Derbyshire Militia 1773 – c 1820 

This page is my very poor attempt to document the basic organisation, dress and equipment of the Derbyshire Militia from the regiment’s faltering beginnings in the 1760’s and 70’s to its disembodiment in 1816, though extending the evidence a little to around 1820. A brief piece at the end covers the short lived Supplementary, or Second, Regiment. (For the Derbyshire Local Militia regiments of 1808, go here.)

No regimental history or other record is listed for Derbyshire in the  ‘Calendar’ of Militia Regiments published in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research in 1933, so the treatment here is full of holes, and much has had to be pieced together from very miscellaneous sources. In part compensation, the discussion takes in a short excursion to examine the military costume of the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire. Otherwise, it is divided by broad periods of embodiments, and sub-divided by topic.

Sources are listed at the end. My renewed thanks to Ben Townsend for the use of photos of pages from the Ordnance Militia and Local Militia books, from which small crops are shown here under Open Government Licence TNA WO 44/607 and 609.

Click to enlarge images.

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Organisation and first embodiment: 1773-83

Derbyshire’s original modest quota was for a modest 560 rank and file, but progress was slow. By the close of 1759 so few qualified gentlemen in the county had offered to serve as officers that the Lord Lieutenant was reduced to placing advertisements in the press. Two years later, the situation being no nearer resolution, more advertisements appeared, but without effect. At the end of 1762 the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Devonshire, resigned, and his successor, Lord George Henry Cavendish, found himself commissioned Colonel of a regiment that existed only in part and only on paper. Derbyshire became one of the six persistently defaulting militia counties, in which, according to a commentator in the Oxford Journal of 1759, since their ‘Constitutional Troops’ were not yet raised, ‘it may be supposed that the Lord Lieutenants are engaged in the more interesting Employments of Horse-Racing, Cock-Fighting, and the Preservation of the Game.’

Eight years later, nudged by the Militia Act of 1769, the county renewed its efforts, and in December 1770 Cavendish made a new appeal for officers. Even so, when the 28 days of annual training began on 10 May 1775, the complement of subaltern officers was still incomplete. The first men were enrolled in 1773, and on 4 September the regiment was certified as three fifths raised, so fit to receive arms. However, when the first men’s term of service was up in March 1776, the regiment was still only ‘nearly completed with Men’. An appeal was made in the Derby press for the original men to renew their service, and for volunteers to fill up the regiment, pointing out that ‘serving in the Militia is an exceeding good School for learning[sic] young men Propriety in Behaviour and Carriage’, and urging: ‘APPLY, ere it be too late.’ This may not have done the trick, as the annual training of May 1777 was preceded by a public appeal for substitutes for the balloted but unwilling.

Events took over in 1778, when the unready regiment found itself embodied. A meeting of the deputy lieutenants chose 31 March for the day of assembly at Derby, but this did not happen. On 10 April Cavendish was forced to admit that ‘very solid Reasons rendered it inexpedient’, and assembly was re-scheduled for the 25th. Quarters and subsistence had already been purchased, so were promised to any men whose ‘Zeal and Desire to make themselves perfect’ might prompt them to come in earlier.

The ‘very solid reasons’ could have been to do with the choice of Colonel. As Lord Lieutenant, George Cavendish may have felt unable to lend his regiment proper attention during an indefinite period of active service, and at some point in April (the day is not given in Militia lists) his predecessor as Lieutenant, William Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire, was commissioned Colonel instead. It was an interesting move. The Derby Mercury, choosing its words carefully, opined that the Duke’s willingness to take command was:

… highly deserving the Approbation of the Public; who in a Time of national Danger, tenders his Services to his Sovereign and his Country, quitting the Ease and Elegance he enjoyed in his retirement for the Toil of a Camp and the Profession [of] a Soldier.

Ease and elegance were not entirely quitted; another newspaper, cited by Herbert, considered the Duke ‘more distinguished for the exercise of the social virtues than for his activity either in military or political concerns.’ The Mercury noted that at this late point the corps was still only ‘nearly compleat’ but acknowledged its ‘fine and martial Appearance’. 

