‘Manifesting their Zeal’ : The Raising of the Staffordshire Yeomanry Cavalry
‘Manifesting their Zeal’
The Raising of the Staffordshire Yeomanry Cavalry [1]
George Granville Leveson-Gower,
Earl Gower Sutherland
First Colonel of the regiment
1794 was a somewhat tetchy year. The developing French Wars; demands, all things considered, for a little bit more democracy in the body politic and the developing upset of the Industrial Revolution had caused the government to look to its own defence.
The initial plan was issued by Whitehall, in a circular to Lord Lieutenants, on 15th March. Item 3 indicated that troops of 50 to 80 men Fencible Cavalry were to be raised. With a proper regard to economy it was made clear that, while the government would provide the equipment, the levy money would have to come from local supporters, the commissions were for the war time only and half-pay afterwards was not to be a thing. Some thought was given to units above troop level. Anyone raising two troops was to be given the temporary rank of major, four troops gained a lieutenant colonelcy and six made a full colonel. The actual horses might be provided by the government, but only at a ‘a reasonable price.’ [2]
On top of the Fencible Cavalry, further bodies of horse were to be raised from ‘the gentleman and yeomanry’, who should bring forward plans to the King or Lord Lieutenant for their approval. The officers were once more to get temporary commissions, no levy money or horses were to be provided but the Arms and Accoutrements would be paid for by the government. When called out to serve in their county or its neighbours, they could expect to be paid - but were also liable to the Mutiny Bill. It was somewhere in between these two instructions that the Staffordshire Yeomanry would take root.
On 9th June 1794, to quote The Shrewsbury Chronicle’ of the ‘..Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders, and other Inhabitants of the County of Stafford’ met in the Shire-Hall. They came together to discuss the county’s response to the Volunteer Corps Act, passed on 17th April. Under the chair of Matthew Boulton, the High Sheriff of Staffordshire for that year the meeting passed six resolutions.
That something ought to be done for the internal defence of the kingdom.
As the Militia had been considerably augmented an additional volunteer corps should be raised of Gentlemen, Yeoman and ‘such persons who should bring themselves forward and be approved of by His Majesty, or the Lord Lieutenant.’
A subscriptions book should be opened and sent to all the principal towns.
A committee should be appointed. To qualify for selection members had to have contributed at least twenty pounds. The quorum would be five members. The Committee could appoint local sub-committees.
Thanks were given to the Sheriff for calling the meeting and chairing it.
Thanks were given to Earl Gower Sutherland - son of the Lord Lieutenant and MP for the County, for turning up and supporting the enterprise. [3]
The new body was to be made up of the safely and respectably propertied and the committee to be likewise staffed by those who could donate the equivalent of a year’s wages for an agricultural labourer of the county. [4] Subscribers were sought. Matthew Boulton was placed on top of the list, with £100 - The Marquis of Stafford [lord Lieutenant] donated £400 and other nobles either £100 or £200. The list included many of the leading gentry, manufacturers such as Josiah Wedgewood [£100] and twelve members of the clergy. John Kenderdine, maltster of Stafford, was at the foot of the list, and the only person to have a trade attached to his name. He gave two guineas.
