Volunteer Force (Great Britain) - Creation of The Volunteer Force

Creation of The Volunteer Force

On 12 May 1859 the Secretary of State for War, Jonathan Peel issued a circular letter to lieutenants of counties in England, Wales and Scotland, authorising the formation of volunteer rifle corps (VRC, a.k.a. corps of rifle volunteers and rifle volunteer corps), and of artillery corps in defended coastal towns. Volunteer corps were to be raised under the provisions of the Volunteer Act 1804 (44 Geo.3 c.54), which had been used to form local defence forces during the Napoleonic Wars. Alfred Tennyson captured the spirit of the time by publishing his poem Riflemen Form in The Times on 9 May 1859. Many communities had rifle clubs for the enjoyment of the sport of shooting.

• Corps were only to be formed on the recommendation of the county’s lord-lieutenant.
• Officers were to hold their commissions from the lord-lieutenant
• Members of the corps were to swear an oath of allegiance before a justice of the peace, deputy lieutenant or commissioned officer of the corps.
• The force was liable to be called out “in case of actual invasion, or of appearance of an enemy in force on the coast, or in case of rebellion arising in either of these emergencies.”
• While under arms volunteers were subject to military law and were entitled to be billeted and to receive regular army pay.
• Members were not permitted to quit the force during actual military service, and at other times had to give fourteen days notice before being permitted to leave the corps.
• Members were to be returned as “effective” if they had attended eight days drill and exercise in four months, or 24 days within a year.
• The members of the corps were to provide their own arms and equipment, and were to defray all costs except when assembled for actual service.
• Volunteers were also permitted to choose the design of their uniforms, subject to the lord-lieutenant’s approval.
• Although volunteers were to pay for their own firearms, they were to be provided under the superintendence of the War Office, so as to ensure uniformity of gauge.
• The number of officers and private men in each county and corps was to be settled by the war office, based on the lord-lieutenant’s recommendation.

Originally corps were to consist of approximately 100 all ranks under the command of a captain, with some localities having subdivisions of thirty men under a lieutenant. The purpose of the rifle corps was to harass the invading enemy’s flanks, while artillery corps were to man coastal guns and forts. Although not mentioned in the circular letter, engineer corps were also formed, principally to place underwater mines for port defence. Stretcher-bearers attached to the rifle corps subsequently formed volunteer medical detachments affiliated to the Army Medical Corps. In a handful of counties, units of light horse or mounted rifles were formed.

Two volunteer units whose services had been accepted by Queen Victoria during the early 1850s became the two senior rifle corps of the new force. These were the 1st Rifle Volunteer Corps who became the 1st Devonshire Rifle Volunteers and the Victoria Rifles (descended from the Duke of Cumberland's Sharpshooters, formed in 1803) who became the 1st Middlesex Rifle Volunteers. An order of precedence was established for ninety-two other counties, depending upon the date of establishment of the first corps in the county.

The most senior artillery corps was the 1st Northumberland formed at Tynemouth on August 2, 1859.

Initially there were attempts at class distinction with the middle class seeing the formation of rifle units as a contrast with the strict class divide between the officers of the gentry and the other ranks of the working class and farm labourers of the militia and the standing army. Some also compared the initiative, small unit tactics and marksmanship principles of rifle regiments of the Napoleonic Wars compared with the linear tactics of the standing army. Many units initially favoured green and grey rifleman uniforms as opposed to the scarlet of the army and militia. In turn, the army was glad not to have amateur volunteers wear the scarlet of the regulars. The provisions of the volunteers having to purchase their own rifles and uniforms was felt by some to exclude the lower classes.

Unlike regular rifle regiments, the volunteer units had colours often made and presented by the women of the community. These were unauthorised, however, with the Volunteer Regulations stating "Neither Standards nor Colours are to be carried by Corps on parade, as the Volunteer Force is composed of Arms to which their use is not appropriate".