolutionary War and Napoleonic 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 Volunteers and mounted Yeomanry.Knight, pp. 78–9, 111, 255, 411.
In 1804 the Middlesex Militia was awarded the prefix 'Royal', the regiment becoming the 2nd Royal West Middlesex Regiment of Militia.Davis, p. 149.
During the summer of 1805, when Napoleon was massing his 'Army of England' at Boulogne for a projected invasion, the regiment was part of a militia brigade under Maj-Gen Alexander McKenzie defending Hull. On 1 September 1805, the regiment had 865 men in 10 companies under the command of Lt-Col Sir David Rae, 2nd Baronet.Brown.
The Interchange Act 1811 passed in July allowed English militia regiments to serve in Ireland and vice versa, and the Royal West Middlesex did so for two years.Hay, pp. 152–7.Sleigh, p. 97. From November 1813 the militia were also invited to volunteer for limited overseas service, primarily for garrison duties in Europe. Twenty-one officers and 560 other ranks of the Royal West Middlesex volunteered for this service, and formed the bulk of the 3rd Provisional Battalion, commanded by their own lieutenant-colonel, Edward Bayly. It served in a militia brigade commanded by the Marquess of Buckingham, colonel of the Royal Bucks Militia whose volunteers formed the 1st Provisional Bn. The brigade embarked on 10–11 March 1814 and joined the Earl of Dalhousie's division that had occupied Bordeaux just as the war was ending. The brigade did not form part of the Army of Occupation after the abdication of Napoleon and returned to England in June.Davis, pp. 186–99.Oman, pp. 148–9, 395–405. Having been disembodied the regiment was called out again on 29 June 1815 during the short Waterloo Campaign and served in the UK until it was disembodied on 25 August 1816.
After Waterloo there was a long peace. Although officers continued to be commissioned into the militia and ballots were still held until they were suspended by the Militia Act 1829, the regiments were rarely assembled for training and the permanent staffs of sergeants and drummers (who were occasionally used to maintain public order) were progressively reduced.Davis, pp. 205–18. Sir John Gibbons, 4th Baronet, was appointed colonel of the Royal West Middlesex on 11 July 1831,London Gazette, 15 July 1831. and from 27 December 1837 his lieutenant-colonel was the Rt Hon George Byng, who had been a captain in the Rifle Brigade.London Gazette, 5 January 1838. Gibbons died in 1844 and was succeeded as colonel on 29 April 1844 by Byng, who took the courtesy title of Viscount Enfield from 1847 when his father, Field Marshal Sir John Byng, was created Earl of Strafford.Hart's.Burke's: Strafford.
Edmonton Royal Rifles
The Militia of the United Kingdom was revived by the Militia Act 1852, enacted during a period of international tension. As before, units were raised and administered on a county basis, and filled by voluntary enlistment (although conscription by means of the militia ballot might be used if the counties failed to meet their quotas). Training was for 56 days on enlistment, then for 21–28 days per year, during which the men received full army pay. Under the Act, militia units could be embodied by Royal Proclamation for full-time service in three circumstances:Dunlop, pp. 42–52.Grierson, pp. 27–9.Spiers, Army & Society, pp. 91–2. 'Whenever a state of war exists between Her Majesty and any foreign power'. 'In all cases of invasion or upon imminent danger thereof'. 'In all cases of rebellion or insurrection'.
The Royal West Middlesex was designated a Light Infantry regiment in 1852. The following year the Middlesex Militia was expand from three to five regiments. The recruiting area of the Royal West Middlesex was effectively split, with the new 5th regiment taking over the north-western part of the county in Elthorne Hundred, one of the ancient subdivisions of the county, centred on Uxbridge, while the existing 2nd regiment took over Edmonton Hundred, the most northerly division of Middlesex, then centred on Barnet. The regiment was therefore redesignated the 2nd or Edmonton Royal Rifle Regiment of Middlesex Militia on 7 March 1853 and adopted Rifle green uniforms. At first the regiment was stationed at Enfield but in 1855 it built a new Militia Barracks at Barnet.Army List, various dates.Barnet at Stepping Forward.