With subscriptions open, receivers were appointed across the county and it was decided to ensure the meeting’s resolutions were advertised further afield - so they were sent to newspapers in Birmingham, Shrewsbury and Derby, the True Briton and the General Evening Post. Handbills were also printed. [5] At this point they had been pledged £3533 4s, although a name for the corps had not been decided on. [6]
A month after the initial meeting, the Committee met in Stafford. It confirmed its resolution ‘That considering the local circumstances of this county and the augmentation lately made in its Militia, a Corps of Cavalry seems best adapted for further internal defence.’ [7]
The plan echoed the earlier Whitehall Circular but seemed to have developed to fall somewhere between the orders for Fencibles and Yeomanry. Each troop was to have 50-80 men; the officers were to have temporary commissions and the muster rolls were to be approved by His Majesty or the Lord Lieutenant. However, while each district was to have a troop, these were to be grouped under the supervision of a Field Officer.[8]
The equipping on the Yeomanry was left to the subscription. Crowd Funding, as noted above, was well underway. New and additional subscribers included John Gough, with £105, followed by county leaders like Edward Monckton [£50], The Corporation of the City of Lichfield [£50] and others like Sarah Bidduph, who have five guineas. George Hayward was amongst those propping up the list, having given a mere five shillings. [9]
The subscribers were to pay for each troop to wear a uniform of coats, waistcoat, breeches, boots and hats. The Colonel was to decide the colour of the uniform - officers and men wearing the same. Each was to have a hat with a bearskin, feather and cockade - although officers' feathers were to be different. The leather breeches, boots, spurs, spur leathers, bridle, stirrups stirrup-leathers, girths and goatskin for covering the saddle were all to be supplied. The matter of cloaks was to be deferred but each man attending would get ten pounds towards buying his kit, according to approved patterns. [10]
The meeting ended by taking steps to turn the wished for cavalry into a reality. Articles of Enrollment were to be circulated through the towns where people had been authorised to receive subscriptions. Sub-committees were to be established in market towns and these bodies to be populated with anyone who had donated two guineas or above - three of them representing a quorum.These sub-committees were then to appoint someone who would be responsible for the Subscriptions Books in each parish.
Having sent the wheels in motion, it was another month before the main committee met again, on 8th August, in The Swan, Stafford. William, Lord Bagot vacated the chair to George Leveson-Gower, Earl Gower Sutherland. By the second meeting the Committee had grown from 11 to 21 members. The Committee represented many of the great and the good of the county. Both County MPs were present, although the only one of the eight Borough MPs for Staffordshire attended, and as he was to be the Yeomanry’s Lieutenant Colonel, it was probably inevitable that The Hon. Edward Monckton would turn up. [11]
The Committee set about establishing six troops, although left some wiggle room if their plans did not come to fruition, declaring troops would be raised as follows or ‘..in such other manner as may hereafter be found convenient.’ [12]
I Stafford - including Penkridge and Rugeley [The Hon Edward Monckton MP, Lieutenant Colonel]
II Lichfield - Tamworth and Burton upon Trent [Major Francis Percival Elliot esq.]
III Wolverhampton - Walsall &c [ Captain William Tennant esq.]
IV Newcastle - Betley, Stone and The potteries. [Colonel The Right Hon Earl Gower Sutherland.] [13]
V Leek - Cheadle, and Uttoxeter [Captain James Bulkeley esq.]
VI Eccleshall, with that Part of the County. [Captain Sir John Chetwode Bart]
Map 1: Location of the proposed troops
Each troop was to have 50 men, a captain, lieutenant, cornet, three sergeants - including one supplied by the government, three corporals, a trumpeter and other such officers as the Lord Lieutenant saw fit. [14]
This was to be no levee en masse, the recruits were to be politically reliable. The conditions of recruitment stated the man must be of good character and have landed property or a substantial householder - or son of the same. They also had to be approved by the commanding officer and a majority of the other members of the troop in which they were to serve. The recruits were not to be likely to enlist in the Army, Navy or Militia but could send a substitute if they were unable to attend.
How to recruit troopers posed a problem; the recruiters could not merely turn up in a centre of population and lure anyone short of a bob or two into the ranks. The two part strategy was adopted. The first was to send out the Articles of Enrolment to a representative in many of the county’s towns. Only one of the Central Committee [Matthew Boulton of Soho] and two of the subsequent local recruiters [Messrs Paget and Gorman of Tamworth] were sent these Articles. The rest, although undoubtedly respectable pillars of their local community, were probably picked for their central location rather than heft in local politics. [13]
Map 2: Recruiting the Yeomanry Cavalry
Locations where Articles of Enrollment were sent ahead of recruiting and recruiting parties sent; places where only the Articles were sent and settlements where only recruiters went.