Despite this, the Duke was met on 26 May by a mutiny over pay for annual training, and in July, after the regiment’s arrival at the training camp at Coxheath, seven ‘ringleaders’ who had demanded money from their officers at bayonet point were court-martialled. Four were sentenced to four or five hundred lashes each, of which the second half was waived by the intercession of their Colonel.

By this point the regiment appears to have achieved its establishment strength of nine companies of 560 rank and file. In 1779 it was at Warley Camp, and in 1781 was encamped near Plymouth, where it was reported as 540 rank and file strong. Its precedence numbers for this embodiment, as given by Baldry, were – 1778-9:14. 1779-80:22. 1780-81:19. 1781-82:38. 1782-83:27.

Other ranks

from the Osborn book

Plans and views of Coxheath and Warley Camps and a report of 1781 from Plymouth indicate that the regiment had mid-green facings. The Osborn book of 1780, as documented by Carman, gives the men’s uniform with green facings and square ended white loops in pairs; the Osborn image shown here turns up on Wikimedia, I know not via what source. It shows well the long, narrow lapels of the period. Other aspects of the Osborn images, such as the high gaiters, seem generic, so would require confirmation.

Drawing by Denis Darmanin

The earliest design of button (Ripley & Darmanin 301), attributable to this period, is known in pewter for other ranks. It is flat, with the raised design of a circular rim enclosing ‘DERBY / MILA:’ in Roman capitals, and is known in a diameter of 22 mm.

Newspapers reported the issue in early August of a summer or undress uniform, provided at the expense of the Duke, perhaps in response to a decline in morale following the mutiny, court-martial and floggings:

The Duke of Devonshire has greatly endeared himself to the Regiment which he commands at Cox Heath … he has presented them with a light Uniform, which will be their Property when they depart, and which particularly serves them during their Encampment, on Account of its Lightness. 

This may have consisted of an undress jacket faced green and linen breeches, judging by a deserter notice of March 1779 that describes the absconder as wearing ‘a greasy Pair of Leather Breeches, or otherwise a Pair of Linen ditto, and a white Jacket, faced with Green.’ Another deserter the previous month was described in ‘a white Cloth Coat and Waistcoat, new Leather Breeches’, which may perhaps also refer to uniform.

Officers

Parkyn, working from a Militia List of 1778, gives green facings and silver lace for officers. If the Osborn image is correct in showing the men’s buttons and loops in pairs, the same would be the case for officers. I have found no image of the Duke of Devonshire, or of any other officer of this period, in uniform, but for a related aspect, we can at least consider the military costume of the Duchess.

The Duchess of Devonshire

‘The only news I have heard I cannot believe,’ wrote one society gossip in late June 1778. ‘It is that the Duchess of Devonshire marched through Islington at the head of the Derby militia, dressed in the uniform of that regiment.’ And so she did, or more likely rode for a short distance. The papers reported on 25 June that:

On Saturday last part of the Derbyshire militia marched down the City road on their way to Coxheath, with the Duke of Devonshire at their head, with a good band of music; the Duchess also accompanied the Duke. His Grace met the men at Islington …

Once at Coxheath Georgiana Cavendish assumed a conspicuous role among the officers’ wives, all fashionably in military costume:

The Duchess of Devonshire appears every day at the head of the beauteous Amazons on Coxheath, who are all dressed en militaire, in the regimentals that distinguish the several corps in which their Lords, &c. serve, and charm every beholder with their beauty and affability. 

The Duchess greatly valued martial image, declaring the Derbyshire officers ‘vastly smart’, and her husband ‘in great fame for his saluting …he is reckon’d to have saluted the best of anybody.’ Her taste for gracious living persisted at camp:

… the Duchess of Devonshire and several other ladies of distinction, dined at the Star on the Heath. They wished to have the music of the regiments to play to them during dinner, but General Keppel intreated them not to think of it, as he was determined that no example of luxury should be countenanced, that would make the privates regret the difficulty of their situation.

