North Yorkshire Militia 1759-1820

This page sets out what I can find of the basic organisation, dress and equipment of the North Yorkshire Militia from its initial embodiment in 1759 to its disembodiment in 1816, with a slight extension to 1820, a few years into the long post-war disembodiment, and, at the end, a brief note on the short-lived 2nd (Supplementary) Militia. (For the North York Local Militia of 1808 see this page.) An aspect that has needed careful re-examination (probably at too much length) is the “light armed marksmen” of 1795, for whom large claims have been made in the context of the origins of British rifle corps; it’s a niche subject, but someone may be interested.

The discussion assumes a basic background knowledge of British military uniform of this era. For a very brief general note on the system of clothing and equipping the militia, see the parent page here. The page is ordered chronologically by periods of embodiment, sub-divided as necessary by topic.

The page does suffer for lack of comprehensive input from the Zetland (Dundas) papers at the North Yorkshire Record Office in Northallerton – a weakness that I aim to remedy at some point. In the meantime my thanks to Eamonn O’Keeffe for kindly sharing band-related material from these papers. Most sources cited are listed at the end, alphabetically by author’s surname, with newspapers separately; some others are noted in the text as we go. It’s a lengthy list but it should enable anyone interested to figure out references for most details without having to wade through footnotes. The image extracted from the Board of Ordnance Militia Book at the National Archives is shown under the Open Government Licence, TNA WO 44/609, with major thanks to Ben Townsend for the use of his photo. My thanks to Denis Darmanin for permission to reproduce his excellent button drawing.

Click to enlarge images.

 

First embodiment 1759-62, disembodiment 1763-77

As was the practice in some other counties, the new militia of the North Riding was at first organised in two smallish battalions based geographically, though at their second embodiment in 1778 these were amalgamated into a single regiment. Both battalions, occasionally referred to as “regiments”, initially served together at Newcastle-on-Tyne. The original quota for the Riding was for 720 men, though reports indicate a higher actual combined strength. Both battalions were involved in containing the riots of 1761 in Hexham, in which up to fifty civilians were killed.

Cleveland and Bulmer Battalion

This battalion was commanded by Col Thomas Duncombe (sometimes Duncomb), commissioned in January 1759. Usually referred to as the Cleveland Battalion, a report in a Newcastle paper of August 1759 terms it the “first Battalion”, but this numbering does not seem to have stuck. Raikes and Western (both reliable authorities) give the date of embodiment as 2 or 3 July 1759, Turton as the 20th. The warrant for arms and accoutrements was dated 20 June, and these were apparently issued, with the clothing, on 24 July. In early August 1759 at Newcastle the battalion was reported as consisting of 460 men plus officers, “attended by a Band of Musick”. The battalion was disembodied on 3 December 1762.

Richmondshire Battalion

This battalion was commanded by Col Sir Ralph Milbanke (sometimes Milbank), commissioned in January 1759. The warrant for arms and accoutrements was dated 21 May. Turton and Raikes give the date of embodiment as 2 July 1759, Western (probably the most reliable) as the 3rd, Clarkson as the 13th. In August it was reported as 400 strong.  In a deserter notice of January 1761 it is termed the “Richmondshire Regiment of Foot Militia”. The battalion was disembodied on 3 December 1762.

Officers

It seems a fair presumption that the two battalions were similarly clothed. The facing colours of the original uniform present a problem, given that Lawson, working from Ordnance warrants, gives both regimental colours as blue (see below), and Parkyn conforms to this, listing the original facings as blue. However, Clarkson, writing in 1821, states firmly of the Richmondshire Battalion:

The uniform at first was scarlet, with green facings, waistcoat, and breeches, a narrow gold lace upon the coat, waistcoat, and hat.

(My italics. Clarkson was evidently copied here by Capt James Carter, whose manuscript was used by Turton.) The implication seems to be that the officers’ waistcoat and breeches were also green. I’m unable to resolve the difference here over facing colours.

Turton’s appendix includes documents showing that officers of the Cleveland Battalion requested from their Colonel pattern buttons, loops and hat lace, and that their purchases in June 1759 included gaiters and garters, lace, fuzees with slings and bayonets, swords, belts, cartouch boxes, gorgets and sashes. A Leeds paper of August 1759 reports of the Cleveland Battalion that “The Officers are Gentlemen of independent Fortunes; they make a fine Appearance …”

At an early point, probably at the men’s first re-clothing a year after embodiment, the uniform was changed. Clarkson states:

It was soon after altered by Lord Holdernesse, the Lieutenant of the Riding, to black velvet facings with silver button-holes, a buff waistcoat laced and breeches. The arms of the officers were a fuzee and bayonet, with a cut and thrust sword.

The implication here may be that breeches were buff. (For the men’s re-clothing of August 1760, see below under other ranks.)

Chaytor

Smyth

Detail is provided by a portrait, then at Spennithorne Hall, Leyburn, of William Chaytor, an original captain of the Richmondshire Battalion, as illustrated and described by Collins. The scarlet coat has black facings with silver lace in single, square ended loops, the lapels and low collar edged in the lace. A silver aiguillette or shoulder knot is worn on the right shoulder to indicate rank. The buff waistcoat has wide loops in a narrower lace, and the hat under Chaytor’s arm is bound with a broad silver lace. The silver buttons have a check pattern. The gorget is silver, the sash crimson. (Collins gives the breeches as buff, which may have been so – see above – but they are not visible in the portrait.)