It might reflect the fact the recruiters were expecting men with an agricultural interest as they did not head out until the last week of August, well into the harvest period.They also went to a prominent inn on market day, when likely volunteers might be expected to be in town. [15]
Table 1: Recruiting Meetings and attendance of Committee Members where members attended multiple events.
Table 2: Showering which recruitment meetings each committee member served.
It is impossible to say exactly why the choices on venues to recruit were made or why some Committee members went to one or others of the meeting. It is, however, possible to make some inferences.
The Committee members had decided on a narrow window of a week and a half to launch the project to recruits - who, given the fund raising efforts going on, could not have been surprised by it. The choice of Newcastle and Cheadle over Burslem and Bilston is certainly one of potential recruits winning over the total population. Some may have been considered near enough another recruiting site, such as Tipton to Wolverhampton, while others, like Longnor, with a population of 5316 in the 1801 Census, were too remote or too poor to be worth including - even if recruits could easily attend meetings of their troop.
Ten of the twenty-one Committee were more active, attending more than one recruiting session and two [John Williamson - Stafford and Thomas Hinckley - Lichfield] did not go to one. It is probably not surprising that those members of the committee who went to more than one recruiting venue tended to go somewhere local to their homes.
Map 3 Committee Members who attended two or more recruiting drives
Of the fourteen recruiting meetings, nine were attended by 4 to 6 recruiters, commonly five. Penkridge only received two recruiters, possibly because it was not market day and it was assumed volunteers might attend other, larger events. Burton’s position on the periphery of the county may have led the Committee to assume it would not yield many volunteers - none of the Committee went and only two locals were in attendance. Seven people attended the Lichfield event, three were from the committee. It may be too much to read much into such small numbers however Stafford received seven attendees, six were from the committee and may reflect the draw of the county town on market day. By far the biggest event was at Newcastle Under Lyme. Eleven people in total made up the recruiting party, five were from the committee. This may have reflected the population of the area but it might have been the pull of having Earl Gower Sutherland present.
The most active of recruiters was Sir Edward Littleton. He attended five recruiting drives, both around his own Stafford Constituency but also Wolverhampton and Walsall, neither of which had a Borough MP but whose large population might have been in the minds of those who worried about urban centres of subversion. John Sparrow was more widespread in his favours. Apart from attending the relatively local Rugeley and Stafford, he also went to Stone and Newcastle.
We might expect the future troop commanders to be active although this was not always the case. Edward Monckton [Stafford Troop] attended the Stafford event, as well as supporting the ones at Penkridge and Wolverhampton. William Tennant attended Walsall and Lichfield, but was given Wolverhampton troop to command. Leek’s troop commander, James Bulkeley, went to Stone, Leek, Cheadle and Newcastle. You have to hand it to the future Captain Bulkeley. Of the five named recruiters, four lived in Leek. He rode about 20 miles to attend that function. The other two troop commanders were not committee members. Sir Francis Perival Elliott attended only his own recruiting effort in Lichfield. Sir John Chetwode Bart. attended at both Eccleshall and Newcastle. [16] [17]
The recruiters headed out with the hope that the local subscribers would attend the meeting. Instructions were issued that once thirty men had been enrolled in each respective troop, people could apply to the Lord Lieutenant for a commission. All this would need paying for and it was hoped that having agreed to fund the Volunteers, a quarter of the money pledged would be provided. The government were to be approached for arms and accoutrements. [18] A general meeting of subscribers was to be held in Stafford on the 10th September. [19]
By the autumn, it was clear the Staffordshire Yeomanry Cavalry would be a thing.
Footnotes
[1] This is a ‘work in progress’ article. It’s the first, Work in Progress Article. When I was working on my MA, in the pre-internet days of the 1990s - research was a matter of occasional visits to the Staffordshire Record Office or William Salt Library and the services of inter-library loan. Going back thirty years later the vast wealth of information out there, in terms of copied books, newspapers and the like is both exciting and mildly terrifying. Rather than wait till every rabbit hole was explored I thought it was better to put out what I had found rather than horde it. Part of the exercise is to write it out and in the writing, and even recording mundane facts like how far each recruiter rode, to see if anything occurs to me as an avenue than needs to be explored This article may, later, be edited, revised and possibly ignored - but then, that really should be the fate of all History.
