Small archive relating to London's volunteer corps.

Bookseller Notes

An extraordinary collection of printed and manuscript ephemera relating to London's various volunteer corps at the turn of the nineteenth century. Spanning the period 1798 to 1819, with the bulk of the material dating to the first few years of the nineteenth century, this collection gives a sense of drills, musters, arrangements, personnel, and training regimens of several of London's voluntary regiments. These were founded primarily in response to the perceived threat of invasion by France.Most relate to the Prince of Wales Loyal Volunteers, the formation of which is announced in a broadside which states that the Prince of Wales (the future George IV) has agreed to patronise a corps drawn from residents of St. Martin in the Fields and surrounding parishes. Various details have been redacted by hand, which is typical of a collection which is characterised by a wealth of contemporary annotations and amendments. The Prince of Wales Loyal Volunteers is the most-represented regiment, but the collection also features the Loyal Pimlico Volunteers, the Armed Association of St. Margaret, and St. John the Evangelist (Westminster), the Westminster Volunteer Cavalry, the Loyal Islington Volunteers, the Somerset Place Volunteers and the Royal Westminster Rifle Volunteers. The material here includes autograph letters, meeting announcements, dockets, receipts, broadsides, booklets of rules and regulations, and sundry other material relating to the management of these regiments. From it, it is possible to reconstruct the administrative and logistical functions of these regiments, and to understand how they operated and were managed. The collection also includes a fine copy of a broadside poem, 'The point of Honour', and a mounted engraved portrait of Colonel James Robertson of the P.W.LV. The broadside 'Thanks of the House of Commons to the Volunteers' dated 6 July 1814, and signed by J. Dyson states that 'this house doth highly approve and acknowledge.The volunteer force formed in Britain during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars was one of the largest movements of any sort during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Volunteer corps were organisations of armed civilians, associated with official sanction for the maintenance of internal order and for defence against invasion. Members of these regiments were provided with government allowances, as well as exemptions both from taxes and from compulsory full-time military service. The volunteers comprised several major types of corps: volunteer infantry, yeoman cavalry, volunteer artillery, and armed associations of infantry or cavalry, and were distinct from the militia, fencibles and regular army. Booklets: Movements Practised by the Loyal Pimlico Volunteers, commanded by Major Stephen Rolleston [1799] pp. 11, marbled paper wrappers;Colonel Elliot's Circular Letter to Members of the Westminster Volunteer Cavalry (London, 1803) pp. 16, blue paper wrappers;Engagement and Regulations of the Royal Westminster Regiment of Volunteers (Printed for J.H Stopforth, 1803) pp. 13, [3], marbled paper wrappers;Rules and Regulations of the Armed Association of St. Margaret, and St. John the Evangelist, Westminster. (London, 1803) pp. 14, marbled paper wrappers;Declaration, Rules, and Regulations, of the St. James's Westminster Loyal Volunteer Regiment (London: Printed by J. Brettell, 1807) pp. 15, printed paper wrappers (interleaved with notes).Declaration, Rules, and Regulations, of the St. James's Westminster Loyal Volunteer Regiment April 5, 1803 (London Printed by John Brettell, 1812) pp. 10, brown paper wrappers.