Also documented by Collins is a portrait of Francis Smyth, an original captain of the Cleveland Battalion. Collins dates the painting to about 1770; though the epaulette could suggest a point after 1768, the wearing of the sash over the shoulder clearly pre-dates the 1768 Warrant, so a fair guess might be the mid-‘sixties, during the long period of disembodiment. The differences to the Chaytor uniform may be down to developments in style over the years, rather than to any distinctions between the two battalions. The black facings are still edged and looped with silver lace, with silver buttons, though the lapels now appear a little broader, and the loops longer and further apart. The collar has a loop parallel to the edge, though it’s not clear if this is meant to engage the top lapel button, as on later coats. The epaulette is of silver lace, with a “knot” and fringe, and the gorget is silver. The buff waistcoat is edged in silver lace and has silver buttons, though apparently no loops.

Other ranks

A report of late August 1760 in the Newcastle press indicates that the first uniform was probably changed for one with black facings for both battalions at their first summer re-clothing, a year after embodiment:

This Week new Cloathing was given to the two Battalions of Yorkshire Militia, under Colonels Milbank and Duncombe, now in Quarters here; and with which they make a very different Appearance, the Cloth being much better than the former, and with the Addition of a good Lace.

The improvement seems to be more than in just the quality of materials, suggesting the change of facing colour. The introduction of a “good Lace” here refers to the other ranks, indicating that their first uniform was unlaced; whether the lace was plain white or, at this early point, with distinctive coloured lines is a mystery. The Richmondshire battalion included a grenadier company, and the Cleveland Battalion may have done likewise; these companies presumably wore distinctive caps.

Colours

As noted above, Parkyn and Lawson, working from Ordnance warrants, give the regimental colours of both battalions as a “Blue sheet with Arms of Earl of Holdernesse”. Robert Darcy, Fourth Earl of Holderness was the Lord Lieutenant at this time. As far as I can make out – and I’m certainly open to correction – these annoyingly complex arms would have comprised a quartered shield: first quarter (Darcy), blue sprinkled with small white crosses, themselves with crosses for arms, with three white five-petalled flowers (“azure semée of cross crosslets – or crusilly – with three cinquefoils argent”); second (Meynell), blue with a gold bar at the top and three pairs of narrower gold bars (“azure, three bars gemel or and a chief of the last”); third (Conyers), blue with an ermine or gold stylised sleeve (“azure, a maunch ermine / or”); fourth (Neville), red with a white cross bearing a red star (“gules, on a saltire argent a mullet of five points”). If included, other elements would have been a crest of a spear in three pieces, two in an “X”, the third vertical, all tied with a red ribbon (“a spear broken in three places or, two in saltire, the other in pale, headed proper, banded together at the middle by a ribbon gules”), on a helmet and coronet; supporters, being a white “tiger” with gold mane and teeth, and a black bull with gold horns (“dexter a tiger argent maned and tusked or, sinister a bull sable armed and maned or”), and a motto: “Un Dieu un Roi/Roy” (One God, one King). In this period illustration the supporters have collars and chains, and the bull is sprinkled with small stars.

These regimental colours would have had Union cantons, and the King’s colour would, of course, have been the Union flag.

 

Second embodiment 1778-83, disembodiment 1783-1792

On 21 April 1778 the Militia of the Riding was re-embodied, now as a single regiment of ten companies including one of grenadiers, under the command of Col Sir Ralph Milbanke. The following year Milbanke resigned, the command passing to Col Henry Belasyse, Earl Fauconberg, commissioned on 18 November 1779. The regiment was at Coxheath Camp in 1779, where its total strength was 694. A list for 1782 among the Paterson maps gives it as ten companies, with 720 rank and file and 813 total strength. It was disembodied on 13 March 1783.

During this period its precedence numbers were – 1779-80: 39. 1780-81: 10. 1781-82: 13. 1782-83: 43.

Officers

Militia lists of 1778 and 1781, cited by Parkyn and “WYB” respectively, confirm the uniform as red with black facings and silver lace or loopings. Visual confirmation is provided by a portrait of Col Sir Ralph Milbanke by James Northcote at the Yale Center for British Art, dated as 1784 but presumably painted on or shortly after his resignation in 1779. (A half length copy without the background – below right – has been attributed to William Beechey.)

The scarlet coat has black velvet facings, the lapels with ten large silver buttons and square ended silver lace loops, singly spaced, the top button connecting to the hole and loop on the falling collar. The cuffs each have four buttons and loops, the pointed cross pocket flaps four loops with the buttons underneath. The skirts are not turned back. The buttons appear to be the flat silver pattern with a double circle and “NY” (see below). No epaulette is worn for the portrait, perhaps since Milbanke had resigned his commission. The white waistcoat is single breasted with small silver buttons, but the details of the hat are not visible.