However, she was present at field days:

The soldiers fir’d very well, and I stood by the Duke and Colonel Gladwin, who were near enough to have their faces smart with the powder, but I was not fortunate enough to have this honour.

And was reported to have slummed it with the rest:

The Duchess of Devonshire hath made herself a pattern of imitation to the oldest veteran soldier in the camp. She sleeps in the Duke’s tent every night, on a truss of straw and a mattrass[sic], and has been, on several occasions drenched to the skin in rain.

In the manner of the day, some of the commentary was crudely misogynist; witness this satire in the Norfolk Chronicle, which maliciously confounds militia wives with the prostitutes who flocked to the camps at Coxheath and Warley:

We hear that the Ladies connected with the different corps of militia &c. are to be immediately embodied in two battalions at each camp; the one consisting of the wives, the other of the mistresses of the respective officers. At Coxheath the D—ss of Dev—re is to be honoured with the command of one battalion, and Mrs Armst—d of the other … Accoutred in their different uniforms, they must necessarily produce a very pleasing effect, and their assistance will be very sensibly experienced by the officers, who nightly mount the several quarter guards … the candidates are infinite, particularly for the Cyprian battalion.

(The reference is to the celebrated courtesan Elizabeth Armistead, mistress of, among others, Lord George Cavendish, Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire and the Derby Militia’s previous Colonel. Like the Duchess, Mrs Armistead was a Foxite Whig, and the mockery also has a political colour.) 

The Duchess does not appear to have had her portrait done in uniform. (The version of her costume used in the Keira Knightley film of 2008 was modelled on Reynolds’ well known portrait of Lady Worsley.) Cartoons and the occasional fashion plate must suffice, though details from these sources cannot be relied on. The standard form of lady’s fashionable ‘regimentals’ was a militarised version of existing riding habit – big hat with cockade and sometimes feathers, scarlet jacket lapelled in the regimental facing colour with epaulette, waistcoat, and scarlet ‘petticoat’ or long skirt. (For a contemporary version for the Staffordshire Militia see this page, portrait of Jane Handley, and for a later example go here, Southern Regiment, Lady Boughey.)

One version of a print based on a watercolour by Robert Dighton of ‘Lady Gorget raising Recruits for Cox Heath’ does show lapels that could be taken for Derbyshire green, with silver lace and metal, though it’s doubtful that a gorget would have been tolerated. Two caricatures both showing a group of three women (‘The Three Graces of Cox-Heath’ and ‘The Coxheath Race for £100’) satirise the Duchesses of Devonshire, Gordon and Grafton, who were among the five military wives presented to the Queen on the royal visit to the camp; Devonshire is portrayed at the left in both. 

What may be a partly accurate impression appears in the cartoon ‘An Officer in the Light Infantry, driven by his Lady to Cox Heath’. Here the buttons are properly in pairs, though both lace and facing colours are wrong. (The portly ‘Light’ officer is a recognisable caricature of the Duke, while the pet fox in the carriage signifies the Whig politician Charles Fox, the Duchess’ ‘steady friend’.)

Second and third embodiments and later: 1793-1802, 1803-c 1820

On 28 October 1783, with the resignation of the Duke of Devonshire at the conclusion of the first period of embodiment, Lord George Henry Cavendish was again commissioned Colonel. He retained his command until 1812, when he was succeeded on 9 June by his Lieut Col, Winfield Halton, who had originally been commissioned in 1776.

In 1795 an additional company was raised,  with advertisements published in the summer and autumn for volunteer recruits, though by 1797 the regiment may have consisted of just six companies. It was disembodied in 1802 and re-embodied the following year. In 1813-14 it was in service in Ireland, and remained embodied in 1814, being disembodied in 1816. By 1820 the serving officers included just five captains and two ensigns. Its precedence number for 1793-1802 was 26, and for 1803-33 was 62.

