The Redcoat and Religion: The Forgotten History of the British Soldier From the Age of Marlborough to the Eve of the First World War 2005006153, 0415377153, 0415477425, 9780415377157, 9780415477420

Table of contents :
Cover
The Redcoat and Religion: The Forgotten History of the British Soldier from the Age of Marlborough to the Eve of the First World War
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Copyright Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Soldier, Religion and the Rise of Methodism, 1702–93
2. The Soldier and Society, 1793–1914
3. The Churches and the Soldier, 1793–1914
4. The Soldier and the Churches, 1793–1914
5. Religion and the British Military Experience, 1793–1914
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Notes
Index

Citation preview

Running head recto i

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The Redcoat and Religion

Historians have long assumed that religion did not play a significant role in the British Army until the mid-Victorian period when the Army Chaplains’ Department was reformed and expanded, and civilian evangelists turned the army into a major mission field. In this compelling and essential new study, Michael Snape shows that this widely held assumption is based on the deep-rooted anti-army prejudices of contemporaries and upon wilful and even partisan misreadings of the religious condition of the common soldier. Through an extensive study of official military sources, religious publications and personal memoirs, this book demonstrates that the British soldier was highly susceptible to religious influences throughout this period, so much so that the army had developed strong and largely autonomous religious subcultures long before the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny rendered the religion of the soldier of wider public concern. In The Redcoat and Religion Snape argues that religion was of significant, even defining, importance to the British soldier throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and reveals the enduring strength and vitality of religion in contemporary British society, challenging the view that the popular religious culture of the era was dependent upon the efforts and example of women. Michael Snape is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Birmingham and a member of the University’s Centre for First World War Studies. He is author of God and the British Soldier: Religion and the British Army in the First and Second World Wars (Routledge, 2005) and The Church of England in Industrialising Society (2003).

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Christianity and society in the modern world General editor: Hugh McLeod

Also available: The Reformation and the visual arts: the Protestant image question in Western and Eastern Europe Sergiusz Michalski European religion in the age of great cities Hugh McLeod Women and religion in England, 1500–1720 Patricia Crawford The reformation of ritual: an interpretation of early modern Germany Susan Karant-Nunn The Anabaptists Hans-Jürgen Goertz Women and religion in early America, 1600–1850: the puritan and evangelical traditions Marilyn J. Westerkamp Christianity and sexuality in the early modern world: regulating desire, reforming practice Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks God and the British soldier: religion and the British army in the first and second world wars Michael Snape

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The Redcoat and Religion The Forgotten History of the British Soldier from the Age of Marlborough to the Eve of the First World War

Michael Snape

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First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group Transferred to Digital Printing 2008 © 2005 Michael Snape Typeset in Bell Gothic and Perpetua by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Snape, M. F. (Michael Francis), 1968– The redcoat and religion: the forgotten history of the British soldier from the age of Marlborough to the eve of the First World War/Michael Snape. p. cm – (Christianity and society in the modern world) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Soldiers – Religious life – Great Britain – History. 2. Great Britain – Army – Religious life – History. I. Title. II. Series BV4588.S58 2005 274.1′08′088355–dc22 2005006153 ISBN10: 0–415–37715–3 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–47742–5 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–37715–7 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–47742–0 (pbk)

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For Rachel

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Our God and Souldiers we like adore, Ev’n at the Brink of danger; not before: After deliverance, both alike requited; Our God’s forgotten, and our Souldiers slighted. – Francis Quarles, Divine Fancies, 1632

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C O NT E NT S

Acknowledgements Copyright acknowledgements List of abbreviations

viii ix x

Introduction

1

1

The soldier, religion and the rise of Methodism, 1702–93

7

2

The soldier and society, 1793–1914

69

3

The churches and the soldier, 1793–1914

88

4

The soldier and the churches, 1793–1914

118

5

Religion and the British military experience, 1793–1914

184

Conclusion

236

Appendix Bibliography Notes Index

245 247 268 300

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A C K N O W L E D GE M E NT S

I am very grateful to Prof. Hugh McLeod and to Vicky Peters, the History Editor at Routledge, for inviting me to write this book for the Routledge series on Christianity and Society in the Modern World. In recent months, I have also come to owe much to Philippa Grand, who has helped to guide this project towards completion in Vicky’s absence. Over several years of writing and research, I have also incurred a major debt to Dr Bob Bushaway for many stimulating lunchtime conversations on the issues which it raises. For their additional help and encouragement I would also like to thank Dr John Bourne, Dr John Walsh, Prof. David Hempton, Prof. Callum Brown, Dr Mark Smith, Dr Arthur Burns, Dr Marius Felderhof, Prof. John Briggs, Dr Jonathan Welsh and Mr Matthew O’Neill. I would also like to thank the members of the University of Birmingham’s History of Religion, War and Society and Open End seminars, all of which have patiently heard papers arising from this research. This varied assistance has been of inestimable value while all the mistakes which I may have made in writing this book are, of course, entirely my own. Though I owe much to the knowledge and co-operation of many librarians and archivists, I would like to thank, in particular, Major Margaret Easey for her help and hospitality over several visits to the RAChD archive at Amport House. In a broader sense, I owe my original interest in this subject to my parents and I must remind them of a fateful (and probably forgotten) Friday evening trip to see the film Zulu, an experience which implanted in my youthful mind a fascination with the history of the British army which I have never outgrown. I hope, for my father’s sake at least, that this research has helped to put the character of Colour Sergeant Bourne (so memorably portrayed by Nigel Green) in its proper historical context. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Rachel, who has borne the lot of a researcher’s spouse patiently, supportively and lovingly throughout the years of our marriage. This book is dedicated to her with all my love.

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COPYRIGHT A C K N O W L E D GE M E NT S

The author would like to thank the Library Committee of the Congregational Library for permission to quote from the letters of Jonathan Scott, now held at Dr Williams’s Library. Every reasonable effort has been made to contact the owners of copyright material used in this book but this has proved impossible in certain cases. The author would be grateful for any information that would lead to further copyright acknowledgements in future editions of this book and extends his apologies in advance for any omissions which it contains.

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A B B R E V I AT I O N S

ARS BMS CMS DNB EIC HCPP JEH JSAHR MP NAM NCO NMBS NTL ODNB PRO RAChD (R)ATA SASRA SCA SCH SFASRS SMS SPCK SPG STAA TUC VC WMMS YMCA

Army Records Society Baptist Missionary Society Church Missionary Society Dictionary of National Biography East India Company House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research Member of Parliament National Army Museum Non-Commissioned Officer Naval and Military Bible Society National Temperance League Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Public Record Office Royal Army Chaplains’ Department (Royal) Army Temperance Association Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Scripture Readers Association Soldiers’ Christian Association Studies in Church History Soldiers’ Friend and Army Scripture Readers’ Society Scottish Missionary Society Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Soldiers’ Total Abstinence Association Trades Union Congress Victoria Cross Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society Young Men’s Christian Association

1111 C H A P T E R 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I NT R O D U C T I O N 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 711 H I S S T U D Y O F T H E R E L I G I O U S E X P E R I E N C E of the British soldier 8 seeks to fill a conspicuous gap in the historiography of eighteenth- and 9 nineteenth-century Britain. The history of the British army, the social history 20111 of British religion and the cultural history of British imperialism have all proved 1 popular subjects for historians in recent decades, generating literally hundreds 2 of books, articles and unpublished theses. More recently, there has been a surge 3 of interest in the emergence and character of British national identity over the 4 same period, a phenomenon which has fully recognised the religious dimensions 5 of this subject.1 This interest in religion and British national identity was fuelled 6 (if not actually inspired) by the publication of Linda Colley’s seminal book 7 Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (1992), in which Colley stressed the 8 importance of war and of military service in creating a new and inclusive vision 9 of British nationhood which transcended the older confessional rivalries of the 30111 English, Irish, Scots and Welsh.2 In the light of these trends, it is remarkable 1 that the religious experience of British soldiers in the eighteenth and nineteenth 2 centuries should have elicited so little scholarly interest, particularly as 3 the period c.1700–1900 was an era of recurrent wars, prolonged imperial 4 expansion and, in the nineteenth century at least, encroaching secularisation. 5 The effects of this neglect are at least threefold. First, there is an oddly secular 6 tone to the historiography of the British army during these two centuries, cre7 ating a situation in which nineteenth-century imperial warriors such as 8 Havelock, Gordon and Roberts are cast as eccentrics because of their religious 9 convictions rather than understood as individuals who mirrored the values and 40111 aspirations of a self-consciously Christian society and army. Second, the reli1 gious history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain has been written

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INTRODUCTION

with virtually no reference to the case of the officers and men of the British army, the largest, most visible and most truly ‘British’ of all state institutions. Third, historians of religion and the British empire have not recognised the extent to which British soldiers identified themselves in religious terms. In the context of service among non-European peoples, most British soldiers saw themselves as defined, united and elevated by a common Christianity in the face of the non-Christian cultures and adversaries they encountered. There are several reasons why the subject of the soldier’s religion should have been ignored. To begin with, there seems to be a common if unspoken aversion to military history on the part of historians of British religion, an aversion which is reflected by a dearth of activity in some very promising areas of research. For example, although British soldiers comprised a very significant proportion of the British population in many parts of the empire, the connections between the British army and the British overseas missionary movement of the nineteenth century have not been studied in any systematic way.3 Likewise, the vast historiography of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British Methodism has almost completely overlooked the existence and experiences of the Methodist soldier. While this may be a function of the pacifist proclivities of Britain’s Free Churches in the twentieth century, it is a very significant lacuna – particularly as the evangelical revival in the British Isles took hold against the backdrop of the War of Jenkins’ Ear, the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War. To press the same point, while the role of Methodism as an expansive, counter-revolutionary force in British society has been heavily debated with reference to the political aftershocks of the French Revolution, the subject of Methodism in the army in the period 1793–1815 has remained unexplored. Significantly, these were years of unprecedented mobilisation and, as long ago as 1912, Sir Charles Oman (the great historian of the Peninsular War) emphasised what a rich and promising study that of religion in Wellington’s army would make.4 It is indicative of the chronic neglect of this subject by religious historians in general (and perhaps by historians of Methodism in particular) that the study which Oman recommended has yet to be undertaken almost a century later. Historians of overseas missions and of British Methodism are not alone in eschewing the military dimensions of their subjects. Notwithstanding their interest in its native and displaced forms,5 historians of Irish Catholicism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have shown little inclination to examine the religious life and experiences of hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholics who served in the British army at home and overseas from the 1770s to the early 1900s. This neglect may be attributable to a lingering clericalism in Catholic historical circles (it is certainly significant that Catholic army chaplains have not been ignored)6 but it may also reflect the persistent anti-army prejudices of Irish Nationalists, for whom the phenomenon of Irishmen serving