This can be compared with a grisaille silhouette of Col Lord Fauconberg (plus dog) by William Wellings, firmly dated 1785, during the following disembodiment, and sold by Ellison Fine Art. The coat is now unlaced and the large buttons spaced in pairs, the top lapel button still connecting with the front corner of the falling collar. Collar, lapels, cuffs and pocket flaps all appear to be narrowly edged in white. The pointed cross pocket flaps have two pairs of buttons underneath. The skirts are not turned back. The epaulettes are silver laced straps, held by a thin lace loop, with long fringes. The waistcoat fastens with small buttons, and the breeches have five small buttons and a buckle at the knee. The hat has a cockade, small button and silver lace loop, but is not edged with lace.

photo by Kevin Lazio Pearce

Trying to date buttons is risky, especially with my lack of expertise, but on the strength of the Milbanke portrait (above) we can suggest two possible types for officers of this period. The first has not been identified to this regiment but resembles the buttons in the portrait; it is flat, silvered, with an incised double border of notches and a central “N Y”. The second (Ripley & Darmanin 274) is similar but inscribed “Y / N R / M”.

An inspection report of 1778 observes that the officers were armed with fusils. An inspection of 1781 reports the fusils as still carried, and the officers now in helmets and jackets, which, if the remark was intended to apply across the battalion companies, would suggest that the regiment had adopted a light infantry character.

Other ranks

Information for this period is a bit thin on the ground. The Osborn militia book of 1780 (Carman, 1958) gives the uniform as with black facings, with buttons and square ended white loops in pairs. An inspection report of 1779 rated the clothing as “very good and pretty well attended to”.

A rather generalised newspaper report of 1779 from Coxheath tells us that:

All the grenadier and light companies in the militia wear scull-caps this year, with feathers in them, instead of hats, which gives them a very noble and martial appearance.

photo by Chris Tilney

A “wanted” advertisement of 1784 in a Newcastle paper describes a fugitive, previously discharged from the regiment, as wearing a waistcoat “made of a soldier’s white jacket, the buttons marked N.Y.” This would have been an undress jacket.

A pewter other ranks button, found near Richmond, fits the description above and relates to the first officer’s button shown above; it is flat, with a raised design of a border of small trefoil shapes enclosing “NY”.

An inspection report of 1778 notes that arms and accoutrements had been delivered in May 1772.

 

Third embodiment 1792-1802

The regiment was re-embodied on 20 December 1792 under Col Lord Fauconberg, also now commissioned as Colonel in the army on 14 March 1794 for the duration of the embodiment. In 1797 Fauconberg resigned, and the command passed to Col Thomas, Lord Dundas, commissioned on 25 May that year, also with the army rank of colonel for the duration of the embodiment. In 1795 the regiment was augmented to 12 companies by the addition of two volunteer companies of “light armed marksmen”, in addition to the existing flank companies. In June 1798 it was augmented by 264 men from the Supplementary Militia, but was reduced to ten companies in 1799.  In 1801 the additional light companies were abolished. That year the regiment was noted as “particularly trained and exercised to the duties of light troops”. In late August 1801 it was augmented to 15 companies by a draft of men from the Supplementary Militia. It was disembodied on 23 April 1802. The Riding’s precedence number for the period of this embodiment was 33.

Officers

A fine portrait of Col Lord Fauconberg by John Singleton Copley, from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was sold by Christie’s New York in 2004. A print of this was published in 1794, so the painting can be dated to that year or a little earlier. The unlaced scarlet coat has facings of black velvet, edged narrowly in white, with large silver buttons in pairs. The falling collar appears deeper than before, but is still fastened by the top lapel button. The visible epaulette has a strap composed of two lines of silver vellum lace with rounded ends, edged in black, with a thin silver lace loop, a narrow silver crescent, and a fine silver fringe.

Five years later, a correspondent to the British Military Library of 1799 stated:

… the Facings, both of men and officers, are black velvet. The epaulets are silver, and the buttons raised, of the same colour. The facings are quite plain, without edging.

The absence here of edging distinguishes coats of this date from the earlier Fauconberg coat, above.

Three patterns of buttons could cautiously be allotted to this general period. Two are flat, silvered, with raised designs of a French circle enclosing “NYM” in script and “N • Y / M” in Roman capitals (Ripley & Darmanin 317, 318). These might be the “raised” buttons just mentioned, unless that term here means convex. The third type (Ripley & Darmanin 275, Ripley & Moodie 167) is far better known; it is flat, silvered, with the incised design of a crowned rose between “NORTH” and “YORK” in Roman capitals.

In 1791, just previous to re-embodiment, Lieut Col Sir Thomas Dundas ordered for the officers 21 chased oval silver belt plates, each “inlaid with a rose and an inscription” at £1 8s each, replacing others which had been smaller. A possible match for these is the pattern discussed under the next embodiment, below, which was in use until at least 1814.

Other ranks

Reports in newspapers of October 1793 describe the men in “their new clothes, scarlet edged with black velvet”, and as “new cloathed … a fine military spectacle”. The term “scarlet” here may be poetic licence for red, but the mention of velvet is accurate.

A “design book” of clothiers J N & B Pearse, in the Canadian War Museum, includes a drawing of, and notes for, a private’s suit; this is undated, but would appear to be for 1796 or slightly earlier. The red coat is in the “old” style, lapelled and with long skirts, with black “Velveret” collar, lapels and cuffs, feathered all round the edges with white cloth. The lapel is cut wide at the top to the shoulder seam, narrower and cut square at the bottom; it has just eight regularly spaced buttons and “double headed” (square ended) lace loops, with one button and loop each side of the collar, four on each cuff and on each pointed cross pocket flap, and two buttons and four loops at the rear waist. A lack of punctuation makes the notes ambiguous; either all the loops, or maybe the collar loops alone, are in plain white braid. The turnbacks are plain, without lace or feathering. Though it is not shown in the drawing, the cuffs close under the wrist with two small buttons. The turnback ornament is a “strap”, or bow, in black cloth. The body of the coat is partly lined in Padua, the sleeves in linen.