I am ashamed to say that I have found few sources on uniform for the period to 1802, except that by 1800, for which date Parkyn cites the British Military Library, the facings had been changed to yellow. The officer’s lace remained silver. Given that buttons were spaced in pairs both before and after the second embodiment, it seems probable that they were for this period also. A button that may date to this time (Ripley & Darmanin 34) is known silver plated for officers and in pewter for other ranks; it is flat, with the raised design of a crown over a multi-petalled rose between ‘D’ and ‘M’, and is known with a diameter of 25 mm.

Two officer’s belt plates that can be attributed to this regiment, perhaps for this period, are in the Gaunt collection at Birmingham, one unidentified, the other wrongly suggested for Yorkshire. They are oval, silver, and engraved with a crown over a shield bearing a five petalled rose; the outline of the shield is a zig zag line that has the look of being punched. I do not know if these are hallmarked.

For the embodiment from 1803 information is more available.

Other ranks

For the period from 1803 a clothier’s notebook of J N & B Pearse, kept at the Canadian War Museum, gives the private’s jacket as faced in yellow, with ten buttons on the front, set in pairs with ‘double headed’ (square ended) loops. The jacket used 12 small buttons (front and shoulder straps), and 18 large (two pairs on each cuff and pocket flap, plus two at the rear waist). A sample of looping lace is attached in the book, with a dark blue stripe towards one edge, and a yellow towards the other. The book notes that the yellow edge should be placed inwards on the loop. The jacket required 12 yards of looping lace, which also would have edged the shoulder straps, collar and turnbacks, plus the small rear waist triangle.

The sergeant’s jacket is cut as the private’s, presumably in scarlet sergeant’s cloth with white looping lace.

The Militia chart of 1812 by Charles Hamilton Smith confirms the yellow facings and private’s lace as in Pearse, though at least one copy wrongly omits the blue line. Smith shows the loops as now singly spaced and pointed, though this seems to be an error – see below. Samples of the private’s lace as in Pearse are also included in the Ordnance’s Local Militia book of c 1816 (TNA WO 44/607) and Militia book of c 1820 (TNA WO 44/609). 

The 1820 Militia book confirms that facings were then still yellow, and the other ranks’ buttons and looping still ten, in pairs with square ended loops. The shoulder straps had white worsted fringe. The sergeant’s scarlet coat is similar, but with white 3/8 inch worsted lace and white cotton fringe. The sergeant major’s scarlet coat, faced yellow, has silver bias lace, silver fringe and silver plated buttons; this may reflect the pattern of the preceding years.

Officers

In the copy of the Hawkes tailor’s book at the National Army Museum (thanks to Ben Townsend for the use of his photo) is a small coloured drawing of an officer’s coat that appears to be of the period from 1803. It is described briefly as of scarlet superfine cloth faced with yellow, the body lined with white ratinette, the skirts with cassimere. It is just possible, though far from clear, that narrow silver or white edging is meant to be shown on the collar, lapels and front coat edge, the sides and lower edges of the pocket flaps, and down the pleats. The rows of ten buttons are spaced in pairs, with two pairs on each cuff and on (or possibly under) each cross pointed pocket flap, one (possibly small size) with a twist hole each side of the collar, and two at the rear waist. There are yellow twist button holes also on the lapels and cuffs. No turnback ornament is shown, though the turnbacks appear to be narrowly edged in yellow. The epaulette is silver.

The officer’s button datable to the 1803 period onwards (Ripley & Darmanin 35) is silver plated, convex, with the heavily incised design of a crown above a shield containing a multi-petalled rose above ‘DERBYSHIRE’ in Roman capitals. It is known in a diameter of 19 or 20 mm.

An officer’s belt plate that may belong to the 1803 period is in the Gaunt collection at Birmingham. A development from the design shown above, it is oval with the incised design of an eight rayed star carrying an oval shape containing a crown over a five-petalled rose, above a ribbon inscribed ‘DERBYSHIRE’ in Roman capitals.