INTRODUCTION

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3

in the British army has always been embarrassing and problematic. Whatever its causes, this inertia has fatally skewed perspectives on religion and the British army. In particular, it has allowed the essentially sectarian dismissal of the army’s Catholic subculture by Victorian evangelicals to inhere in studies of religion and the British army in the nineteenth century. Historians of religion are not solely responsible for having allowed the history of religion and the British army to languish in the shadows. Certainly, the majority of military historians have been quite happy to ignore the subject. This is particularly true of the historiography of the British army during the Napoleonic Wars. As if reassured by the Duke of Wellington’s acerbic and highly questionable assertions as to the baser interests and inclinations of his soldiers, the huge body of published works on the British army of this period has almost uniformly treated the British soldier as an irreligious being. Hence, while the popularity of the Richard Sharpe novels has ensured that a host of long-forgotten Peninsular memoirs have been disinterred and that a multitude of popular works on Wellington’s army have been unleashed on the public, we are still no nearer to understanding the religious beliefs and behaviour of British soldiers at a time of profound religious excitement at home, emblematic of which was the dramatic growth of evangelical Nonconformity. This situation may, in fact, be set to grow worse for, as British society becomes ever more secular in outlook, the themes, complexities and nuances of British religious life two hundred years ago become ever more arcane to the typical military historian, who is naturally far more at home with the army’s tactics, weaponry and campaigns. The history of secularisation is in itself integral to our subject. Simply stated, the narrative of secularisation holds that ‘the dwindling social significance of religion is an inevitable consequence of the processes of social development in modern societies’.7 Although the history of the secularisation of British society has been evolving since E.R. Wickham published his Church and People in an Industrial City in 1957, its most prominent historian today is Hugh McLeod. According to McLeod’s important surveys Religion and Society in England, 1850–1914 (1996) and Secularisation in Western Europe, 1848–1914 (2000), secularisation was well advanced in England by the early 1900s. In the later decades of the nineteenth century, the faith of the English middle and upper classes had been shaken as old religious certainties retreated in the face of biblical criticism, the advance of modern science and of a moral rebellion against the doctrine of eternal punishment. However, the detachment of the English working classes from organised religion was a longer-term process. This was driven by the economic and demographic changes induced by the Industrial Revolution, by the deepening of class conflict, by the growth of secular forms of organised leisure and by the churches’ declining role in public welfare and public education.8 However, although the religious outlook may have been

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INTRODUCTION

bleak in England at the end of the nineteenth century, it must be stressed that the growth of secularisation was far from uniform across the British Isles. In Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the close fusion of ethnic and religious identities helped to contain the secularising forces of the modern age and to maintain the importance of religion in the public and in the private sphere.9 If the significance of McLeod’s surveys is therefore limited in a ‘British’ sense, it must also be remembered that studies of religion and nineteenth-century British society rarely consider the case of Britons resident abroad, an important consideration given that Britain was the world’s greatest imperial power throughout the nineteenth century. As the imperial experience had the potential to modulate religious attitudes,10 it is clear by implication that contemporary military life can tell us much about the deeper importance of religion in British society. The neglect which this book seeks to remedy is vividly demonstrated by the fact that the religious and moral condition of the common soldier has never been rescued from the realm of caricature. This is evident from extant studies of religion and the later Victorian army, studies which have implicitly accepted the stereotype of the reprobate soldier while focusing on the missionary endeavours of civilians and the interaction of religious gender roles. In the context of the army, these gender roles are that of the inherently vicious male (epitomised by the figure of the soldier in this most masculine of institutions) and the inherently virtuous female (embodied by the figure of the Christian lady who worked for his salvation in the wholesome domestic setting of the soldiers’ home). However, the burgeoning interest in gender and Victorian religion (of which these studies of wayward soldiers and earnest evangelical ladies form a part) has done little to advance our understanding of the character and dynamics of soldiers’ religion. Instead, the irreligion of ordinary soldiers has been accepted as axiomatic and has been regarded by historians (as it was by contemporaries) as the perfect foil for pious femininity. This situation is indicative of a deeper problem in the historiography of religion and gender in modern Britain, namely that it is heavily biased towards the experience of the middle classes11 and to certain manifestations of male religiosity. Uneven coverage in terms of social class has not been helped by a certain fixation on the cult of ‘Christian manliness’ (or ‘muscular Christianity’), a preoccupation which has channelled attention towards the reformed public schools, organised sports and quasi-military youth organisations such as the Boys’ and Church Lads’ brigades.12 However, it has signally failed to shed much light on the broader dynamics of religious belief and religious life among adult working-class males. The implications of this situation are evident in the central thesis of Callum Brown’s The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800–2000 (2001). Dismissing ‘muscular Christianity’ as ‘no more than an experiment and not a fundamental change to a dominant negative discourse on male religiosity’,13 Brown expounded

INTRODUCTION

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5

upon the long-term fate of a national religious culture in which the piety of men was essentially problematic and marginal. Offering a radical reappraisal of the secularisation process, Brown argued that the robust religious culture of nineteenth-century Britain was reliant on the efforts and example of women, to such an extent that it collapsed speedily and dramatically with the rejection of inherited female gender roles in the late twentieth century.14 This book seeks to rewrite the history of religion in the British army by demonstrating its enduring importance for the British soldier throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, it will directly challenge some powerful and historic misconceptions as to the conditions and development of religious life in the army over this period. However, it will also have certain implications for the history of British religion more generally. It will, for example, recover some forgotten chapters of early Methodist history, it will raise some new perspectives on the extent to which British (and more especially English) society had been secularised by the end of the nineteenth century and it will emphasise the religious capacities of the plebeian British male even when he was divorced from the critical context of hearth and home. In Chapter 1, we will look at anti-army prejudice in the eighteenth century and how it helped to obscure, in the eyes of civilians at least, the religious potential of military life, a potential which was largely realised by the rapid growth of Methodism in the army from the 1740s. In Chapter 2, we will consider the circumstances of the soldier in the nineteenth century and the nature and consequences of the continuing suspicion in which he was held by pious civilians. In Chapter 3, we will consider the origins and impact of the growing religious provision which the army made for its soldiers in the same period and the methods and success of civilian missionaries in this burgeoning mission field. In Chapter 4 we will examine the enduring strength of evangelical religion in the army from the 1790s to the suppression of the Indian Mutiny and also the growth and significance of the army’s large (and greatly underestimated) Catholic constituency in the same period. We will conclude this chapter with a study of soldiers’ religious attitudes in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, by which time these two subcultures were showing clear symptoms of decline. In Chapter 5 we will consider how the nature and circumstances of army life in the nineteenth century served to promote religion among soldiers. Consequently, we will be looking at the army’s growing stress on efficiency and professionalism, the character and implications of its regimental system, the comradeship of army life and the experience of active and overseas service. In seeking to rewrite the religious history of the British army in this period, I am acutely aware of, and partly inspired by, the progress which has been made by American historians in recovering the religious history of the American Civil War. In recent years, a growing body of research has shed some much-needed light on the nature and dynamics of soldiers’ religion in historically Protestant

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INTRODUCTION

societies.15 If the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain lacks a comparable national trauma replete with discrete and abundant sources for the religious historian, this is not to say that useful sources do not exist for the British army. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a huge volume of pamphlet and periodical literature addressed to or concerning soldiers was published by numerous religious agencies. Furthermore, and as literacy rates rose, former soldiers published their memoirs in increasing numbers, particularly in the decades after the Napoleonic Wars when there was a voracious public appetite for the reminiscences of Wellington’s veterans. While this vast body of autobiographical literature has been eagerly trawled by military historians, its value has not been recognised by historians of religion – despite the fact that many of these memoirs were written by men who saw their experiences in explicitly religious terms. In addition to these publications, the National Army Museum (most notably) holds a large amount of unpublished personal material in the form of manuscript letters, journals and diaries. For the purposes of placing these autobiographical sources in their institutional context, the Public Record Office provides some important War Office papers while a host of published parliamentary returns and reports sheds further light upon them. As for ecclesiastical sources, both denominational newspapers and the records of overseas missionary societies reflect the army’s global presence and the extent of its connections with overseas missionary work. In short, sources are not lacking for a study of this kind and this book represents an early, and far from exhaustive, synthesis of them. Finally, although the object of this book is to recover and rewrite the religious history of the British soldier during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is worth defining the parameters of this deceptively self-evident category. This book is not a study of army chaplains and nor is it intended to be an in-depth appraisal of British military chaplaincy. It is not concerned with British soldiers in foreign service nor with the experiences of Britain’s part-time auxiliary forces. Hence, it ignores the Volunteer movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and addresses the militia only at times when it was embodied as a full-time force. However, and although colonial forces have also been excluded from this study, I have for illustrative purposes taken into account the experiences of British soldiers in the European regiments of the EIC and of those British officers who served in its native regiments and in those of the later Indian army. These caveats aside, the focus of this study rests squarely on the religious attitudes and behaviour of the many hundreds of thousands of British-born officers and other ranks who served in Britain’s regular army from the War of the Spanish Succession to the outbreak of the First World War.