The drawing includes a sketch for a private’s waistcoat, without collar, pockets (or sleeves?) and with ten buttons down the front, starting well below the throat. The breeches are “common white” with five buttons at the knee, and lined in “Bro[?] Irish”, presumably meaning linen.

The note above from the British Military Library indicates that by 1799 the other ranks’ coats or jackets no longer had white edging to the facings.

Shoulder belt plates for the draft of 282 men joining from the Supplementary Militia are described as brass, and priced at 10½d each.

An inspection report from this period, addressed to the King, is found in Aspinall, and includes this comment:

The North York Militia are a fine body of men and well exercised; they are not cloathed according to your Majesty’s regulation as they wear linen trowsers instead of cloath[sic] breeches and gaiters.

This may mean gaiter-trousers rather than loose undress trousers.

A clothing estimate of 1798 includes watchcoats for all men.

“Light armed marksmen”

In 1795 two additional light companies were attached to the regiment. Direct information on these is elusive, and down the years they have become characterised first as riflemen, then as dressed in green and finally as inspiration for the 95th Rifles. Fortescue is derisively dismissive of these claims, and Verner, in Appendix I to his History and Campaigns of the Rifle Brigade, concludes that “on investigation it appeared that these Companies were dressed in green for only a brief period and were not armed with rifles …”, but that “the tradition … has been quoted and re-quoted, chiefly by non-military writers”.

Turton, writing in 1907, is the main secondary source on this topic, working from the Carter manuscript and from articles of 1889 by Col Robert G Hopkinson (Colonel from 1891), and of 1890 by Capt R Holden of the Worcestershire Regiment. More recently, the ground has been well covered by Haythornthwaite (1982, 1983).

Period evidence that may have been overlooked is provided by the prolific military writer Charles James, who was commissioned a captain in the North York on 22 April 1795, apparently with an eye on one of these companies, and joined the regiment in late May or June, but resigned in August 1797. This followed a dispute over seniority with George Dawson, originally a captain of one of the new companies, who resigned in June 1796 but was subsequently parachuted back into the regiment as a second major. In the manner of the times, James “memorialised” the dispute in print, and also refers to the companies among the “Desultory Observations” introducing his compilation The Regimental Companion. What seems to be the case is as follows:

A general meeting of the Lieutenancy of the Riding on 3 April 1794 passed several resolutions on the internal defence of the Riding, including an augmentation of the Militia by two additional companies. (These resolutions are reproduced in Ashcroft.) The next meeting initiated a subscription to meet the expense of them. On 13 April 1795 the idea was firmed up in these terms:

That One Hundred and Sixty Men be added and incorporated with the North Riding Battalion of Militia, to enable the Regiment to form two companies of Light Armed Marksmen to be attached to the Regiment.

Lieut Col Dundas, who framed this resolution, was for some reason keen that the companies should be “attached” as “additional levies” rather than, as usual for such companies, absorbed within the establishment of the regiment. £2,500 was allowed by the Riding for a £15 bounty for volunteers, and recruiting parties were sent out on 1 August 1795. The two companies were said to have been complete on 12 January 1796, under Capts George Dawson and Sir Francis Boynton. They did not include ensigns, but did have drummers. In April 1795 Dundas wrote to James:

The Duke of York has put me under the directions of Colonel Perrin to get instructions respecting the clothing, arms, accoutrements, exercise and manoeuvres of this new species of Soldier; the sooner you can come to Town, the better, because I wish we may study together.

(I’m unsure of the identity of Colonel Perrin, though it may be an alias for Louis-Edmond Antoine le Picard de Phélipeaux / Phélippeaux, a royalist emigré; lightly armed sharpshooters were at the time considered largely a French phenomenon.)

Turton gives a list of actual or proposed accoutrements that he associates with these companies:

Pouch, 29 rounds. Pouch-belt, 2½ inches wide. Girdle, 2 inches wide, with brass furniture and bayonet frog. Hatchet, with black leather case, and loops for the girdle to pass through. Knapsack (calf skin). Gun-case, of patent hose, without seam and impenetrable to wet.

Turton admits that regimental returns of this period make no mention of rifles, though 152 extra muskets were issued in 1796. (Verner suggests these may have been fusils.) Despite this, Charles James, who was with the regiment at the time, later refers to the companies not only as sharpshooters but explicitly as riflemen:

… a certain proportion of each battalion might be trained, disciplined, and exercised with the rifle. This principle has been attended to in one of our militia corps. During the late war there were two companies, consisting of men who were called sharp shooters, attached to a regiment of that establishment … Lord Dundas, … as far back as the year 1795, not only saw the necessity of introducing companies of rifle-men into our militia establishment, but brought his notions to bear with regard to the North-York regiment …

However, a description derived from Carter of the uniform – “green, but not of so dark a shade as that subsequently worn by the Rifle Brigade, and the buttons were black; nothing white was to be seen about them” – seems to be a simple confusion with the later rifle companies as shown in Walker (below), and Turton pretty much confirms this. So – in a nutshell, the two companies may or may not have had rifles and there’s no reliable evidence that they wore green.