The quote ‘manifesting their zeal’ comes from a meeting to raise the Yeomanry where it was hoped donations could be made ‘..proportionate to their respective circumstances, of manifesting their Zeal for the support of the present happy constitution and government.’
p.3 Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 7th July 1794
[2] https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_whitehall-in-order-to-p_great-britain_1794
Britons to Arms, p14-15, Steppler, G Alan Sutton 1992 ISBN 0-7509-0057-1
[3] The Shrewsbury Chronicle 28th June 1794 p.1
[4] For a rough comparison see Margaret Lyle, Regional agricultural wage variations in the early nineteenth-century England British Agricultural History Society vol. 55 [2007] p.95-99
[5] The Shrewsbury Chronicle 28th June 1794 p.1
[6] The force was, at the time, known as the Volunteer Cavalry - as they soon evolved into the Yeomanry Cavalry I will use that title throughout to avoid confusion.
[7] p.3 Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 7th July 1794
[8] ibid
The initial resolution echoed and refined the Whitehall Circular. The troops were to serve in the county but in the case of an invasion could be directed to serve outside it. The troops could also be directed to serve in adjacent counties in the case of ‘riots and tumults’. Pay would only be given when the men were on service.
[9] ibid I intend a separate article on who was paying what later.
[10] http://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/constituencies/staffordshire
In 1794 Staffordshire had two MPs for the county, George Granville Leveson Gower, Earl Gower and Sir Edward Littleton Bart. Lichfield, Newcastle under Lyme, Stafford and Tamworth Boroughs each had two MPs. Apart from Monckton [Stafford], no other Borough MP turned out although William Gilbert [Lichfield] did help out with recruiting. This may reflect the Yeomanry as a county, not town, affair, but that is for later research.
[11] The list of commanders appeared on P.3 The Derby Mercury 28th August 1794 in an article which is virtually identical to the one in the Birmingham Gazette. The list was issued by the Committee’s secretary, W Keen, on 12th August - once the Lord Lieutenant had approved them.
Gower Sutherland, as Colonel and Lord Lieutenant, presumably would play little active part in his troop. Sir John Edensor was to act as his Captain-Lieuteant.
[12] p.1 Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 25th August 1794
[13] The number of troopers varies between 56, in the Birmingham Gazette and 50, in The Derby Mercury.
[14] The following were selected to hold the articles of association.
Mathew Boulton esq. Soho
Francis Cobb esq. Lichfield
Messers Gibbons & Jessons, Wolverhampton
Mr Foster, Walsall
Messers Turton & Co. Hanley
Mr Massey, Newcastle
Mr J. Mellor, Leek
Messers Leigh and Ingleby, Cheadle
Messers Brett & Co. Stone
Mr. Alton, Eccleshall
Mr. Carless Brewood
Mr. Hitchcock, Rugeley
Mr William, Bilston
Mr Cotterel, Cannock
W. Keen [Secretary to the SYC committee] Stafford
P.3 The Derby Mercury 28th August 1794
[15] The exception to the pattern of attending on market days is Penkridge. Both Brewood, where the Articles of Enrollment had been sent, and Penkridge, where the recruiting was done, were in decline as market centres. A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 5, East Cuttlestone Hundred said of Penkridge Market ‘In 1834, however, this market was said to have been long obsolete although the spacious market-place was still in existence’ https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol5/pp126-138#h3-s4 The same volume describes the decline of Brewood market in the period. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol5/pp18-40#h3-s2 It may well have been, given the prominence of The Hon Edward Monckton and Sir Edward Littleton in the area, they felt a show of recruiting needed to be made but it did not clash with any other market day nor did they call anyone from the committee or locally to support their cause.