Chapter 1

T H E S O L D I ER , R E L I G I O N A N D THE RISE OF METHODISM, 1702–93

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The army and society E S P I T E I T S V I C T O R I E S under the Duke of Marlborough, the British army did not find itself a popular institution after the Treaty of Utrecht brought Britain’s involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession to an end in 1713. Although relieved of meeting the costs of hugely inflated Army and Ordnance votes, the British public felt little affection for their country’s standing army, however many laurels it may have won. The problem, of course, was not simply a fiscal one. For the half century following 1714, Britain’s standing army was the armed guarantor of the Hanoverian succession and, until well into the nineteenth century, it was regarded as the government’s ultimate means of suppressing civilian unrest at home. If this dual role was unpopular enough, the army also lived in the long and uncomfortable shadow of the constitutional upheavals of the seventeenth century, the army having served as an instrument of tyranny under Oliver Cromwell and James II. In fact, its potential to become once again a bulwark for despotism was regarded as the greatest risk in maintaining a standing army, a conviction which inflamed annual parliamentary debates over the army estimates and the Mutiny Act.1 In the eyes of Tories and of many Country Whigs, the army’s despotic nature inhered in the draconian system of military justice which the Mutiny Act sanctioned, a system which was viewed as prejudicial to the liberties of an Englishman. Because of these suspicions, the size of the army was a highly sensitive issue in British politics, a factor which helped to keep it small by the standards of other European powers.2 In the relatively peaceful years of 1715–39, the British army numbered on average only 35,000 men, a size which rendered it comparable to the army of the

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THE SOLDIER, RELIGION AND THE RISE OF METHODISM

distinctly second-rate kingdom of Sardinia.3 Even at a local level, the army was subject to firm civilian control and supervision. Soldiers were largely accountable to the civil law and civilian magistrates not only directed the deployment of troops in times of civil emergency but also regulated the army’s ordinary billeting and recruitment procedures.4 Despite its unpopularity, the British army served as an important integrative force for the disparate peoples of the British Isles during the period 1688–1815, decades so dominated by war with France that the period has even been dubbed the ‘Second Hundred Years War’.5 For the less affluent Scottish and Irish gentry in particular, the importance of the army was immense. By the 1740s, a third of army officers were of Scottish or Irish extraction. By the time of the American War of Independence, the Scots and the Irish had come to predominate, 27 per cent of all officers being Scottish and 31 per cent Irish.6 This ethnic diversity was also apparent among the rank and file, although here the English (and Welsh) remained in a majority. In the mid-1770s, they comprised approximately 60 per cent of the army’s NCOs and private soldiers, 24 per cent being Scottish and the remaining 16 per cent Irish.7 The army was, indeed, very much aware of its own ethnic diversity, its regiments routinely honouring the saints’ days of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.8 In Gibraltar in 1727 one observer noted how, on St Andrew’s Day: a Scottish gentleman, bearing the dignity of a serjeant, dressed in Highland manner . . . made his appearance before Lord Portmore [the Governor] and had the liberty to have the bagpipes to attend him and his retinue in honour of the day. But some unlucky Welch wags, envying the gallantry of Sawney, dug a hole in a part of the town which covered the common sewer, which bonny Jocky had the good luck to descend into and marred his plaid and bonnet. This unlooked for accident spoiled the evening’s illuminations.9 In a happier vein, the lonely garrison of Annapolis, Nova Scotia, marked St Patrick’s Day 1758 ‘with great chearfulness and good humour; the colours were hoisted, and the soldiers, natives of Ireland, had one shilling each advanced to them, the British taking the guards for them, as is alternately practised on these festivals’.10 However, in view of the political tensions of the age, the diversity of the army also had more serious implications and considerable attention was devoted to monitoring the national profile of the army’s constituent regiments.11 The potential for conflicts of loyalty was vividly illustrated in December 1745, when Adam Ferguson, the regimental chaplain of the Black

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Watch (then Murray’s Highlanders), preached a sermon in Gaelic to the officers and men of the regiment which was encamped at Camberwell awaiting the Jacobite descent upon London. Taking as his text 2 Sam. 10: 12, ‘Be of good Courage, and let us play the Men for our People, and for the Cities of our God’, Ferguson reminded these Highlanders (whose reliability appears to have been seriously in doubt)12 of their duty to the Hanoverian regime: ‘Remember’, he admonished, ‘you are Men sworn to defend your Country . . . If you oppose your Acquaintances, it is to prevent their Ruin: If you oppose your Relations, it is to save them and their Posterity from Slavery for ever’.13 If the existence of the Jacobite menace gave rise to well-grounded suspicions as to the loyalty of its Highland soldiers, relations between the army’s national groups were not always amicable either, a situation which reflected broader ethnic tensions in eighteenth-century British society.14 At Inverness in 1746, for example, fighting broke out between English and Scottish soldiers after the execution of a Scottish-born rebel and deserter from the government army, a quarrel which was only brought to an end through the personal intervention of the Duke of Cumberland.15 The army and religion Given the religious geography of the new United Kingdom of England and Scotland, and the existence of established Episcopal and Presbyterian churches on either side of the Scottish border, the army’s ethnic diversity almost demanded a pragmatic spirit of religious tolerance among army officers. Many officers deliberately sought to avoid controversy by attending the established church of the kingdom in which they were stationed. Thus, James Wolfe, the future hero of Quebec, attended Church of Scotland services while in Edinburgh during the late 1740s, concluding from this experience that ‘the generality of Scotch preachers’ were ‘excessive blockheads . . . truly and obstinately dull’.16 However, by the 1770s it also appears to have been common practice to allow Protestant Dissenters the ‘reasonable privilege’ of attending their own places of worship when the opportunity arose, these soldiers being paraded separately for church on the Sabbath.17 Such latitude in religious matters was not always welcome, however, and was viewed as pernicious by certain parties. During the Seven Years War, William Agar, the Anglican regimental chaplain of the 20th Regiment, remonstrated with its officers for attitudes and behaviour which defied the terms of the English Test Act of 1673. However, by this time the religious tests imposed by this Act were largely unenforceable in a military context. Besides the passage of recurrent Indemnity Acts (which extended the period by which officers were required to receive communion in an Anglican church, make the declaration

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against transubstantiation and swear the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to the crown), nobody was actually directed by the Test Act to ensure that its terms were met.18 As J.R. Western observed, the system ‘almost invited slackness’ and it is likely that many officers ignored it altogether. Certainly, this appears to have been the case in the 20th Regiment, as Agar was at pains to point out: [We are] obliged to take the Test or Sacrament six Months after we receive our Commission, or else be void. And sorry I am to find this very often neglected, that many of our younger Officers at least never received the Sacrament at all; a matter worthy [of] Attention . . .19 In this respect, Agar was no doubt challenging systematic abuses as well as simple neglect. The career of Samuel Bagshawe, a well-connected English Presbyterian, shows that he was able to obtain successive commissions in infantry regiments on the Irish establishment in the 1740s notwithstanding his known Dissenting sympathies.20 Besides encouraging a certain forbearance among Protestants, military service even became a means of redemption for British Catholics as well.21 In theory, Catholics were debarred by the English, Scottish and Irish Test Acts from serving as army officers. Furthermore, throughout this period it was also incumbent upon English and Scottish recruits to attest their Protestantism on enlistment. However, as early as the Nine Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession, offers were being made to British Catholic officers then serving the French and Spanish Bourbons to defect in exchange for commissions in the armies of Britain’s Catholic allies or in auxiliary regiments maintained by Britain.22 Quite apart from these enticements to Catholic gentlemen, the evidence would suggest that, from as early as the 1740s, plebeian Irish Catholics were being widely (if illegally) recruited into marine and colonial regiments as well as into regiments on the Irish establishment.23 One reason which has been advanced for the flight of Colonel James Gardiner’s regiment of dragoons at Prestonpans was that it had been stationed in Ireland until 1743 and its Catholic troopers had no stomach for closing with the Jacobite rebels.24 A chronic shortage of manpower ensured that, during the Seven Years War, large numbers of Irish and even Scottish Catholics were present in the ranks and an Irish deserter who was executed in 1756 was suspected of being a Catholic priest.25 However irregular this situation may have been, the introduction of a new oath of allegiance by the Dublin parliament in 1774 eased and extended the recruitment of Catholics in Ireland and, in its wake, the impoverished Irish quarters of London became rich recruiting grounds for the army.26 Given the manpower requirements of the

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Seven Years War, leading Catholics came to view soldiering for the British state as an ideal means of demonstrating Catholic loyalty and of obtaining legislative relief from the penal laws. In 1762, two Irish Catholic peers proposed that the Irish parliament authorise the raising of a ‘Roman Legion’ of several regiments of Catholics for service in Portugal.27 Although this idea came to nothing, by the outbreak of the American War of Independence, Irish Catholics were being recruited in ever-increasing numbers and even Catholic gentlemen could obtain commissions by this time, a subterfuge which relied on their own discretion and on the connivance of their fellow officers.28 However, the British army of the eighteenth century was in theory – and to a certain extent in practice – a Protestant institution. Notwithstanding a ban dating from 1701 on the recruitment of Irish Protestants (one which was born of a prudent desire to safeguard Protestant numbers in Ireland) this ban was repeatedly waived prior to 1774 in order to avert the still less desirable expedient of recruiting Irish Catholics.29 Indeed, and despite the abandonment of this position, the army was still sufficiently identified with Protestant exclusivism for the Catholic Bishop of Cashel to brand the wearing of a red coat ‘a badge of Protestantism’ as late as 1781.30 Given the Catholicism of the French, the Spanish and the exiled House of Stuart, British soldiers could express strong anti-Catholic sentiments and the army could even attract some Protestant zealots into its ranks. Following the capture of Gibraltar in 1704, Catholic shrines were systematically plundered and, during the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745–6, Catholics in England and Scotland fell victim to sustained military harassment. In North America during the Seven Years War, British soldiers widely detested French missionary priests as leaders of Canadian and Indian resistance.31 By this time (and no doubt encouraged by Britain’s alliance with Protestant Prussia against Catholic France and Austria) some militant Protestants were enlisting in order to lend a hand in the farflung battle against popery. Partly because of his loathing of Rome, the Welsh revivalist, Howell Harris, joined the Breconshire Militia in 1759. In the same year, one of his confederates wrote to Harris from Canada, speaking of a personal ‘longing to give a blow to Popery’.32 Even during the American War of Independence, when the army’s most implacable foes were rebellious Protestant colonists (and when the Protestant character of the army was being diluted by the large-scale recruitment of Irish Catholics) an anti-Catholic animus could still surface in certain quarters. Some delinquent soldiers who were tried following the anti-Catholic Gordon riots of 1780 pleaded in their defence that they had loyally served their country against its popish enemies.33 Despite all of this, key military and imperial considerations very much required that Catholic allies be respected and conquered Catholics conciliated.