A story by Carter that the inspiration for the 95th Rifles was an inspection by the Duke of York of a North York rifleman in green in August 1795 is retailed by Turton with the excuse of “pardonable pride”, though Haythornthwaite acknowledges that the anecdote may involve “more regimental pride than historical accuracy”. At this point in time only some half a dozen light-armed marksmen had yet been recruited, and the story may be just wishful thinking.

According to Carter, the two companies were disbanded in 1801; this would presumably have been at the end of the men’s five year term of enlistment.

Artillery

In 1794, two guns were to be attached to each militia regiment. Two detachments, each of a subaltern, sergeant, corporal, drummers and thirty privates, were sent that year to Tynemouth for artillery instruction; one of these detachments was commanded by Capt John Pratt. The two field pieces are mentioned as still in service in 1798.

Colours

New colours are said by Turton to have been presented at the Union with Ireland, on or about 1 January 1801 – though is this just his assumption? Existing colours were usually modified for this purpose.

 

Fourth embodiment 1803-16, disembodiment 1816-20

The Hawkes drawing (Photo Ben Townsend)

The regiment was re-embodied in ten companies on 18 March 1803 under Col Lord Dundas. In August 1803 it was augmented to 12 companies by the addition of men from the Supplementary Militia, and in 1804 two rifle companies were formed (see below). From 1812 it was permitted to practice light infantry drill, from 1814 it was known unofficially (and later officially) as the North York Light Infantry, and at some point around that time it was fully uniformed as light infantry. It was disembodied in January 1816. At its 1820 training it still comprised 12 companies, including the two of rifles. Its militia precedence number for 1803-33 was 44.

Officers

Entries in the Buckmaster and Hawkes tailor’s books at the National Army Museum provide notes and a drawing for officers’ coats of this period. (Thanks to Ben Townsend for images of these pages.) Both have a black velvet collar, lapels and cuffs, all edged narrowly in white cassimere. The fronts have two rows of eight buttons only, regularly spaced, with four buttons on each cuff and pocket flap. The lapels have eight black twist holes on both coats. The Buckmaster coat has holes on both the cuff and pocket flap buttons, while the Hawkes coat has holes on the pocket flap but not the cuff. The collar has a button each side but no holes; Buckmaster specifies a large (“coat”) button for the collar, Hawkes a small (“breast”) size. At the rear waist are two buttons and four holes. The cross pocket flaps are cut straight, not pointed (the drawing is altered to show this in Hawkes), and both books note that the buttons are on or “through” the flaps, not under them. Turnbacks are white cassimere but no ornaments are specified. The Hawkes
coat is lined in the body with white rattinet and with white cassimere in the skirts.

Hamilton Smith

The Buckmaster entry also includes a white cassimere waistcoat and breeches, and “Mixt” pantaloons for a second dress, mixed here meaning grey.

A miniature by Joseph Pastorini of an unidentified sitter, sold in 2011, may be of a company officer of the regiment. The black facings are narrowly edged in white, and the epaulette and singly spaced buttons are in silver. The silver belt plate appears to be of the pattern discussed below, showing a crowned garter enclosing a gold rose. The image seems a good fit for this regiment, though unlike the coats discussed above, the collar has no button.

(These coats can be compared with garments documented for North Yorkshire Local Militia on this page, where there is a broad measure of agreement. The jackets identified there to Local Militia may also shed some light on the post 1812 jackets of the “regular” regiment. The 1815 Militia chart of Charles Hamilton Smith – above – gives officer’s metal as gold, which must be a mistake.)

Left: NAM plate. Right: Healey plate (photo Green Howards Trust)

Officer’s belt plates, which may fit the description given above under the previous embodiment, and which match the plate in the Pastorini miniature, can be ascribed to this period. One example is at the National Army Museum, and was on display until the recent reorganisation. Another, with its associated whitened leather belt, is held by the Green Howards Museum; it is identified to George Healey – Lieutenant 1803, Captain 1806, Major 1814 – so may well have been worn between those first and last dates. The design has a beaded edge, with applied ribbons top and bottom engraved “YORKSHIRE” and “NORTH RIDING REGIMENT” in Roman capitals; on an engraved eight rayed star is an applied silver garter inscribed “HONI • SOIT” etc, under a gilt crown, and enclosing a gilt rose in relief. On the NAM Plate, the crown has silver pearls and details. On the Healey plate, which appears a little more convex, the entire crown is gilded, as are the edges of the garter and its pendant tail.

A well known pattern of button (Ripley & Darmanin 276, Ripley & Moodie 165) can be allotted to this period. It is silvered, convex, with a raised design that relates to the belt plate discussed above, showing a crowned garter inscribed “HONI • SOIT” etc, enclosing a rose, above “NORTH / YORK” in Roman capitals. In most(?) examples the rose has two petals uppermost, but a version in the Gaunt collection at Birmingham Museum, made by Jennens, has a single petal at the top, and the ground of the garter is dimpled matt. The designer of this button appears to have been John Phillp, an artist working at Birmingham manufacturer Matthew Boulton’s Soho Mint, judging by a page in the Phillp album at Birmingham Museum (see also this post). Phillp’s drawing (with two petals at the top) has a dotted edge to the garter, rather than a continuous line, but otherwise is a match. It appears with two similar designs, which appear not to have been adopted – one with a larger rose in place of the garter, the other with the regimental title at the top and sprays of laurel below. Phillp began work for Boulton as a teenager in 1793, and died in 1815, which gives a generous window for the introduction of this pattern.