[16] Despite the attendance of Three Committee members and two offers, including Chetwoode, an Eccleshall Troop was not raised. Something I want to look into in the future is where the actual ‘Yeomanry’ came from. D1300/3/2 in the Staffordshire Record Office, well, it was in 1993,had a troop return for Stafford Troop from 1803. Of the 53 members, almost half, 24, came from Stafford or Forebridge. One came from Eccleshall and one from Lichfield. I do wonder if the Yeomanry were of the market towns rather than the fields and moors. More things to find out.
[17] The following are each of the Recruiting Venues and approximate distance each recruiter traveled.
25th August Penkridge
Hon Edward Mockton 4 miles
Sir Edward Littleton 3 miles
26th August Walsall
Sir Edward Littleton 12 miles
Matthew Boulton 7 miles
William Tennant 6 miles
George Birch 5 miles
Phineas Hussey 6 miles
26th August Stone
Earl Gower Sutherland 5 miles
John Sparrow 12 miles
James Bulkeley 8 miles
John Jervis 4 miles John Jervis held land in Darlastone and Tittensor.
27th August Wolverhampton
Hon Edward Monckton 7 miles
Sir Edward Littleton 3 miles
Sir John Peshall 8 miles The-haphazard-life-of-sir-john-peshall.html [possibly 11, he owned property in Halesowen and Rowley Regis. Halesowen seems to be the more prominent, but is out of county.
George Molineux 0 miles
Thomas Fowler 3 miles
Francis Holyoake Jr 2 miles
27th August Leek
Simon Debank 0 miles
Michael Dainty 0 miles
James Bulkeley 20 miles
Thomas Mills, Junior 0 miles
Mr Cruso 0 miles
28th August Burton upon Trent
William Cary 22 miles
Abraham Hoskins 0 miles
28th August Eccleshall
Sir John Chetwode 11 miles
John Turton 3 miles
Richard Whitworth 6 miles
Rev S Higgins 5 miles
Rev. Francis Meeke 0 miles
29th August Lichfield
William Tennant 7 miles
Francis P Elliot 3 miles
WHC Floyer 5 miles
George Parker 0 miles
William Turner 11 miles
William Cary 9 miles
Samuel Barker 0 miles
29th August Cheadle
Thomas Gilbert 5 miles
John Holiday 3 miles
James Bulkeley 16 miles
James W Unwin 8 miles
Rev William Leigh 0 miles
30th August Stafford
Hon Edward Mockton 10 miles
Sir Edward Littleton 5 miles
John Williamson 0 Miles [probably of Stafford]
Richard Whitworth 12 miles
John Sparrow 8 miles
Rev George Talbot 11 miles
30th August Tamworth
Richard Dyott 6 miles
Francis P Elliot 10 miles
WHC Floyer 4 miles
Mr Paget 0 miles
Mr Gorgan 0 miles
1st September Newcastle under Lyme
Earl Gower Sutherland 4 miles
Sir John Eden Heathcote 4 miles
John Turton 12 miles
James Bulkeley 7 miles
George Embury 8 miles
Charles Smith I have yet to confirm Charles Smith’s address. He was active as a Steward of the Newcastle Races.
Mr Thomas Sparrow 0 miles
Mr Ralph Baddeley 2 miles
Mr Josiah Spode 2 miles
Mr Samuel Spode 2 miles
Mr Collyer unknown
3rd September Uttoxeter
Lord Bagot 8 miles
James W Unwin 8 miles
Nathaniel Kirkman 10 miles
Captain Buxton Unknown
Mr Hart 0 miles
4th September Rugeley
Lord Bagot 4 miles
Sir Edward Littleton 9 miles
John Sparrow 3 miles
Francis P. Elliot 7 miles
Rev George Talbot 2 miles
I’ve rounded up or down to the nearest mile, round up on the half mile. This isn’t meant to be an exact figure but a general indication of travel.
The homes of the recruiters has been taken from a number of different records, including Licenses granted to them and game keepers to hunt game. As research comes on nearer properties may also come to light.
[18] P.3 The Derby Mercury 28th August 1794
[19] Ibid
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