The Lancashire Militia was an auxiliary military force in Lancashire in North West England. From their formal organisation as Trained Bands in 1558 and their service in the Williamite War in Ireland and against the Jacobite Risings, the Militia regiments of Lancashire served during times of international tension and all of Britain's major wars. They provided internal security and home defence but sometimes operated further afield, including Ireland and the Mediterranean, relieving regular troops from routine garrison duties, and acting as a source of trained officers and men for the Regular Army. All the infantry battalions went on active service during the Second Boer War and all served as Special Reserve training units in World War I, with one battalion seeing considerable action on the Western Front. After 1921 the militia had only a shadowy existence until its final abolition in 1953.
Early history The English militia was descended from the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd, the military force raised from the freemen of the shires under command of their Sheriff. It continued under the Norman kings, notably at the Battle of the Standard (1138). The force was reorganised under the Assizes of Arms of 1181 and 1252, and again by King Edward I's Statute of Winchester of 1285.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 12.Fissell, pp. 178–80.Grierson, pp. 6–7.Hay, pp. 60–1.Holmes, pp. 90–1.Maitland, pp. 162, 276.Oman, pp. 110, 359–60.
Under this statute 'Commissioners of Array' would levy the required number of men from each shire. The usual shire contingent was 1000 infantry commanded by a millenar, divided into companies of 100 commanded by centenars or constables, and subdivided into platoons of 20 led by vintenars. Edward I regularly summoned the men of the County palatine of Lancaster (Lancashire) to fight in his Welsh Wars and to the army that won the Battle of Falkirk in Scotland in 1298. (John E. Morris, the historian of Edward's Welsh Wars writing in 1901, likened this process to calling out the Militia Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers). A contingent of 2000 men was summoned from Lancashire for the campaign of 1300, and in the event 1000 men in 10 companies, together with 327 men from Blackburnshire, were present at the Siege of Caerlaverock.Morris, pp. 92–7, 287, 301. This procedure was continued for border campaigns under later kings, with the shire levies of Lancashire and other northern counties being called out in 1327 during the campaign that ended in the Battle of Stanhope Park.Nicholson, p. 13. By now the infantry were mainly equipped with the English longbow. Edward III called out the Lancashire levies in 1332 and again 1333, when they served at the Siege of Berwick and the Battle of Halidon Hill.Nicholson, pp. 116, 130. In 1334 the king ordered 4000 archers to be levied in Lancashire, and almost 1000 (a quarter of them Mounted infantry) served in 1335.Nicholson, p. 17; Appendix VI, p. 252.
Lancashire Trained Bands 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 county militia in England.Beckett, Amateur Tradition, p. 20.Boynton, Chapter II.Cruickshank, p. 17.Fissell, pp. 184–5.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 125.Hay, p. 88.Maitland, pp. 234–5, 278.
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. Lancashire held a two-day 'general muster' at Michaelmas, and two 'special musters' lasting four days for detailed training at Easter and Whitsun. The Lancashire JPs ordered armouries to be set up at Lancaster, Preston, Chorley, Ormskirk, Whalley and Manchester to store the arms and armour for the trained bands. Although the trained bands were exempt from foreign service, they were frequently employed in Ireland.Boynton, pp. 13–7.Cruickshank, pp. 24–5.Falls, pp. 40, 50.Fissell, pp. 187–9. The Armada Crisis in 1588 led to the mobilisation of the trained bands and Lancashire furnished 1170 trained men, with 20 lancers and 50 light horsemen (another return has 64 lancers and 265 light horse).Beckett, Amateur, pp. 24–5.Boynton, p. 96.Hay, pp. 91–5.Hay, pp. 242–8.
English Civil War 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. The trained bands including the Lancashire contingent were called out in 1639 and 1640 for the Bishops' Wars, though many of the men who actually went were untrained hired substitutesFissell, pp. 4, 10–6, 43–4, 174–8, 246-63.Kenyon, p. 42.