Some idea of the dress of officers from the point at which the regiment was uniformed as light infantry can be gathered from Major Healey’s jacket, held by the Green Howards Museum, which appears to match exactly that worn by him in a painting of 1820 by John Frederick Herring, Senior, which shows Healey with officers of the Richmond Forresters Yeomanry, probably at the militia training of 1820; the image and the jacket are documented carefully by Carman (1983). Allowing for developments in style such as the collar, some features here might apply to the final years of the embodied period.

The scarlet jacket is faced in black velvet, but the closed scarlet collar is black at the front only, with the back edges of the black areas in a line with the back edges of the plastron-shaped lapels. The lapels each have nine silver buttons, singly spaced, of the rose and garter pattern discussed above; the collar has one button at the back of each side and the cuffs four buttons each. All these buttons now have square ended loops of 3/8 inch “broken bias” silver lace, the jacket requiring 11 yards in all. The wings are of silver plated round chain on scarlet cloth, edged with silver cord and black velvet, with a gilt bugle and silver bullion fringe. I have no details of the rear of this jacket.

The black shako shown in the painting matches Healey’s actual shako in the Museum; it has a silver rose and chin scales, a tall dark green hackle feather plume and dark green cords and tassels. In the painting, Healey wears a crimson sash and a narrow black leather waist belt. Associated with the jacket in the Museum is a pair of whitened leather breeches with three small buttons at each knee; in the painting grey overall trousers are worn with silver lace seam stripes. Healey’s saddle cloth is black, edged with a broad silver lace with a scarlet centre line.

Other ranks

An entry in the “materials book” of clothiers J N & B Pearse, in the Canadian War Museum, notes some details of the private’s jacket for this period. The facings are still black, and the ten front buttons have regularly spaced “double headed” (square ended) loops, these and the other loops needing 12 yards of looping lace per jacket.  The jacket uses 18 large buttons (ten on the front and presumably four for each cuff) and 14 small (presumably five on each pocket – four for show and one to close the flap – two at the rear and two for the shoulder straps).

An sample of the lace attached to the Pearse book shows a single thread line of black along the middle and a similar line of red at one edge, with the instruction that loops should be made with the red line on the inside. (Hamilton Smith’s chart of 1815, above, shows the same stripes, though the spacing is inaccurate, while Lawson’s version of Smith shows a red line on each edge, which must be an error.) The Militia Book of about 1820 used by the Ordnance, and now in the National Archives, contains a sample of lace that matches the Pearse sample, and also specifies the red line on the inside.

The 1820 book has only a brief entry for private’s clothing, but, though this is after our period, it indicates how the regiment would have been dressed as light infantry. The coat, with ten regular square loops, still has black facings, but now has red wings and small buttons throughout; the wings have six single strips of lace.

Other details for 1808 are found in correspondence of that year in the Zetland papers. Thanks to careful husbandry the clothing worn in 1807-08 was actually in its third year, so that, according to Major Sheldon Cradock, “The old soldiers have two complete suits nearly new in stores.” In February that year Cradock proposed that the old clothing still in wear should be issued to recruits as slop clothing, and the existing men wear the clothing currently in store.

Informal Royal permission to use the white rose as a badge had been given in 1805, and from some point around that time the cap plates included an applied rose in white metal. In 1808 the plates, then supplied by W & G Bicknell of Old Bond Street, seem to have reverted to the common pattern, judging by the complaints of Cradock to the Colonel:

What offence has the white rose given that it is no longer to be worn distinguished in front of the North York, and why are we to be disgraced with the pattern common to every corps however insignificant?

From 1811 cap plates again appear to have been, or to have included, the white rose, formal authority being given on 26 August that year for this badge to be used on caps and colours. (See also the later Healey officer’s shako above.)

A Royal warrant of 20 November 1805 reminded colonels of militia regiments that, as in regiments of the line, “Bear Skin Caps should be considered as a part of the dress of the Grenadiers”, and required them to supply and replace such caps as necessary. An application by agents Greenwood & Cox, who represented this regiment, for an additional allowance to cover the cost of grenadier caps was refused by the Secretary at War, who declared it a charge against the existing clothing allowance. This strongly suggests that few, if any, militia grenadier companies had been provided with such caps for some time. From 1806 the warrant changed that.

In 1808 black cloth for gaiters was apparently ordered from a source in Leeds, to be made up at the regiment. For day to day second dress, white trousers were the normal wear at that time.

New sergeants’ sashes were supplied in 1804, and not renewed apparently until 1808, being by then “in a very bad and ragged state”. Sergeants’ sword belts were probably replaced at the same time, their new belts apparently broader than usual; Quartermaster Mair noted in 1808 that they would be too broad for the belt plates of the sergeant majors, which were of silver, so perhaps of the officers’ pattern (see above) or similar. This implies that the sergeants’ plates were of brass.

The barrels of the men’s muskets were kept bright, judging by a report in an Oxford paper of 1811 of an incident at Brighton in which the “glittering polish” of a sentinel’s barrel panicked a horse, resulting in an overturned carriage and the need for “chirurgical assistance” to its occupants.

