Embodying the militia in Georgian England

230 Pages·2015·7.006 MB·English

by  McCormack, Matthew

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/21/2015, SPi
EMBODYING THE MILITIA
IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND
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Embodying the Militia
in Georgian England
MATTHEW McCORMACK
1
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3
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© Matthew McCormack 2015
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First Edition published in 2015
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For Amy
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Acknowledgements
This book was made in Northampton, like shoes used to be. I am very grateful to
colleagues past and present for their friendship and support, and the discussions on
military matters that usually took place over fish and chips on a Friday lunchtime.
I am particularly grateful to Ian Beckett, Zoe Dyndor, Drew Gray, Tim Reinke-
Williams, Mark Rothery, Cathy Smith, and Jon Stobart, who all kindly read por-
tions of the manuscript. I am also grateful to Northampton’s students for their
reactions to the ideas that I tentatively tried out in lectures and seminars. In the
wider profession, I am conscious that I have benefited from the generosity of a
large number of scholars, and would in particular like to thank Ilya Berkovich,
Rosi Carr, Erica Charters, Michèle Cohen, Stephen Conway, Gavin Daly, Fran
Dodsworth, Sarah Goldsmith, Catriona Kennedy, Karen Harvey, Stuart Jones,
Kevin Linch, Frank O’Gorman, Neil Ramsey, Philip Shaw, Hannah Smith, Glenn
Steppler, and Amanda Vickery, as well as attendees at conferences and seminars too
numerous to mention here.
I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Economic
and Social Research Council, the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University, and the
School of Social Sciences at the University of Northampton for providing fellow-
ships and other financial assistance over the course of the project. At OUP, I would
like to thank Christopher Wheeler for taking on the project, the anonymous
readers for their invaluable feedback, and Cathryn Steele for seeing it through to
completion.
Finally, I would like to thank my family. Over the course of writing this book,
I became a husband and a father, which, among other things, meant that I had to
re-evaluate what it meant to be a historian of masculinity. I hope that Toby and
Joseph will inherit their parents’ love of books: the early signs are encouraging.
Amy, for your love and support, and for going well beyond the call of parental duty
while I was shut away in the study trying to write, this book is for you.
This book was conceived of as a series of case studies, several of which have
appeared in print before. I am therefore grateful to the following publishers for
permission to reproduce material in this book: Wiley Blackwell for ‘The New
Militia: War, Politics and Gender in 1750s Britain’, Gender & History 19:3
(2007) (chapter 1). Cambridge University Press for ‘Citizenship, Nationhood,
and Masculinity in the Affair of the Hanoverian Soldier, 1756’, The Historical
Journal 49:4 (2006) (chapter 2). Liverpool University Press for ‘ “Turning out for
Twenty-Days Amusement”: The Militia in Georgian Satirical Prints’, in E. Charters,
E. Rosenhaft, and H. Smith (eds), Civilians and War in Europe 1618–1815
(2012) (chapter 3) and ‘Stamford Standoff: Honour, Status and Rivalry in the
Georgian Military’, in K. Linch and M. McCormack (eds), Britain’s Soldiers:
Rethinking War and Society 1715–1815 (2014) (chapter 6). Palgrave for ‘Liberty
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viii Acknowledgements
and Discipline: Militia Training Literature in Mid-Georgian England’, in
C. Kennedy and M. McCormack (eds), Soldiering in Britain and Ireland,
1750–1850: Men of Arms (2013) (chapter 5). Maney Publishing for ‘Supporting
the Civil Power: Citizen Soldiers and the Gordon Riots’, The London Journal 37:1
(2012) (chapter 8). And Routledge for ‘ “A Species of Civil Soldier”: Masculinity,
Policing and the Military in 1780s England’, in D. Barry and S. Broomhall
(eds), A History of Police and Masculinities 1700–2010 (2012) (chapter 8).
I am grateful to the following institutions for permission to reproduce images
in the book. Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, and 11 appear courtesy of The Lewis Walpole
Library, Yale University. Figure 5 is © National Portrait Gallery, London. Figures 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 19 are © The Trustees of the British Museum. Figure 13
appears courtesy of Northamptonshire Record Office. Figure 14 appears courtesy
of Norfolk Record Office (BUL 4/170, 610X8). Figures 15 and 16 appear courtesy
of the Secretary of the Buckinghamshire Military Museums Trust. Figure 17
appears courtesy of the King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum. Figure 18 appears
courtesy of Lincolnshire Archives.
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Contents
List of Figures xi
Introduction 1
I. REPRESENTATION
1. Gender and the New Militia 13
2. The Affair of the Hanoverian Soldier 33
3. The Militia in Satirical Prints 54
II. PRACTICE
4. Numbering the Fighting Men 77
5. Training the Militia 93
6. Army versus Militia 109
7. The Material Life of the Militiaman 123
8. Supporting the Civil Power 156
9. Citizen Soldiers? 172
Conclusion 191
Bibliography 199
Index 213