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Consequently, the army’s commanders rarely indulged in gratuitous displays of anti-Catholic zeal. Ironically, and despite the retribution visited on (illegal) Catholic chapels in 1745–6, many of the Dutch auxiliaries who served in the UK under treaty in 1745–6 were Roman Catholics.34 Furthermore, when serving abroad, senior British officers were careful not to give unnecessary offence to their Catholic allies. As early as the 1690s, a Cameronian chaplain fell foul of the military authorities in Bruges after preaching an anti-Catholic sermon.35 Likewise, half a century later, and again in Bruges, LieutenantGeneral Sir Thomas Howard issued orders against British soldiers behaving irreverently in Catholic churches, directing them to stand and doff their hats should they meet with a procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the streets of the city.36 Although the need to spare continental allies unnecessary offence informed such a policy in the Spanish (later Austrian) Netherlands, in the Mediterranean and in North America, imperial interests came to dictate a punctilious regard for Catholic sensitivities and helped to define the behaviour of the army. Under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, freedom of worship was guaranteed to Catholic Gibraltarians and the same guarantee was also made to French Canadians in the articles of capitulation for Quebec and Montreal in 1759 and 1760. Such was the policy of conciliation the army came to pursue in New France that standing orders to the British garrison of Quebec in November 1759 stated: When any [Catholic] processions are made in the public streets, it is ordered that the Officers pay them the compliment of the hat, because it is a civility due to the people who have chosen to live under the protection of our laws; should this piece of ceremony be repugnant to the consciences of any one, they must retire, when the procession approaches.37 Whereas smaller and more vulnerable colonies of French Catholics had suffered deportation from Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island and the island of St Jean in the earlier and more desperate stages of the Seven Years War,38 relations between British soldiers and the colonists of New France could become unsettlingly close after its conquest. Following the fall of Quebec, one French priest had to be banned from a British military hospital for attempting to proselytise among its patients. Likewise, and after the capture of Montreal, an Anglican clergyman, the Revd Samuel Bennet, noted with alarm that the soldiers of the garrison ‘frequently marry with French Women, & for want of Protestant Clergymen are obliged to have recourse to Romish Priests to baptise their Children’.39 In addition to the army’s awkward constitutional standing and its apparent confessional laxity, its image in civilian eyes was complicated by widely felt

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concerns as to its moral condition – profanity, lewdness, gambling and drunkenness being the sins most commonly associated with soldiers.40 Famously encapsulated by Edmund Burke’s disparaging reference to Britain’s ‘rapacious and licentious soldiery’,41 a universally low opinion of the common soldier could unite Christians of all persuasions, even in the troubled years of the 1740s. While billeted as an unwilling conscript on a Catholic innkeeper at York in 1744, the Methodist itinerant preacher, John Nelson, was consoled by his Catholic hosts with the words, ‘It is a pity you should come among such a wicked crew as these we have; for there are but few like them in the world’. Much to Nelson’s surprise, his unlikely sympathisers gave him a room and bed of his own, away from the contaminating influences of eight fellow soldiers.42 It was, in fact, indicative of the milieu into which he had entered that the editor of a hostile newspaper pronounced on the news of Nelson’s impressment: ‘If the intention of his Preaching was really to reform Mankind, he can hardly have a better opportunity of exercising his Talent than amongst the new Recruits’.43 Similar reservations about the army were shared north of the border. In 1755, the Presbytery of Mull aired its concerns as to the pernicious influence of a local garrison, complaining that: the Soldiers garrisoned at Dowart Castle in Mull being always destitute of Gospel Ordinances do generally Straggle on the Sabbath Days which is not only offensive to the more Serious Sort of the People but pernitious in its Consequences to the more inconsiderate who Catch the Example and are led away from minding the Concerns of that Day.44 That contemporaries should have seen soldiers as predisposed to vice and irreligion was a function of two important aspects of military life. Firstly, there was the perceived calibre of the army’s ordinary recruits and, secondly, there was the fact that soldiering tore the recruit away from certain moral and religious constraints which were widely felt in civilian life. Although parliament resorted to forms of conscription at times of grave national danger and implemented the highly controversial principle of compulsory service by ballot in the Militia Act of 1757, 45 the rank and file of the regular British army was predominantly composed of volunteers, the army being widely regarded as the last resort of the most feckless, dissolute and wretched members of civilian society. As the London Spy trenchantly put it in 1700, the soldier was ‘generally beloved by two sorts of Companion . . . whores and lice . . . both these Vermin are great admirers of a Scarlet Coat’.46 Such judgements were, no doubt, overly harsh. Sylvia Frey, for example, has shown that economic motives for enlistment meant that most common

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soldiers at the time of the American War of Independence were not criminals but ‘men of respectable origins, decent by birth and character’.47 Moreover, civilian scorn was liable to soften during time of war, when soldiers and their families attracted the sympathy of patriotic philanthropists.48 Nevertheless, the army never shed its image as a refuge for the worst and most desperate elements of civilian society. The view of many contemporaries as to the principal stimulus for enlistment was epitomised in Daniel Defoe’s nostrum that ‘In winter, the poor starve, thieve, or turn soldier’,49 and poverty was no doubt the strongest incentive for enlistment throughout the eighteenth century. Despite the severe discipline and extreme hazards of army life, it at least furnished the recruit with bounty money, food, shelter and clothing and also afforded him plenty of spare time in which to find supplementary employment as a labourer or artisan.50 Furthermore, soldiers at least received proper medical care and, in the case of old age or incapacity, they had a reasonable chance of receiving a pension or of being taken into one of the army’s invalid companies. Besides appealing to the destitute, the army also served as a refuge for the criminal. Although some enlightened colonels were wary of recruiting men of bad character,51 it was not unknown for convicted felons to join the army in order to cheat the gallows.52 The soldier’s lot also proved attractive for lesser delinquents because of the immunity from a range of legal liabilities which enlistment bestowed. For example, it was not until the 1870s that serving soldiers were obliged to pay maintenance to their wives and for any children they may have fathered, legitimately or otherwise. Likewise, and until the Mutiny Act of 1851, the army offered protection for a host of petty offenders, notably fraudsters and debtors.53 Besides all of this, soldiering also served as an attractive proposition for those footloose characters who yearned for the sort of adventure which civilian life could not give them, an echo of which can be detected in Dr Johnson’s assertion that ‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.’54 It was with all of these considerations in mind that William Agar reminded the soldiers of the 20th Regiment why they should be extremely thankful for their lot: Think with yourselves, how many of you, by your Indiscretion and youthful Folly, had rendered yourselves unfit for the Business your Friends intended you; think how many of you, out of idleness and Sloth, Lewdness and Intemperance, would not earn your Bread by the Sweat of your Brows; nay, I fear that many were drove to this last Shift to serve your Prince, or almost starve. How then can you be too faithful to that generous Sovereign, who when you was

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hungry fed you, when you was naked, cloathed you, when you was sick, visited you, when you was destitute of Friend and Fortune, took you into his Protection, as the Father took the prodigal Son, or as your Creator receives the repenting Sinner. Look back on those who were fixed nearly in the same State with you by Fortune, some toiling from light to dark at Plough or Flail, tired to Extremity, scarce able to walk to their dirty Cottages, and forced to feed on coarse black Bread, glad to satisfy Nature with far coarser Food than any of you ever here see; many of them reduced by accidental Loss of Limbs, drove to the Mercy of a Parish, and scarce able to preserve Life, by the Interposition of the Magistrate; ought not you then to be content with your Wages, who have Houses found you, Cloaths, Shoes, and Necessaries, and many allowed also to work at your Callings, besides your Subsistence?55 In addition to the dubious human material from which the rank and file of the army was largely recruited, its unenviable image was also due to the fact that its soldiers had, by virtue of their enlistment, cut themselves adrift from some key religious structures and influences. The peripatetic nature of regimental life placed soldiers among those migratory groups over whom the ecclesiastical courts had seldom exercised any real control. For many Scottish recruits, enlistment offered an escape from the supervision of the kirk session and reduced the odds of being brought to account for sins such as adultery, fornication, swearing and sabbath-breaking.56 This may also have been true, especially for the earlier part of the century, of recruits from those parts of England and Wales where the correction courts of the Church of England continued to function with a degree of efficiency. If recruits were also torn away from the restraining influences of their pastors and their families, for many recruits from rural England and Wales separation from their native parishes also entailed an estrangement from those local customs and identities which centred on the parish church and which were so much a part of popular Anglicanism at this time.57 Indeed, it is conceivable that the sense of communal and religious identity which rushbearings and parish feasts fostered in civilian life were consciously replicated in the army by the celebration of national saints’ days. Whether or not this was the case, the local and domestic structures, influences and customs which commonly affected civilians were often wholly lacking in the army, soldiers being abandoned instead to the uncertain care of military chaplains and to the accidental influence of pious comrades and superior officers. In 1709, Jonathan Swift compared the piety and morals of ordinary soldiers to that of ‘handicraftmen, small traders, servants, and the like’, asserting that

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the depravity of ‘the vulgar, especially in great towns’ was greatly exceeded by that of the soldiery: [It] is observed abroad [he wrote] that no race of mortals hath so little sense of religion as the English soldiers; to confirm which, I have been often told by great officers of the army, that in the whole compass of their acquaintance they could not recollect three of their profession who seemed to regard or believe one syllable of the gospel . . .58 Similarly, in the second part of his Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion of 1745, John Wesley pronounced that: ‘soldier’s religion’ is a byword, even with those who have no religion at all . . . vice and profaneness in every shape reign among them without control . . . the whole tenor of their behaviour speaks, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ [1 Cor. 15: 32]59 Such negative views were not only held by clerical moralists of a Tory disposition. In 1708, John Blackader, a devout Presbyterian officer of the Cameronian regiment, lamented in his journal that ‘We are so far from knowing a Sabbath, or seeing any marks of it here, that it is more like hell that day than on any other’.60 Half a century later, the godly colonists of New England were shocked by the profane habits of regular soldiers sent to North America during the Seven Years War.61 Even officers could be nonplussed by the impiety of their men. At the height of the siege of Gibraltar of 1779–83, Samuel Ancell, an officer of the 58th Regiment, noted how even the constant proximity of death failed to stir the religious consciousness of a soldier known as Jack Careless: ‘But, Jack’, says I, ‘are you not thankful to God, for your preservation?’ ‘How do you mean?’ he answered. ‘Fine talking of God with a soldier, whose trade and occupation is cutting throats: Divinity and slaughter sound very well together, they jingle like a crack’d bell in the hands of a noisy crier: Our King is answerable to God for us. I fight for him. My religion consists in a fire-lock, open touch-hole, good flint, well-rammed charge, and seventy rounds of powder and ball. This is my military creed.’62 It was not, however, only the common soldier who was seen as being woefully deficient in piety and morals. By the beginning of the eighteenth

