Militias and Volunteers in Britain and Ireland

Militias and volunteers have an important place in the history of the British Isles. A ‘militia’ is a military force consisting of part-time amateurs, but in Britain the term has often been applied to more formal and official military organisations. ‘Volunteers’ in this context are more informal and local, and could take many forms. Both should be considered part of what Ian Beckett calls the ‘amateur military tradition’, which was particularly strong in Britain and Ireland, a consequence of their geography and their political culture. Due to concerns about the dangers of a standing army, Britain largely relied on militias for home defence and maintaining order. Britain had traditions of amateur soldiering dating back to the medieval period, which were then formalised in the Tudor period. Militias played an important role in the conflicts of the seventeenth century and really came into their own in the eighteenth. The key institution here is the New Militia of 1757, which remained in force until the end of the Napoleonic Wars, supplemented by other types of volunteer soldier. The Victorians too were enthusiasts for the militia ideal, which was key to the army reforms of the later nineteenth century. While the militia formally ceased to exist in the early twentieth century, there are continuities right up to the Army Reserve of the twenty first.