Control of the trained bands was one of the major points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War, but with a few exceptions neither side made much use of the trained bands during the war beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops.Cruickshank, p. 326. Lord Wharton had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire by Parliament in 1641, and on the outbreak of hostilities in July 1642 he attempted to seize the trained bands' magazine at Manchester, being forestalled by Lord Strange and William Farington (appointed Commissioner of Array by the King), who had already gained control of the magazines at Liverpool and Preston for the Royalists. The resulting skirmish at Manchester on 15 July when Strange and his men were driven out by Wharton's Parliamentarians, was among the first battles of the war.Kenyon, p. 34.Wedgwood, pp. 79, 100–1.Fleury, Chapter XIV, pp. 411–22, quoting Lt-Col J Lawson Whalley, The Early History of the Lancashire Regiment of Militia (3rd and 4th Battalions) King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, 1642-1799, Lancaster: E. Phillips & Co, 1904.'Townships: Leyland', in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 6, (William Farrer and J. Brownbill eds), London:Victoria County History, 1911, pp. 10-17, at British History Online (accessed 24 January 2021).
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.
Lancashire Militia
After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the English Militia was re-established by the Militia Act 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.Kenyon, p. 240.Maitland, p. 326.
The Lancashire Militia were called out in 1663 when there were rumours of plots against the new regime, and no sooner had they been sent home in October than they were called out again on receipt of new information. Some counties were slack in training and equipping their men: in 1674 most of the weapons of the Lancashire Militia were found to be defective, and many had to be replaced again in 1689.Western, pp. 29, 39.
Nine Years' War Following the Glorious Revolution in which King William III supplanted James II the militia were called out in 1689. The Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, William Stanley, 9th Earl of Derby, organised three regiments of foot and three Troops of horse. This brigade volunteered for service in William's campaign in Ireland under the command of the Earl of Derby's brother, Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon James Stanley. After training on Fulwood Moor near Preston it sailed with the army from Wallasey in June 1690 and played a full part in the campaign, at the Siege of Carrickfergus, the Battle of the Boyne, and the Siege of Athlone. It returned to England in September 1691 to be disembodied.Militia at Museum of the Manchester Regiment.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 1–8; 373–4.
Jacobite Risings
A regiment of the Lancashire Militia was called out on the outbreak of the Jacobite Rising of 1715, and fought at the Battle of Preston on 12–13 November, where they suffered heavy losses (11 officers and 105 men) attacking the rebel barricades in Church Street.Western, p. 57.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 9–27. In the Jacobite Rising of 1745, while the Lancashire Militia concentrated to protect Liverpool, the company at Lancaster succeeded in removing the county weapons from the armoury before the rebels arrived. This company then operated alongside a volunteer unit, the 'Liverpool Blues', in harrying the Young Pretender's force as it marched through Lancashire. They destroyed bridges and cutting off stragglers, before joining the regulars in the Clifton Moor Skirmish against the retreating Jacobites.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 31–84.
After it was disembodied in January 1746 the Lancashire Militia was not called out again for training or active service until the Seven Years' War.LRO, Handlist 72.Williamson & Whalley, p. 87.
1757 reforms Seven Years' War The 1757 Militia Act re-established the county militia regiments, raised by conscription by means of parish ballots. Lancashire's quota was set at 800 men in one regiment which was embodied for service on 23 December 1760. It received the title Royal Lancashire Militia (RLM) the following year. After serving in home defence for two years the regiment was disembodied in December 1762 once a peace treaty had been agreed. In peacetime, the reformed militia regiments were supposed to be assembled for 28 days' annual training. Part of the RLM held a training camp in 1763, but it was not called out again until 1778.Frederick, p. 119.1st RLM at Regiments.org.Western, Appendices A & B.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 87–115.
American War of Independence The militia was called out after the outbreak of the War of American Independence when the country was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain. The Royal Lancashire Militia was embodied in April 1778 and after training was stationed in invasion-threatened Hampshire. It spent the following winter in Liverpool, and then was in garrison on Tyneside for a year in 1779–80. It wintered in Manchester in 1780–81, then spent 1781–82 in Cheshire and 1782–83 along the Cumberland coast. Although Cumberland was remote from a possible French invasion, Whitehaven had been attacked by John Paul Jones in 1778. A peace treaty having been drawn up, the RLM was marched to Manchester for disembodiment in March 1783.Williamson & Whalley, pp. 116–20.
French Revolutionary War The militia were re-embodied in January 1793 shortly before Revolutionary France declared war on Britain.Williamson & Whalley, p. 131. During the French Wars the militia were employed anywhere in the country for coast defence, manning garrisons, guarding prisoners of war, and for internal security, while the regulars regarded them as a source of trained men if they could be persuaded to transfer. Their traditional local defence duties were taken over by the part-time Volunteers and mounted Yeomanry.Holmes, pp. 94–100.Knight, pp. 78–9, 111, 255.