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century, the character of the swaggering gentleman-at-arms was already a popular stereotype and regimental officers throughout this period were widely suspected of quarrelsomeness, profligacy, cruelty and peculation.63 Again, there was more than a little substance to these perceptions. In a journal entry of October 1707, Colonel Blackader wrote: I am like a speckled bird among most of the officers of the army, but if it be for righteousness sake that I am reproached, hated, or ill spoken of, I desire to esteem myself happy; for really it is a better sign to have the ill-will and hatred of most of this army, than their love and good-will.64 Nor, in later years, was the officer corps of George I and George II a likely place to find a soldier-saint. On the contrary, by 1720 Swift was convinced that Deists were mainly to be found among drunken squires, ‘idle town fops’ and ‘among the worst part of the soldiery, made up of pages, younger brothers of obscure families and others of desperate fortunes’.65 In 1732, Bernard Mandeville asserted that ‘very few’ army officers were ‘possess’d of many Christian Virtues, or would be fond of the Character’66 and in 1747 the Independent minister, Philip Doddridge, concurred that the life of a young army officer was peculiarly subject to ‘those vanities by which the generality of our youth . . . are debased, enervated and undone’.67 At the time of the Seven Years War, William Agar was particularly concerned by the readiness with which officers evaded public prayers, pleading: let me now soberly appeal to the youngest, the gayest, the most indifferent of my Hearers around me, whether on Attendance on our Duty on the Sabbath, in this serene open Air . . . you have not a sweet Complacence of Heart, more than if you had neglected this Duty to God, and gone sauntering on your Pleasures, or often I fear pretended accidental Business?68 If their indifference to religious ordinances vexed Agar, it was the language of his fellow officers which caused most offence to Jonathan Scott in 1766, when Scott complained that ‘there [sic] whole Conversation consists only in idle vain Nonsense larded with horrid Oaths and filthy Obscenity’.69 Furthermore, towards the end of the century, Deism was once again fashionable in the officer corps. Andrew Burn, an evangelical marine officer who ended his career in the army, averred that ‘during the course of a long service . . . many of my brother officers, men of good sense and of a liberal education, were stormed or surprised out of their religion by their deistical

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companions’.70 This experience led Burn to publish his Christian Officer’s Panoply in 1789, his purpose being to help those officers ‘who have just sentiments of religion . . . defend themselves against the daily attacks of military deists and infidels, who are but too numerous in that line, and too successful in gaining proselytes to their party’.71 It may be a function of the trenchancy of such verdicts that the subject of soldiers’ religion has failed to excite historians of eighteenth-century Britain. Unlike the religion of the eighteenth-century British sailor, which has been studied by Marcus Rediker and Peter Earle,72 the religion of the British soldier remains a largely unknown and unrecognised quantity. While certain doctoral theses have tentatively explored Catholic penetration of the army and Methodist life at Gibraltar, these offer only partial insights into a much broader subject.73 Furthermore, and whatever its other merits, a unique article by Paul Kopperman failed to recognise the profound impact of the evangelical revival upon the British army as a whole.74 More recently, and in his otherwise compelling study of the British army in North America during the Seven Years War, Stephen Brumwell devoted less than two pages to the subject of religion before concluding that the Church of England had little influence upon this ‘unruly congregation’ and that ‘the British Army in North America was clearly unripe for religious awakening’.75 However, and notwithstanding its vaunted irreligion, the British army was the principal bulwark of an avowedly Protestant state and was subject to a number of statutory regulations which governed its religious composition and behaviour. As we have noted, until a new dispensation was implemented in Ireland in 1774, all new recruits were required, in theory at least, to attest their Protestantism upon enlistment. However, historians and contemporaries alike have dismissed religious zeal as a contributory factor to the British army’s fighting abilities, a situation which stands at variance with the situation elsewhere in Europe – notably in the armies of Sweden, Russia, Prussia and Spain.76 R.E. Scouller averred of the army of Queen Anne that ‘Well-drilled hardy files of muskets were more thought of in Flanders and Spain than soldiery of inspired faith’ and that these ‘did not call for an especially righteous body of psalm singers’.77 The contemporary commentator, Richard Steele, also failed to detect any religious factors at work in the conduct of Marlborough’s British soldiery, invoking group spirit and his subjects’ limited imaginations in order to explain the absence of fear which he thought prevailed among them. According to Steele, the valour of his country’s soldiers sprang from ‘a certain mechanick Courage which the ordinary Race of Men become Masters of from acting always in a Crowd’, their bravery being fortified by the assurance that ‘short Labours or Dangers are but a cheap Purchase of

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Jollity, Triumph, Victory, fresh Quarters, new Scenes, and uncommon Adventures’.78 Similarly, and fifty years later, Samuel Johnson, in his essay on ‘The bravery of the English common soldiers’, ascribed their courage to a thoroughly secular sense of self-esteem among Englishmen of the lower orders, a self-regard which usually translated itself into insolence and insubordination in civilian life.79 Despite Kopperman’s argument that the army’s failure to promote religion was detrimental to its soldiers’ ‘motivation and discipline’,80 the fact that religious faith should have done so little to inspire Britain’s soldiers was probably more reassuring than otherwise to their civilian contemporaries, many being painfully aware of the havoc wrought by the godly Parliamentarian soldiery of the mid-seventeenth century. Memories of the New Model Army could prove unsettling even for professional soldiers, the Methodist soldierpreacher Duncan Wright recalling how, during the Seven Years War, one of his own officers told him that he ‘feared what our enthusiasm would turn to, and mentioned Cromwell, who could preach and pray one part of the day, and kill and plunder the other’.81 In 1732 Bernard Mandeville explored the value of military piety in his An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War. In this little-known essay, which took the form of a dialogue between two fictional characters named Horatio and Cleomenes, Mandeville tackled the question of whether ‘the best Christians make the best Soldiers’, a view which had been popularised by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden a century earlier in his dictum: ‘The best Christian is always the best Soldier; the more of Prayer in my army, the more of Victory’.82 Apparently, and for Mandeville at least, they did not, for most of the discussion was devoted to Cleomenes’ refutation of Horatio’s claim that he had ‘heard it from experienc’d Officers, that the most virtuous, the soberest, and the most civiliz’d Fellows make the best Soldiers, and were those whom they could most depend upon’.83 In reply to this observation, Cleomenes argued that those who made this claim generally had the English and French civil wars uppermost in their minds.84 However, in Britain’s more recent wars against Louis XIV it was undeniable that: if not the major, at least a very considerable Part of our best Troops, that had the greatest Share in the Victories we obtain’d, [were] made up of loose and immoral, if not debauch’d and wicked Fellows . . . Jayl-birds, Rogues, who had been guilty of the worst of Crimes, and some that had been saved from the Gallows to recruit our Forces, did on many Occasions, both in Spain and Flanders, fight with as much Intrepidity, and were as indefatigable, as the most Virtuous amongst them . . .85

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In the eyes of Cleomenes, piety was distinctly superfluous to the business of making a good soldier.86 Rather than seeing a soldier’s courage as a corollary of a soldier’s piety, Cleomenes maintained that courage was a function of a soldier’s vanity, a vanity fortified by the fearsome sanctions of military discipline:87 I can easily conceive, how the Wearing of a Sword and Regimental Cloaths, and always conversing with resolute and well disciplin’d Men, among whom Arms and Gallantry are in the highest esteem, might so far encrease a wicked Fellow’s Pride, that he should wish to be brave, and in a few Months think nothing more really dreadful than to be thought a Coward. The Fear of Shame may act as powerfully upon bad Men, as it can upon good . . .88 In fact, so Cleomenes maintained, the whole tenor of army life sought to foster this ‘passion of Self-liking in Men’,89 from the smartness and cleanliness of the rank and file to the conduct of their officers and chaplains on the day of battle: The Men are prais’d and bouy’d up in the high Value they have for themselves: Their Officers call them Gentlemen and FellowSoldiers; Generals pull off their Hats to them; and no Artifice is neglected that can flatter their Pride, or inspire them with the Love of Glory. The Clergy themselves take Care at such Times, not to mention to them their Sins, or any Thing that is melancholy or disheartening: On the Contrary, they speak chearfully to them, encourage and assure them of God’s Favour.90 In short, and as in Mandeville’s views on economics and philanthropy, considerations of human vanity and self-interest were paramount to understanding the issue in hand. Moreover, and as Cleomenes wisely cautioned, one only had to look at the Parliamentarian armies of the Civil War era to appreciate the undesirability of a pious body of soldiers, for ‘any Number of Troops may, by crafty Declamations and other Arts, be made Zealots and Enthusiasts, that shall fight and pray, sing Psalms one Hour and demolish an Hospital the next’.91 Despite widely shared assumptions as to the lack of religion among British soldiers in the eighteenth century, the regulations which were intended to ensure at least a show of piety among them remained very much in force. Indeed, for some who had been exposed to the various constraints of army life, its whole temper was conducive to the promotion of personal piety.

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Sergeant Roger Lamb, an Irish veteran of the American War of Independence, claimed that ‘The salutary restraints and strict submission which the military economy demand, gradually prove effective to render a considerable part of the soldiery not only moral, but truly pious’.92 In a similar vein, in the 1750s William Agar had reminded the soldiers of the 20th Regiment: If you do well, you are rewarded and advanced; if you do ill, you are chastised; and you ought to thank God for enlisting you into this School of Discipline, to bring you to a Sense of yourselves, both in Manners and Morals, teaching you Sobriety, Order, Honesty, and saving many of you from a shameful Fate in this World, and your Souls, I hope, from the Jaws of eternal Perdition.93 However, the welfare of the soldier’s soul was intended to be more than just a by-product of the smack of firm government for the very first article of the 1718 Articles of War stipulated that ‘All Officers and Soldiers, not having just Impediment, shall diligently frequent Divine Service, and Sermon, in such Places as shall be appointed for the Regiment, Troop, or Company, to which they belong’. Those officers who absented themselves, or who behaved irreverently during the service, were liable to a reprimand before a court martial, while private soldiers guilty of the same misconduct were to be fined a shilling for their first offence and fined and put in irons for their second.94 Subsequent articles went on to prohibit the sale of goods by sutlers during divine service, the swearing of oaths and execrations, all forms of blasphemy and the profanation of places of worship. Even doctrinal heterodoxy was forbidden, as was violence towards chaplains or, for that matter, ‘any other Minister of God’s Word’. In these matters, the Articles of 1718 were only reinforcing established custom, their terms echoing in spirit (and, to a very large extent, in detail) Articles of War dating back to 1639.95 That officers and soldiers were to be left in no doubt as to what their religious obligations were was the purpose behind the last Article of War, which stipulated that the Articles in their entirety be: read and published at the head of every Regiment, Troop, and Company . . . once every Two Months at farthest; and are to be observed by all Officers and Soldiers in our Service; and also by our Companies of Gunners, and other Military Officers of our Trains of Artillery. In order to ensure that the religious requirements of the Articles of War could be fulfilled, each regiment was entitled to its own chaplain. Chaplains’