Several miniatures of officers were painted at Cork in 1814 by Frederick Buck, one named as Lieut Robert D Battelle. The jackets follow the style of the Hawkes coat, with a single button and twist hole on each side of the collar, and the front buttons in pairs. The jacket front is perhaps meant to show a fine white edge. Buttons and epaulettes are silver, and the silver sword belt plate of this period is now rectangular, with the raised design of a crowned rose, apparently without inscription.

Drummers

Details of the drummer’s clothing are, as always, complex and puzzling. The Pearse notebook does not give colours, but we can assume that they were reversed, yellow with red or scarlet facings, as this was still the case in 1820. Pearse notes two very different patterns. 

The earlier, unusually, has just seven buttons on the front, six in pairs with a single button and loop at the bottom. The loops are, as for privates, double headed, ie square ended. All the buttons are small size, and 22 are called for – though with an odd number on the jacket front this must surely be 23? My best guess, which is not worth much, would be the seven buttons on the front plus two for the shoulder straps, perhaps three (unlikely, though) on each cuff and pocket flap, and two at the rear waist. The jacket has wings, and an unspecified number of lace darts on the sleeves. It is also laced on all the seams, on the ‘body’ (lines of lace down the front), the pocket flap ‘frames’, the front edging and ‘all except midle of wings’. It’s not clear if ‘all’ includes edging the collar and tops of cuffs, nor what is used for the ‘strips’ on the wings. Except for this, all the lace is broad, and no narrow is prescribed. There are also ‘8 Extra Laces on the Back’, though I can’t imagine what that means. The sample of broad lace is now missing, but those surviving in the Ordnance Local Militia book of c 1816 have a pattern of red ‘key’ shapes on a white ground between yellow lines. A later pattern of broad lace may have been a doubled version of the narrow lace discussed below, with alternating red and yellow chevrons edged by red and blue broken lines, though this may not have been introduced until 1822 or shortly before.

In the Pearse book, this first pattern of jacket is crossed through and a later, simplified version noted. Six darts are noted for each sleeve, the ‘body’ lace is abandoned, and the front button and loop arrangement is as for privates. Ten large (‘coat’) buttons are required, presumably four for each pocket flap and two at the rear waist, plus twelve small (‘breast’) buttons, presumably now ten on the front in five pairs plus two for the shoulder straps. The cuffs would therefore be without buttons, and would have been indented, to echo the ‘V’ of the sleeve darts. All lacing is now in narrow lace, requiring 26 yards in all. A sample of this lace is included, but it is marked ‘New Lace Derby 1822’; it has alternating red and yellow diagonals edged by red and blue broken lines, the outer red line in two stitches, the inner blue in single. The colour of any shoulder fringe is not noted.

A third arrangement is given in the Ordnance Militia book of c 1820, where the drummer’s coat is of yellow sergeant’s cloth with scarlet facings. Broad lace, 1¼ inch, is used over the sleeve seams and body seams, the latter running to the bottom edge of the skirts. Broad lace is also used on the pocket flap ‘frames’, the top edges of the cuffs, and the sleeve darts. Narrow lace is used for the front loops, to edge the collar, the front jacket edge, turnbacks and wings. The wings are ‘looped’ with three sets of double strips, presumably also in narrow lace, and fringed with one inch deep black, yellow and white worsted fringe. A sketch shows that the wings are pointed to echo the five darts, and the cuff is likewise indented. A sample of narrow lace is attached, which is like that marked ‘1822’ in Pearse, except that the inner blue lines are continuous.

The Drum Major’s coat of 1820 is yellow with scarlet facings, looped with silver bias lace, with silver fringe on the shoulder straps and silver plated buttons.

Bandsmen

The Ordnance Militia book of 1820 calls for ‘1 Serg[ean]ts Coat White with yellow facings and Cheverons But to have No Lace in the Coat.’ This is not an undress item, and despite the absence of lace, I can only think that it must have been for the bandmaster. It may reflect something of the dress of  bandsmen during the preceding period.

Supplementary / 2nd Derbyshire Militia

Derbyshire’s Supplementary Militia, like those of other counties, was organised in 1797, with commissions granted that July, and was embodied briefly from 1798. It was commanded by Lieut Col Francis Mundy, commissioned on 25 August 1798, before its disbandment in 1800.

