The Merionethshire Militia, later the Royal Merioneth Rifles, was an auxiliary regiment reorganised from earlier precursor units in the Welsh county of Merionethshire during the 18th Century. Primarily intended for home defence, it served in Britain and Ireland through all Britain's major wars. After a series of shortlived mergers it was finally amalgamated into a militia battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers that was disbanded in 1908.
Merioneth 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.Bryn Owen, Denbigh & Flint, pp. 11–3. King Henry VIII called a 'Great Muster' in 1539, which showed 1886 men available for service in the County of Merioneth, of whom 420 had 'harness' (armour), 'the residue weaponed with bills, spears, elm bows and arrows, clubs and staffs'. Two of the Hundreds had 50 horses between them but in all the other hundreds 'no horses meet to serve the King'.Hay, p. 83.Hay, pp. 308–9.
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 and were embodied for service when the country was threatened, for example during the Armada crisis of 1588.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 Merionethshire supplied 450 men for service in Ireland. The men were given three days' 'conduct money' to get to Chester or Bristol, the main ports 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, 61–2, 66, 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 Merioneth Trained Bands of 1638 consisted of 200 men, half armed with muskets and half 'Corslets' (body armour, signifying pikemen). They also mustered 15 horse.Merioneth Trained Bands at BCW Project Regimental Wiki. Merionethshire was ordered to send 100 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, 285.
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.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 198–9.Wedgwood, pp. 28, 38, 41, 65–8, 95., 114, 119–20.
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.
Merioneth Militia After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Militia was re-established by the Militia Act 1661 under the control of the king's lord lieutenants, 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.Holmes, pp. 94–100.
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. He found that the Merionethshire Militia consisted of one small Troop of Horse, and two companies of Foot.Hay, pp. 111. The Militia returns of 1697 grouped the counties of Merioneth and Carnarvon together, with 530 Foot commanded by Colonel Hugh Nanny and 48 Horse under Captain Owen Barton.Hay, p. 133.
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.
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.
Merionethshire's quota was an independent company of just 80 men, but Major-General the Earl of Cholmondeley, who was Lord Lieutenant of Merionethshire and several other counties, found that he was unable to raise militia in most of his Welsh counties. 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.Owen, Denbigh & Flint, pp. 56-7, 73-4.Western, pp. 124–5. The Merionethshire Militia finally received its weapons on 25 January 1763 at Dolgelly (Dolgellau). However, by then the war was drawing to a close: the company was not embodied for fulltime service and the rest of the militia were disembodied in early 1763.Frederick, p. 306.Western, Appendices A & B.
Thereafter the disembodied militia were kept up to strength by periodic use of the ballot and were sometimes assembled for annual 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 called out for fulltime service, and the Merionethshire Company was embodied for the first time on 31 March 1778. The militia ballot was extremely unpopular, and Merionethshire saw anti-militia riots in 1779.Western, p. 298.
During this war militia units served in garrisons and guarded prisoners-of-war. They were also sometimes posted to large summer encampments. Coxheath Camp near Maidstone in Kent was the army's largest training camp, where the militia were exercised alongside regular troops while providing a reserve in case of French invasion of South East England. In 1782 the Merionethshire Militia was stationed there as part of part of a brigade including the Brecknockshire and Pembrokeshire Militia regiments and Sir John Leicester's Dragoons.Bryn Owen, Carmarthen, Pembroke & Cardigan, p. 72.Herbert.
A peace treaty had been agreed and the war was now coming to an end, so warrants to disembody the militia were issued on 28 February 1783. From 1784 to 1792 the militia ballot was used to keep up the numbers and the regiments were assembled for their 28 days' annual peacetime training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually mustered each year.Fortescue, Vol III, pp. 530–1.
French Revolutionary War The militia was already being embodied when Revolutionary France declared war on Britain on 1 February 1793. 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 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. Merionethshire's new militia quota was fixed at 174 men.Fortescue, Vol V, pp. 167–8, 198–204.Hay, pp. 148–52.Western, pp. 220–3.
In 1798 a rebellion broke out in Ireland and the Militia (No. 4) Act 1798 was passed to allow English and Welsh militia regiments to serve in Ireland. The Merionethshires were among several Welsh units that volunteered for this service and was one of the 13 militia regiments sent there immediately.
By 1802 the war was coming to an end and the militia were being partially demobilised: Merionethshire's quota was reduced to 121. The Treaty of Amiens was concluded on 27 March 1802 and the militia regiments were disembodied. Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 5th Baronet, was lord lieutenant of both Merionethshire and Denbighshire. In 1803 he secured a warrant to merge the small militia quotas of the two counties, but this was unpopular in Merionethshire, where a group of influential gentlemen longed a strong protest and the merger was not carried out.Bryn Owen, Denbigh & Flint, p. 27.
Napoleonic Wars The Peace of Amiens was shortlived and the militia were embodied once more in March 1803. By July the Merionethshires were in a tented camp at Stokes Bay, Gosport, as part of a militia brigade including the Brecknock, Carmarthen, Hereford and Monmouth regiments. They shared duties including boat and hospital guards round Gosport and Haslar, guarding prisoners-of-war, and manning Fort Blockhouse.Bryn Owen, Carmarthen, Pembroke & Cardigan, p. 32. Griffith Howell Vaughan was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment on 10 June 1803.War Office, 1805 List.
On 23 April 1804 the Merioneths, along with 11 other Welsh militia regiments, were officially granted the 'Royal' prefix, becoming the Royal Merionethshire Militia.Parkyn. During the summer of 1805, when Napoleon was massing his 'Army of England' at Boulogne for a projected invasion, the regiment was stationed on the Isle of Wight. Its 148 men in 3 companies under Maj Richard Hughes Lloyd shared Sandown Barracks with the 2nd Battalion 56th Regiment as part of Maj-Gen Sir John Whitelocke's force.Brown.