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commissions were in the first instance in the gift of regimental colonels but, like other regimental commissions, they could be sold on in the lifetime of their owners. As befitted the spirit and terms of the Act of Union, from 1707 regimental chaplains were ordained clergy of either the Church of England or the Church of Scotland, although some clergy of the Scottish Episcopal church also served in this capacity.96 According to an order issued to regiments on the Irish establishment in 1697, chaplains were to be unbeneficed clergy who could provide episcopal corroboration of their ‘Learning, and Pious Life and Conversation’. They were to reside with their regiments and to divide their time equally between their component parts if dispersed. Essentially, the chaplain’s duties were to read public prayers every day (except in places where these were already read by the parish minister), to catechise the regiment every week and to administer Holy Communion at least four times a year. Besides these functions, chaplains were expected to keep a close eye on the conduct of officers and men, to reprove and exhort where necessary and to report ‘Incorrigible persons’ to a higher authority. As the order concluded: if they conscientiously discharge their Duties, as becomes their Holy Character; they will not only Recommend themselves to his Majesties Favour, but procure such Reverence from the Army, that ‘tis hoped their Godly Admonitions, and Instructions may become Effectual, to the general Reformation of the Souldiers.97 Besides these duties, other evidence also shows that chaplains could be called upon to officiate at military marriages and funerals and to perform other pastoral duties such as visiting the sick and attending prisoners who had been condemned to death.98 However, the system of regimental chaplaincy proved to be woefully deficient in the long term. Despite evidence that the regiments of Marlborough’s day were fairly well served by their chaplains (no fewer than thirteen regimental chaplains were present at the battle of Blenheim in 1704) 99 the system was in chronic decline throughout most of the eighteenth century. The eighteenth-century Church of England was notorious for pluralism and non-residence among its parish clergy, and these abuses seem to have translated themselves into army life as beneficed clergy secured remunerative chaplaincies for themselves. At a time when the possession of a number of good livings was seen as a proper reward for the able and well-connected clergyman,100 and when habits of absenteeism were rife among other regimental officers in any case,101 it was perhaps inevitable that pluralism and absenteeism should have been so prevalent among regimental chaplains. This

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problem was no doubt exacerbated by the inherent dangers of campaigning and by the financial interests of regimental colonels, who stood to gain by appropriating the pay of absentee chaplains.102 Absenteeism was no less common among chaplains of the Church of Scotland. Alexander Dow, in his history of Scottish military chaplains prior to the Crimean War, estimated that almost half of all clergymen who held chaplaincies in Scottish regular or Fencible regiments during the latter half of the eighteenth century were parish ministers, their twofold commitment being highly conducive to absenteeism.103 Although it was possible for a chaplain to appoint a deputy, it is likely that this practice became less common as the value of a chaplain’s pay (a steady 6s 8d per day)104 was eroded by inflation over the course of the century. Despite repeated attempts on the part of general officers to recall them to their regiments, the problem of absentee chaplains grew steadily worse. The Revd John Gamble appears to have been the only regimental chaplain to have accompanied and remained with the Duke of York’s expedition to Flanders in 1793 and understandable fears of its fever-ridden destination were sufficient to ensure that not a single regimental chaplain came forward to accompany Sir Ralph Abercromby’s 33,000-strong expedition to the Caribbean in 1795.105 Lay and literary influences Despite the serious shortcomings of the chaplaincy system, there were other means of meeting the spiritual needs of the soldier. Firstly, occasional help could be gleaned from civilian clergymen who were willing to volunteer it. During his voyage from England to Georgia in 1738, the young George Whitefield assumed the duties of a chaplain to the soldiers on board a convoy of three ships bound for the colonies. Whitefield not only preached and read prayers on all three vessels, but also visited the sick, conducted burials, catechised, baptised, conducted marriage services and distributed religious literature among his ‘Red-coat parishioners’.106 In the course of his ministry, Whitefield was greatly assisted by a number of well-disposed officers, and particularly by a Captain McKay, who suggested texts for sermons and who seemed to Whitefield to be ‘in earnest about the great work of his salvation’.107 McKay’s example illustrates a second important source of spiritual assistance for soldiers at this time, namely pious army officers. At Gibraltar, Whitefield was gratified to find that the piety of the garrison’s most senior officers, Governor Sabine and General Columbine, had a salutary effect on officers and men alike and he concluded from their example that ‘Religion is likely to go on well, when both the civil and ecclesiastical powers are engaged in keeping up the purity of it’.108 Given the common

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and even usual absence of a chaplain, some officers went to great lengths to ensure that their men’s spiritual duties were not forgotten and Captain John Knox of the 43rd Regiment recalled of its voyage to North America in June 1757: [The] duty of Chaplain was performed by an Officer, who read the service of the church every Sunday upon deck, when the weather permitted; and was very decently attended by the greatest part of the men and women on board . . . The Master of our ship, who was a very sober moral man, always attended divine service with great decorum, and answered the responses with much devotion; but, if unfortunately (which was sometimes the case) the attention of the man at the helm was diverted from his duty, and consequently the ship yawed in the wind, or perhaps was taken a-back, our son of Neptune interrupted our prayers with some of the ordinary profane language of the common sailors, which immediately following a response of the Litany, provoked some of our people to laugh . . .109 If such officers were indulging their personal foibles, then they were only following the good example of some of the greatest British commanders of their day. During the War of the Spanish Succession, the Duke of Marlborough’s insistence that his soldiers pay a due regard to their spiritual duties had contributed much to his reputation as a general. Marlborough himself partook of Holy Communion prior to his attack on the French and Bavarian positions in and around Blenheim, afterwards mounting his horse and declaring ‘This day I conquer or die’.110 Nor were the devotions of his soldiers neglected on the same occasion. Josiah Sandby, who was then chaplain and secretary to Marlborough’s brother, General Charles Churchill, recalled that ‘[H]is Grace gave orders that all the Chaplains shou’d say prayers, at the head of their respective Regiments, and implore the blessing of God upon this great undertaking’.111 If Marlborough was careful to seek the help of God, he was equally careful in returning thanks for the same. Following the capture of the Schellenberg Heights some weeks before Blenheim, Sandby noted how: After the gaining of so great a Victory as this, the D[uke] . . . could not but have it in his thoughts immediately to attribute all the glory of it to Almighty God, to whom it was so visibly due. He order’d therefore that the next Sunday shou’d be solemnly observ’d as a day of Thanksgiving throughout the Army.112

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Marlborough’s reputation for piety proved remarkably enduring. In 1744, a published letter addressed by a pious friend to a colonel who was then serving with the army in Flanders pictured Marlborough ‘retired in his Tent, prostrate before the God of Battles, and by a solemn Commemoration of his Saviour’s Sufferings, fortifying his Soul against every Extremity’.113 Moreover, and writing more than a century after his celebrated victories, a veteran of the Peninsular War hailed Marlborough as ‘an example of Christian valour’, basing this assertion on some idealised assumptions as to the moral and religious standards which had prevailed in his armies.114 Although a less celebrated figure than Marlborough, the Duke of Cumberland also paid a good deal of attention to the piety and morals of his soldiers, Methodists in particular having good reason to be grateful for Cumberland’s disposition in this respect. On one occasion while Commanderin-Chief, Cumberland was requested to put an end to Methodist meetings among the common soldiery. After hearing one soldier-preacher ‘engaged in prayer, and earnestly entreating God on behalf of the King and all the Royal Family’, the Duke was reputed to have said, ‘I would to God that all the soldiers in the British army were like these men.’115 Although John Wesley’s suggestion that Cumberland experienced some kind of religious conversion later in life was no doubt overstating the case,116 as a commanding officer the Duke had been assiduous in hounding absentee chaplains, in forbidding gambling among his troops and in banishing women from their encampments.117 Like Marlborough, who was notably more successful as a general, Cumberland was also careful to ascribe what success he did enjoy to the hand of the Almighty, it being well known among officers who served under him that the Duke had a strong belief in the guiding and preserving role of providence in his life.118 In fact, no less a personage than Cumberland’s father, George II, was also mindful of the need for returning thanks for victory, the King ordering that a Te Deum ‘be sung in the Camp’ following his victory at Dettingen in 1743.119 He also marked the occasion by ordering a special sermon to be preached by William Hay Drummond, a royal chaplain and future Archbishop of York.120 Besides the influence of well-disposed clergymen and senior officers, ordinary soldiers also attracted the attention of philanthropic civilian writers, whose motives reflected a conflation of religious and patriotic concern which was characteristic of much of the charity of their day. The most enduring reflection of this phenomenon was the Naval and Military Bible Society, a charity established by evangelicals at the height of the American War of Independence for the purpose of supplying Bibles to soldiers and sailors.121 However, by this time the practice of composing and distributing religious literature for the benefit of the British soldier was well established. The most

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influential publication to be specifically aimed at soldiers was The Soldier’s Monitor, a tract written by the Revd Josiah Woodward of Poplar, who was a keen supporter of the SPCK and a zealous sponsor of the Church of England’s early religious societies. First published by the SPCK at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession,122 The Soldier’s Monitor had appeared in numerous editions by the end of the century, the edition of 1705 being published and distributed among the army at the express command of Queen Anne herself. Indeed, by this time it had earned international acclaim in the Protestant world, Dr Thomas Bray informing the corresponding committee of the SPCK how, in February 1705: I rec’d a letter . . . from Mr. Jablonski Chaplain to [King Frederick] of Prussia, who informs me that the Prince pull’d out of his Pocket one of the Soldiers Monitors in his great Councill, and told them that he had read it over with great Satisfaction. The Baron Fureius did also express his being affected by it, and he order’d that every one of his Soldiers should have one given him, and his Majesty is pleased to take one with him in all his Expeditions. The K[ing] of Sweden has done the same, with the addition of the Caution to Swearers at the end of it.123 In common with Frederick I of Prussia and Charles XII of Sweden, another Protestant soldier prince, namely George I, evinced a similar concern for the spiritual welfare of his British soldiers. Following his accession in 1714, he ordered £500 to be spent in distributing The Soldier’s Monitor, Prayer Books and Bibles among his reduced peacetime army.124 On a less exalted level, George Whitefield complemented his work of preaching and catechising during his voyage to Georgia with the distribution of ‘Bibles, Testaments [and] Soldiers’ Monitors’.125 Even as late as the American War of Independence, The Soldier’s Monitor was still regarded as a classic of its kind and the SPCK donated 3,000 copies for distribution to soldiers in America when the colonies rose in rebellion in 1775.126 The purpose of The Soldier’s Monitor was essentially that of ‘Christian Admonition’,127 in particular to caution the soldier against ‘all vile and dishonourable Actions’128 which stood to bring down the wrath of God upon the head of the individual and, by extension, upon the whole of British arms. As both pastor and patriot, Woodward was careful to remind his readership of the link between the religious state of the army and the fate of the nation at large:

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In the first place, be assured that the Blessing of the Almighty God is absolutely necessary to make the Conduct and the Attempts and Endeavours of all the Armies in the World truly prosperous and happy . . . And when the Soldier seriously thinks of this, he will be convinc’d, that it is most especially a hazardous and indiscreet thing in one of his Profession to be a Contemner of God, or an Offender against him; since a Soldier is more than all other Men exposed to continual Danger, and needs a more peculiar Defence from God’s Providence; and therefore ought in Prudence to endeavour to secure it by a more than ordinary sober and good life.129 In order that a soldier may keep ‘his Religion with his Employment’,130 Woodward went on to advise against profane and blasphemous talk, intemperance, lust, quarrelsomeness and gaming, while encouraging public and private devotion, spiritual reflection, a gentle deportment and loyalty to ‘Prince and Country’.131 According to Woodward, the rewards of such behaviour were manifold, rendering ‘[Your] Life honourable, your mind easie, your Conscience clear, your Courage undaunted, your Death Comfortable, your Memory blessed, and your Eternity Happy’.132 However, that such piety was intended as much for national as for personal advantage was underlined by the morning prayer which Woodward composed for the soldier’s use: O Lord of Hosts, vouchsafe to inspirit me with true Courage in the Defence of thy Truth and my Native Country: Be thou my Shield in the Day of Battle, and my Succor in all Distress. O Lord forgive the great Sins of this our Army, reform us, and prosper our Arms for thy Name sake. Lord bless our Queen, preserve our General, and all the Forces under his Command. And be pleased to make me a faithful Soldier of Jesus Christ, that so fighting the good Fight of Faith against the Flesh, the World and the Devil, I may lay hold on Eternal Life . . .133 Fifty years later, the same inextricable connections between a soldier’s piety, his personal preservation and national success were emphasised by Jonas Hanway, who, though a merchant by trade, had a strong interest in military matters owing to the military connections of his family.134 As the principal promoter of the Marine Society (which was founded in 1756 for the purpose of saving London’s street urchins for naval service), Hanway’s reputation for patriotism and Christian philanthropy was no doubt enhanced by the publication of his Soldier’s Faithful Friend in 1761. Like The Soldier’s

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Monitor, Hanway’s book was distributed in bulk among the common soldiery and a new edition was published for the benefit of soldiers destined for North America in 1776.135 Its religious and moral counsel echoed much of what Woodward had offered several decades earlier. Like Woodward, Hanway cautioned against swearing, intemperance, lewdness and gaming while advocating prayer, reflection, loyalty and gratitude ‘to the gracious Preserver of mankind’.136 However, Hanway couched his advice in a pungent, colloquial prose calculated to appeal to even the most limited of imaginations. On the subject of swearing, Hanway wrote: A soldier, with regard to his profession, stands in a more honourable point of view than a car-man; and when occasion calls, he should shew his courage by his sword, not like a woman by his tongue . . . Custom prevents such swearers from being sent to the madhouse; but madness it surely is, the madness of the heart, for which God hath declared he will be avenged.137 What the influence of such literature was is difficult to say, but it is likely that it appealed to a certain constituency of sober and literate soldiers. Although Hanway doubted the impact of his work because so few soldiers partook of Holy Communion,138 Anglican communicants were relatively few even in civilian life and pious reading was certainly a fairly common habit among soldiers. While quartered in Reading in 1758, Willliam Todd of the 30th Regiment noted in his journal how: A Gentleman in town gave Orders to one of the Book sellers to let any one, both soldiers and Inhabitants, to have a Little Book Intitled the Christen Moniter, & he would pay for them. I went & got one & all that would Except of them got [one] for [the] asking. The price of them was [three pence] if one had bought them. It is a very good Book and I hope his Generosity will not go unrewarded . . . The man told me 500 was gone this day.139 This fact is confirmed not only by Todd’s experiences at Reading but also by the memoirs of several Methodist soldier-preachers. Duncan Wright, for example, recalled that a deserter awaiting execution in 1758 sought solace in the seventeenth-century devotional classic, The Whole Duty of Man. In fact, it was the pious reading habits of fellow soldiers which helped to set Wright on the path to conversion and which led him to read such Puritan classics as Edward Fisher’s Marrow of Modern Divinity and Joseph Alleine’s Alarm to the Unconverted.140 That Woodward’s work found a similar readership among an earlier generation of soldiers is suggested by some manuscript notes in the

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British Library Copy of the 1705 edition of The Soldier’s Monitor, a certain Andrew Boyle expressing his appreciation upon its title page with the words, ‘a gift of the Queens, to the soldiers in the Armeys of Great Britain . . . and a Bountyfull Gift, and worthy of great Gratitude and Thankfulness’.141 Besides the common soldier, officers were also identified as potential beneficiaries of good religious advice. The most famous publication to be directed at this constituency was Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of the Honourable Colonel James Gardiner, a biography which was published by the Dissenting minister, Philip Doddridge, in 1747. Dedicated to Gardiner’s son (who had been a wayward pupil at Doddridge’s academy and who was then a cornet in Sir John Cope’s regiment of dragoons),142 Doddridge’s Life of Gardiner soon acquired a firm place in evangelical conversion literature while also serving as a timely reminder of Scottish loyalty at a strained period in Anglo-Scottish relations.143 Killed at the battle of Prestonpans (which was fought at the very gates of Gardiner’s own estate at Bankton, just outside Edinburgh, in September 1745) Gardiner was generally acknowledged as having met ‘a most honourable and heroick’ death144 while trying to rally some government troops after his own dragoons had panicked and fled. As Doddridge eloquently put it: To have poured out his Soul in Blood; to have fallen by the savage and rebellious Hands of his own Countrymen, at the Wall of his own House; deserted by those, who were under the highest Obligations that can be imagined to have defended his Life with their own; and above all, to have seen with his dying Eyes the Enemies of our Religion and Liberties triumphant, and to have heard in his latest Moments the horrid Noise of their insulting Shouts; is a Scene, in the View of which we are almost tempted to say, Where were the Shields of Angels? Where the Eye of Providence?145 The whole biography was, in fact, an expansion of a funeral sermon which Doddridge had preached and published in Gardiner’s memory under the title The Christian Warrior Animated and Crowned, both works being based upon a friendship which had commenced when the two had met in Leicester in 1739.146 According to the sermon, first preached in Northampton only three weeks after Prestonpans, the planned biography of Gardiner was in accordance with Gardiner’s wishes and would be conducive to ‘the Glory of God, and the Advancement of Religion’.147 It was in this same sermon that Doddridge boldly declared that Gardiner had not only lived a holy life but had died a martyr’s death, ‘For what is Martyrdom’, Doddridge enquired, ‘but voluntarily to meet Death, for the Honour of GOD, and the Testimony of a good Conscience’. The fact that Gardiner had died in defence of the Protestant religion, defying ‘the

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cruel Ravages of Arbitrary Power [and] the bloody and relentless Rage of Popish Superstition’ made his sacrifice all the more worthy.148 The purpose of Doddridge’s Life of Gardiner was to demonstrate how the life of a notorious debauchee had been transformed by the work of sovereign grace. Born at Carriden in Linlithgowshire in the mid-1680s, Gardiner went on to become a successful career soldier, owing much to the patronage of the Earl of Stair, a powerful Whig grandee who became Commander-inChief of the army in 1744. It was due to Stair’s influential interest that Gardiner secured the lieutenant-colonelcy of Stair’s Dragoons in 1730 and the colonelcy of Bland’s Dragoons in April 1743.149 However, and much more than his relative success as a career soldier, Gardiner’s life was remarkable for a dramatic religious conversion which he had experienced in Paris in 1719. Despite having being raised by pious female relatives, Gardiner’s early years as an officer were characterised by their dissipation, Gardiner fighting three duels and spending the years between his nineteenth and thirtieth birthdays in what Doddridge described as ‘an entire alienation from God, and an eager pursuit of animal pleasure’.150 However, the traces of Gardiner’s pious upbringing were never entirely erased, his latent sense of the workings of providence in his life being stirred by his survival after the battle of Ramillies in 1706, during which he had been wounded and left for dead upon the field. Saved from being killed by a French patrol owing to the intervention of a friar who happened to be accompanying it, Gardiner endured two nights in the open before being taken to a convent where he was nursed back to health. Resisting his nurses’ attempts to convert him, Gardiner was eventually repatriated through an exchange of prisoners and was left to consider the providential significance of his survival. Moved to renew his religious devotions, Gardiner remained in the army following the Treaty of Utrecht and distinguished himself during the battle of Preston in November 1715. Three years later, he became aide-de-camp to the Earl of Stair, who went to Paris as the British ambassador in 1719.151 However, convinced of his sin and of his own impenitence, Gardiner felt compelled to abandon his bid for self-improvement, being, so Doddridge maintained, ‘perhaps one of the first that deliberately laid aside prayer, from some sense of God’s omniscience, and some natural principles of honour and conscience’.152 However, one night in July 1719, and while he was awaiting a clandestine meeting with a married woman, Gardiner picked up a copy of Watson’s The Christian Soldier, or Heaven taken by Storm which had been placed in his baggage by a female relative. Later that night, Gardiner beheld a vision of Christ on the cross who asked of him, ‘Oh sinner! did I suffer this for thee, and are these thy returns!’153 As a result of this vision, Gardiner’s life was radically altered, becoming ‘the very reverse of what he had been

