The Royal Anglesey Militia, later the Royal Anglesey Royal Engineers (RARE) was an auxiliary regiment organised in the Welsh island county of Anglesey 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. In 1877 it became a unit of the Royal Engineers (REs) and in this role detachments saw active service during the Second Boer War. It served as a Special Reserve unit in World War I, supplying several siege, railway and field engineer companies to the fighting fronts as well as training men for the REs. After 1921 the militia had only a shadowy existence until its final abolition in 1953.
Anglesey Trained Bands
The universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England and was extended to Wales as counties were established there.Fissel, pp. 178–80, 218.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 12.Hay, pp. 60–1, 83.Holmes, pp. 90–1. King Henry VIII called a 'Great Muster' in 1539, which showed 1228 men available for service in the County of Anglesey, of whom 620 were armoured foot soldiers, while 114 had 'coats of fence' and the remainder were unarmoured.Hay, pp. 224–5.Owen, Anglesey & Caernarfonshire, pp. 13–6.
The legal basis of the militia was updated by two Acts of 1557 covering musters and the maintenance of horses and armour. The county militia was now under the Lord Lieutenant, assisted by the Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace. 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 (TBs), who were mustered for regular training.Cruickshank, pp. 24–5.Fissel, pp. 178–87. During the Armada crisis of 1588, Anglesey had 1108 able-bodied footmen and 17 light horse available.Hay, pp. 93, 96.
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 Anglesey supplied 251 men for service in Ireland. The men were given three days' 'conduct money' to get to Chester, the main port of embarkation for Ireland. The Anglesey levies of 1601 were particularly well clothed, arousing envy from the men of other counties. 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, 126; Appendix 2.Cruickshank, p. 92.
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. In 1637 the Anglesey Trained Bands consisted of 400 men, of whom 259 carried muskets and 141 were pikemen; there was also a Troop of 25 horse.Anglesey TB at BCW Project Regimental Wiki. Anglesey was ordered to send a TB contingent to join those of the northern counties of England 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. 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 Anglesey TBs probably garrisoned Beaumaris Castle under Thomas Bulkeley, 1st Viscount Bulkeley, but although there were fears of a seaborne attack by Parliamentary forces they saw no action. Bulkeley was ousted as governor by David Lloyd in October 1645. When the castle was summoned by Parliamentarian Major-General Thomas Mytton in 1646, Bulkeley's nephew Colonel Richard Bulkeley with his regiment of horse briefly seized the castle from Lloyd, but surrender terms were quickly agreed on 14 June and the whole island was handed over with little bloodshed. A small Parliamentarian force garrisoned Beaumaris thereafter.Bulkeley at Dictionary of Welsh Biography.Mytton at Dictionary of Welsh Biography.
In the Second English Civil War Sir John Owen raised North Wales for the king, and the Beaumaris garrison under Captain Thomas Symkis, together with the Anglesey TBs from the north of the island under Colonel John Robinson, declared for the Royalists. When Owen's small force of local levies ambushed Mytton at a skirmish at Glynllifon Park in Caernarfonshire, it probably included Anglesey TB men, because the Bulkeleys and Robinson were present. However, the Parliamentarians regrouped and Owen retreated towards Anglesey, being captured at the Battle of Y Dalar Hir on the foreshore on 5 June. On 1 October nine boatloads of Parliamentary troops crossed the Menai Strait to establish a bridgehead, and the Anglesey TBs failed to engage them. Marching on Beaumaris the Parliamentary force defeated the Royalists, including Bulkeley's TB, at Red Hill. On hearing the news Robinson's Northern TB appears to have dissolved. On 2 October Mytton threatened to hang the prisoners if Beaumaris did not surrender. It did so, and Bulkeley and Robinson fled overseas.Robinson at Dictionary of Welsh Biography.Owen at Dictionary of Welsh Biography.
Restoration Militia After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Militia was re-established by the Militia Act of 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.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 Anglesey Militia consisted of a troop of horse commanded by Captain Bulkeley and four companies of foot. In 1697 they consisted of 26 horse and 250 foot commanded by Colonel Arthur Owen.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.
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 in Wales.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.
Anglesey's quota was a company of just 80 men, but Maj-Gen the Earl of Cholmondeley, who was Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey and several other counties, found that he was unable to raise militia in any of his Welsh counties other than Flintshire.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 property requirements were lowered for Welsh counties. Cholmondeley was replaced as lord lieutenant by the 1st Earl of Powis in 1761 and the Anglesey Militia was finally raised on 19 November 1762.Frederick, p. 162.Owen, Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, p. 19.Western Appendices A & B.
However, by now the war was drawing to a close. The arms having been issued on 19 November 1762, the men underwent a short training period and were then dismissed to their homes without being embodied for permanent service. Thereafter the unit would have been assembled for its annual peacetime training, and its numbers kept up by periodic enforcement of the ballot.Owen, Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, pp. 21–4.
American War of Independence
During the American War of Independence Britain was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain. The militia were called out early in 1778, and the Anglesey unit was ordered to be embodied for the first time on 31 March. This took place at Llannerch-y-medd on 7 April. The company was inspected and issued with ammunition on 25 April, then left for garrison duty at Caernarfon.
The Anglesey company remained at Caernarfon 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. After returning to Anglesey for the winter, the unit went back to Kent in 1780 to join the anti-invasion forces.Herbert. It was at Coxheath Camp again in the summer of 1781.Burgoyne, p. 16. Desertion was a problem among militiamen, but the officers were not necessarily better behaved: in November 1779 Lieutenant Baillie of the Anglesey Militia was given leave, and simply disappeared.Western, pp. 274, 423.