On 26 January 1797 the Derby Mercury published a list of items allowed by government for the initial clothing of Supplementary Militia:

A Scarlet Jacket, faced with yellow, A White Waistcoat, A Pair of white Cloth Pantaloons, A Black Military Cap, with a white stump feather.

The prices totalled to the government allowance of a very economic £1 5s 9d per man. Versions of this list were widely printed by provincial newspapers who probably copied it from each other, so it’s not clear whether the details here are generic examples from government, or made county-specific. As the Mercury published early in the chain, and as Derbyshire’s facing colour may have been yellow by this point, this could have been what was worn. At 12s 6d, the jacket may have been a simple round jacket, with yellow collar and cuffs. No gaiters are mentioned, so the ‘pantaloons’ may have been gaiter-trousers, or possibly, despite the terminology, just open ended trousers. The cap, at 2s 6d, would have been a simple undress or light infantry type, not the cylindrical cap of 1800. From summer 1798, with embodiment, a more substantial outfit would have been required. Accoutrements supplied by the Ordnance to Supplementary Militia were of tanned leather, so would probably have been blackened. 

In 1803 a new Supplementary formation was raised, and numbered as the Second, under Col Edward Miller Mundy. Only two officers seem to have been carried through from the earlier Supplementary Regiment, including Lieut Col Francis Mundy. With Major Charles Godfrey Mundy as Major, the field officers kept it in the family. The regiment appears to have had five companies only, and was disbanded by 1806.

The facing colour may have been yellow, as for the ‘old’ regiment, and officer’s metal was silver. An officer’s belt plate has been sold by Dix Noonan Webb. It is silver, hallmarked for 1803, oval, with the raised design of a crown over a five petalled rose on a shield, above a ribbon inscribed ‘SECOND ● REGIMENT’ in Roman capitals.

A button is known (possibly the sole example, Ripley & Darmanin 38), which follows the design of the First, silver plated, convex, with ‘2ND. / REGT.’ at each side of the incised crowned rose and shield above ‘DERBYSHIRE’.

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A List of the Officers of the Several Regiments and Corps …, War Office, Fifth Edition, 1797; Sixth Edition, 1799; A List of Officers of the Militia …, War Office, Eleventh Edition, 1805; 1809; 1820

W Y Baldry, ‘Order of Precedence of Militia Regiments’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 15, No. 57, Spring 1936

W Y Carman, ‘Militia Uniforms, 1780’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 36, No. 147, September 1958 

A W Haarmann, ‘Regulars and Militia at Plymouth and Vicinity, 1781’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 52, No. 209, Spring 1974

A W Haarmann, ‘Derbyshire Militia, 1778’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 55, No. 222, Summer 1977 

Charles Herbert, ‘Coxheath Camp, 1778-1779’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 45, No. 183, Autumn 1967

Maj H G Parkyn, ‘English Militia Regiments, 1757-1935: their Badges and Buttons’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 15, No. 60, Winter 1936

Capt Daniel Paterson, Plans of Encampments … 1778-82, Royal Collection 

Plans of Coxheath Camp, 1778

Howard Ripley & Denis Darmanin, English Infantry Militia Buttons 1757-1881, Military Historical Society, 2010

Hugh Stokes, The Devonshire House Circle, London 1917

J R Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century, London & Toronto, 1965

Cumberland Pacquet, and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser, 14 July, 10 August 1778

Derby Mercury, 28 December 1759, 26 November 1762, 21 December 1770, 5 May 1775, 8 March 1776, 28 March 1777, 24 April, 1 May 1778, 12 February, 12 March 1779, 2 July, 3 September 1795, 26 January 1797 

Ipswich Journal, 8 August 1778

Norfolk Chronicle, 11, 25 July 1778

Northampton Mercury, 27 July, 10 August 1778

Oxford Journal, 14 July 1759

Salisbury Journal, 27 December 1762

Saunder’s News-Letter, 14 July 1778