Rifle companies

In 1804, two rifle companies (as opposed to the additional light companies of 1795) were formed within the regiment, under Capts John Purling Stroud, Stroude or Strode and Marmaduke Constable (his first name mis-transcribed as “Marind” in the 1805 Militia List).  On 6 October that year, 208 rifles were ordered from Ordnance. In 1815, the York Herald reported that the rifle companies were employed as recruiting parties, stationed in Yorkshire and Lancashire, under the command of Capt George Bagnett.

A well known plate in Walker’s Costume of Yorkshire (published in 1814, but based on earlier sketches) shows men of these companies. The text observes that their dress “… does not differ in any respect from that of the rifle corps of the line” other than in their buttons. Walker’s image is garbled in its details, showing, for a start, no buttons at all. Even so, we can see that the dark green jacket has a black collar, cuffs and shoulder strap tufts, though apparently no turnbacks, and is worn with loose green trousers over black gaiters. (The lack of white trim in the image is no real evidence that it was absent in reality.) The cap, with cockade and green tuft but apparently no plate, has a squared peak and a confused suggestion of cords. The belts, with brass snake buckle, and sword bayonet are self-evident, but an interesting feature is the powder flask in a pocket on the left chest.

Walker notes that the rifle companies dressed as the 95th “except in having black buttons instead of white”. (The 1820 Militia book mentioned above mentions “cased” or “cast iron” buttons used for some militia rifle regiments.) The Pearse note book mentioned above confirms this for the North York: “Rifle to have Bl[ac]k B[utto]ns with a Device”; the device is not described, though a bugle horn seems possible. The Pearse book notes for 1811 that the Rifle sergeant’s jackets are to be made “as Rifle”, i.e. to the pattern of the 95th Rifles, but with “Small White Rose Buttons”, presumably meaning the “breast” size of the pattern shown above for officers. In 1813 this is changed for sergeants to a button “With Bugle L[ight] C[ompan]y”, presumably in white metal.

The 1820 book, mentioned above, notes simply that the men’s coats were green faced black, as the Rifle Brigade, with white lace edging and three rows of buttons in front. At mess in 1852, after a lapse of many years, the officers of Rifles were noted as still dressed “old style” in “green, a tight-fitting jacket with short laps, three rows of silver buttons down the front, and a most curious high shaco.”

A note on a return of greatcoats, possibly in late 1808, observes that those of the two rifle companies should be green. As greatcoats were now to be supplied by government, not ordered from regimental clothiers, green greatcoats for these companies may previously have been existing practice, though not regulation.

The rifles, naturally, included buglers. In August 1804 two C bugle horns were purchased from Cramer & Key of Pall Mall, in September an E flat bugle horn with crooks, and in June 1805 a further four in C with B crooks. Presumably four at least of the C horns would have been for the use of the two rifle companies. The Globe of July 1805 reported that:

The Sharpshooters attached to the North York Militia are encamped near the fort at Weymouth, from whence their evolutions can be plainly seen, and the sound of the bugle has a very fine effect.

Drummers

drummer’s broad lace

The Pearse “materials” book mentioned above includes notes for a drummer’s jacket somewhere within this period, though it does not indicate whether colours at this point were reversed. Interpreting the cryptic details with confidence is, frankly, impossible. The jacket appears to be scaled down for a younger person; the front has eight large buttons and loops, regularly spaced, and the cuffs and pocket flaps possibly three small buttons each with loops. Small buttons for the shoulder straps and rear waist would make a total one less than the 17 small buttons specified in the notes, which I can’t explain. A total of 32 (white?) tassels is required, which could, I suppose, be intended for the outer end and centre of each front loop, assuming they were not also used on cuffs or pocket flaps. Broad drummer’s lace, 26 yards in all, is used on the seams, pocket “frames”, “body” (lines between the shoulder and pocket flap), skirts and loops. The specified three yards of narrow lace must be used for edging and/or the wings, though this isn’t clear. The note “open Sleeve” may suggest the absence of sleeve darts, or might just mean an opening under the cuff.

A small sample of broad drummer’s lace is attached; this has a central red stripe with repeated black dashes in an “X”. (The 1820 Militia book mentioned above has, unusually, no details for drummers of this regiment.)

Bandsmen

In May 1808 the band consisted of 20 musicians: six clarinets, two flutes, two horns, three bassoons, two serpents, one trombone, two trumpets, a tambourine and a bass drum. Their headgear was caps, with “pair[s] of Black & Silver Tassels” – probably meaning tasselled cap cords.

In that year all the bandsmen’s swords, belts and belt plates needed replacement. Quartermaster Peter Mair noted at this point that the band carried 13 swords, all with black hilts in two slightly different patterns, but some in such poor repair that the regimental armourer would be able only to make up eight good swords by cannibalising them. It appears that new band swords were to be supplied that year by Beasley of Parliament Street.

By 1808 the regimental band also included at least nine, possibly eleven, additional young musicians. According to Lieut Col William Hale, writing in May that year:

… they are at present fitted with caps out of the numbers sent by mistake and returned as too small, and I have taken the Rose from some of the old plates stuck them on the Boys caps in front and they look very neat, they are all cloathed with red jackets and white trowsers, I think their present caps and dress will suffice for the present without going to any further expence about them, we can make their belts out of the Old Belts.

These caps were the standard pattern for the other ranks, but fitted with a white metal rose for a plate, removed from old private’s cap plates (see other ranks, above).

For buglers, see under rifle companies, above.

Colours

Colours are “traditionally” asserted to have been embroidered “with her own hands” by Princess Amelia and presented either in 1803, or (according to a less than totally reliable report of 1886) at Weymouth in 1805; in 1886 they were said to be hanging in the “old Parish Church” (St Mary’s?) at Richmond, where they had been placed, supposedly in 1852. Turton states that some colours “of this date or thereabouts” were “recently” (in 1907) rescued and framed in the mess of the successor 4th (Militia) Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment; in 1908 this battalion was disbanded, and its mess plate and band instruments were reported as passed to the 3rd Battalion, though no colours are specifically mentioned. It’s all rather frustrating.

 

North Yorkshire Supplementary Militia / 2nd North Yorkshire Militia 1797-99

In January 1797 the Lieutenancy resolved that the Supplementary Militia of the Riding would be organised in three battalions of six companies each, but in March this was changed to a single regiment of ten companies, including two flank, to be trained in two divisions, plus 260 men to be drafted into the existing regiment of militia. The regiment was commanded by Col Robert Crowe (wrongly, Cowe), commissioned on 22 February 1797, and also given the rank of colonel in the army for the duration of the regiment’s embodiment. Judging by the 1799 Militia List, the companies had only single lieutenants and no ensigns. The regiment was apparently embodied by June 1798, and was presumably numbered at that point. By June 1799 it was stationed at Hull, but was disembodied shortly afterwards.

The officer’s metal was silver, and it’s likely that facings were black, as for the “old” regiment.

drawing Denis Darmanin

photo Kevin Lazio Pearce

Two patterns of button can be identified to this regiment, both officer’s and both silvered. The earlier is recorded by Ripley and Darmanin (278); it is flat, with the design of a garter star, the garter inscribed “N.YORKRE SUP. REGT”. The second, flat with an incised design, is the same but inscribed “SECOND NORTH YORKSHIRE”. (A third possible type has the incised design of a central disc inscribed “2 / NY” on a six rayed star; however, this is so similar to a button attributed to the 4th Local Militia – see this page – that it may well belong to the 2nd Local Militia, and not to this regiment.)

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M Y Ashcroft, To Escape the Monster’s Clutches, North Yorkshire County Record Office Publications No 15, 1977.

A Aspinall (ed), The Later Correspondence of George III, Vol II, 1793-1797, Cambridge UP, 1963.

“W Y B”, “Militia Uniform, 1781”, JSAHR, Vol. 18 No. 72, Winter, 1939.

W Y Baldry, “Order of Precedence of Militia Regiments”, JSAHR Vol 15, No 57, Spring 1936.

British Military Library, Vol II, No XV, December 1799.

W Y Carman, “Militia Uniforms, 1780”, JSAHR Vol 36, No 147, September 1958.

William Y Carman, “The Richmond Forresters Yeomanry and the North York Militia, 1820”, JSAHR, Vol 61, No 246, Summer 1983.

Christopher Clarkson, The History & Antiquities of Richmond, 1821.

Brig T F J Collins, “Two early portraits of the North York Militia”, JSAHR, Vol 41 No 168, December 1963.

Philip J Haythornthwaite, “Rifle companies of the North York Militia, 1814”, JSAHR, Vol 60 No 242, Summer 1982.

Philip Haythornthwaite, “The Yorkshire Militia 1814”, in Military Modelling Manual 1983.

Capt R Holden, “A Short History of the Green Jacket”, Colburn’s United Service Magazine, Vol IV, reprinted in Hampshire Chronicle, 22 February 1890.

Col R G Hopkinson, “The North York Militia and ‘Rifle Companies'”, in Broad Arrow and Naval and Military Gazette, reprinted in Yorkshire Gazette, 21 September 1889.

Charles James, The Memorial and Correspondence of Charles James, Late Captain of a Company in the North York Militia, containing his Explanation of the Motives which Induced him to Quit the Service in 1797, 1798.

Charles James, The Regimental Companion …, Vol I, London, 1811.

Cecil C P Lawson, A History of the Uniforms of the British Army, Vol II, London, 1941; Vol III, London, 1961; Vol V, London, 1967.

North Yorkshire County Record Office, Zetland (Dundas) papers, ZNK X 2/2/161, 190, 203, 205, 206.

H G Parkyn, “English Militia Regiments, 1757-1935: their Badges and Buttons”, JSAHR Vol 15, No 60, Winter 1936.

Capt Daniel Paterson, “Maps of encampments in England and Great Britain, 1778-82, c 1784-91”, Royal Collection RCIN 734032.

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

Howard Ripley & Bob Moodie, Local Militia Buttons, 1994.

Robert Bell Turton, The History of The North York Militia …, Leeds, 1907 (reprint, Stockton-on-Tees, 1973).

Col Willoughby Verner, History and Campaigns of the Rifle Brigade, Vol. II (1809-1813), 1919.

George Walker, The Costume of Yorkshire, London, 1814.

The Globe, 16 July 1805.

Kentish Gazette, 7 August 1779.

Leeds Intelligencer, 14 August 1759; 7 October 1793.

Newcastle Courant, 4 August 1759; 23 August 1760; 17 January 1761; 10 January 1784; 5 October 1793; 18 October 1794.

Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 4 June 1886.

Oxford University and City Herald, 24 August 1811.

Sussex Advertiser, 20 April 1812.

York Herald, 17 June 1815.