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before’.154 Six weeks after his conversion he was busy reclaiming a Parisian lady from Deism and actively seeking assurance of his own salvation, an assurance which he eventually gained through personal prayer, through sermons given at the Swiss chapel in Paris and through the promise of salvation contained in Rom. 3: 25–6. Gardiner’s personal life was thereafter characterised by a diligent routine of private prayer and, following his advantageous marriage to Lady Frances Erskine, a daughter of the Earl of Buchan, by his exemplary management of a model Christian household.155 Although Dr Alexander Carlyle (a leading moderate in the Church of Scotland) dismissed Gardiner as ‘a noted enthusiast, a very weak, honest, and brave man’,156 Doddridge presented a very different picture of Gardiner in his biography. Significantly, Doddridge was keen to emphasise how Gardiner’s evangelical piety served as a powerful and beneficial influence upon his military career, helping to turn a wild if brave young gentleman into a conscientious and reliable officer. As a lieutenant-colonel (a post which involved commanding and overseeing the welfare of a regiment in the absence of its colonel),157 Gardiner paid scrupulous attention to his soldiers’ religious duties, being convinced that a due regard for religion was ‘the surest method of obtaining all desirable success in every other interest and concern in life’. Not only did Gardiner deplore ‘any contrivance to keep his soldiers employed about their horses and their arms at the seasons of public worship’, but he also ensured that they were paraded to church on the Sabbath. When stationed in England, they generally followed him to the local Dissenting meetinghouse, Gardiner apparently having little time for the episcopal Church of England.158 Gardiner was also zealous in his suppression of swearing. On one occasion, he even reminded a party of senior officers visiting his home at Bankton ‘that he had the honour in that district to be a justice of the peace, and consequently that he was sworn to put the laws into execution, and, among the rest, those against swearing’.159 Crucially, much of what Gardiner promoted was in keeping with the reforming influences then shaping the training and administration of the British army, influences which were being felt from the highest reaches of the military hierarchy. George I and George II were keen to apply to their British army those standards of military efficiency which then prevailed in the armies of several German states – including that of Hanover. As a lieutenant-colonel, Gardiner scrupulously made promotions according to merit, a policy very much in keeping with royal views upon the sale and purchase of officers’ commissions.160 Moreover, through his zeal in punishing swearers by fining them in accordance with the Articles of War, Gardiner also ensured that regimental funds were available to support those men of his regiment who fell sick.161 This policy not only reflected Gardiner’s religious sensitivities

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but was also in keeping with the paternalist ethos promoted by the ‘German’ school of military administration, the Duke of Cumberland in particular being noted for his ‘genuine sympathy for the private soldier’.162 This sympathy was instanced in the bounty which Cumberland paid out of his own purse to wounded government soldiers after the battle of Culloden and in the fact that he was even prepared to render assistance to struggling soldiers while on the march.163 Doddridge, in other words, very much portrayed Gardiner as a model officer of his day and even claimed that he had commanded, while a lieutenant-colonel, a regiment of dragoons which was ‘one of the finest in the British service, and consequently in the world’.164 In fact, so Doddridge maintained, had Gardiner been leading his old regiment (rather than relative strangers) at Prestonpans, his life would not have been so tragically curtailed.165 The cult of Colonel Gardiner which Doddridge popularised proved remarkably durable in evangelical circles and his biography ran to at least ten editions between 1747 and 1812. On passing the battlefield of Prestonpans with John Wesley in 1751, one of Wesley’s itinerant preachers, Christopher Hopper, noted how ‘here that good man, and brave soldier, fought and died for his king and country’.166 Wesley himself wrote about the same journey: rode by Preston Field, and saw the place of battle and Colonel Gardiner’s house. The Scotch here affirm that he fought on foot after he was dismounted, and refused to take quarter. Be it as it may, he is now ‘where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest [Job 3: 17]’.167 Three years later, the ex-slave trader John Newton confessed how Doddridge’s Life had affected him ‘more frequently and sensibly than all the books I ever read’.168 In 1799, and by this time rector of St Mary Woolnoth in London, Newton fervently prayed that officers such as Gardiner would emerge to lead and instruct Britain’s soldiers in the present struggle against the infidel French republic.169 If Doddridge hoped that his Life of Gardiner might serve as inspiration to others of the military profession,170 it is hard to estimate the immediate impact of his hagiography upon this particular readership. However, its influence certainly proved enduring in the long term. One young officer was reminded of Gardiner’s example as ‘the model of a Christian soldier’ as late as the 1830s and the book was frequently reprinted until the 1860s, when Gardiner was presumably eclipsed by more contemporary figures such as Henry Havelock and Hedley Vicars.171 As might be expected, Andrew Burn thought very highly of the Life of Gardiner, one of the fictional officers in his The Christian Officer’s Panoply remarking that ‘there seemed to be such

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evident marks of veracity in the narrative, that I verily believe it would have had a much greater effect upon my mind, had I not been constrained to join in opinion with my companions that it was all enthusiasm’.172 Another officer upon whom it had a powerful effect was Philip Melvill, a Scottish officer of the 73rd Regiment who was wounded and left for dead during a disastrous battle with Mysorean forces at Pollilur in 1780. Like Gardiner, Melvill survived the battle (and his subsequent captivity) and rose to a high rank within his profession. He also underwent a conversion experience after pondering his remarkable deliverances. As the commanding officer of Pendennis Castle from 1796 to 1811, Melvill was involved in a number of Falmouth charities, he maintained good relations with his Nonconformist neighbours and he distributed religious tracts among soldiers going overseas. All the while, Melvill appears to have been very conscious of Gardiner as a role model.173 In fact, just prior to his death in 1811, Melvill advised his son, who had recently embarked upon a military career: As you probably may not meet with a safe model for imitation among living characters in the army, let me propose to you one, which being dead, yet speaketh in the narrative given of his life by an unexceptionable recorder. I mean the good and gallant Colonel Gardiner. Perhaps it may strengthen my recommendation, to tell you, that I have uniformly wished and endeavoured, both as a soldier and a Christian, to follow such a bright example . . .174 Methodism and the army Given his Presbyterian upbringing and his personal and professional circumstances, Gardiner had gravitated towards that moderate Calvinism which was embodied by English Dissenting ministers such as Edmund Calamy (with whom he corresponded after his conversion)175 and Philip Doddridge, whose chapel he used to attend while in Northampton.176 Although his conversion pre-dated the flowering of the evangelical revival in Britain, he was in sympathy with its early manifestations in Scotland, observing with satisfaction the symptoms of the famous revival in the parish of Kilsyth in the early 1740s.177 However, Gardiner was apparently less at ease with its Arminian manifestations in England, expressing astonishment at the wide extremes into which some . . . on the whole . . . very worthy men, were permitted to run in many doctrinal and speculative points, and discerned how evidently it appeared from hence, that we cannot argue the truth of any doctrine from the success of the preacher.178

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Although a familiar story to Wesleyans of the late Victorian era (who derived considerable pride from the fact that a significant number of Wesley’s itinerant preachers were ex-soldiers),179 more recent Methodist historiography has paid scant attention to the rise of Methodism in the British army. Whether this is a function of the pacifist sensibilities of the twentieth-century Nonconformist conscience is a moot point, but in many respects this situation is regrettable, for the growth of Methodism in the British army casts some valuable light on the dynamics of the revival in the British Isles and, indeed, in the Protestant world as a whole. Although it is recognised that Wesley regularly preached among the soldiers of the Irish garrisons and that several Methodist preachers were ex-soldiers of one kind or another, little has been done to explain why Methodism, and especially Wesleyan Methodism, should have obtained such a firm and early foothold among soldiers and it is to this vital question that we must now turn. The early growth of Methodism in the British army stemmed from a number of factors. Part of the explanation must lie in the fact that soldiers had long been subject to informal religious influences exerted through the distribution of religious literature and through the pious example of officers such as Marlborough. In other words, and as in British society at large,180 the evangelical revival in the army had a long pre-history. Furthermore, it is well known that early Methodism exerted a strong appeal among mining and fishing communities in England, communities which were often marginally placed within the parochial system and whose menfolk led a precarious existence in dangerous and uncertain surroundings.181 The circumstances of such communities clearly bear comparison with those which prevailed in the army. Even in peacetime, soldiers were subject to unusual risks and were often no more than scattered and transient members of parish communities.182 Of course, when serving abroad, they were often beyond the reach of the established churches altogether and the kind of religious influences which this situation invited had already been evidenced well before the onset of the evangelical revival. Ironically, and while preachers and commentators at home expounded on Protestantism’s life-or-death struggles against popery, during the Nine Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession, English Jesuits based in their college at Liège had quietly proselytised among British soldiers serving in Flanders, encountering little opposition from officers or from soldiers. In fact, so one Jesuit maintained, in 1695 no less a figure than William of Orange had communicated his thanks for their labours on behalf of the sick and wounded of his army.183 As with the Jesuits’ camp missions in Flanders forty years earlier, there seems little reason to doubt that Methodism’s penetration of the army during the War of the Austrian Succession owed much to large-scale troop concen-

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trations at home and abroad, concentrations which had not been seen for some years. As Correlli Barnett remarked, due to the limited size of the army between 1714 and 1739 and the fragmentation inherent in its quartering system, ‘Far from an army ever being seen assembled and exercised in peacetime, it was a wonder to see a regiment’.184 If the army’s wartime deployments provided Methodist preachers with sizeable audiences, then the nature of contemporary regimental life also helps to account for the relatively painless assimilation of Methodism. Since the Second World War, military psychologists, sociologists and historians have identified ‘primary group cohesion’ as a fundamental factor in inspiring front-line soldiers to fight.185 However modern the terminology, this phenomenon, which is essentially coterminous with a sense of close camaraderie arising from the shared hardships and dangers of army life, is a perennial feature of the human experience of war. As Rory Muir has said of regimental armies of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period: the strongest bond which held a unit together in action was not drink or patriotism, or even training and discipline, important though they were, but group loyalty, the commitment of soldiers to each other, and their pride. Cut off from their families and civil society, leading a life that was unusually harsh and often dangerous, soldiers depended on each other for encouragement, companionship and even survival.186 There is, of course, no reason to assume that things were any different in the 1740s. Although occasionally troublesome to their comrades, chaplains and officers, Muir’s observations suggest that Methodist soldiers were part of a system and a profession for which a spirit of comradeship was both desirable and necessary. In this respect, it is significant to note that none of the personal accounts of the great soldier-preachers of early Methodism attest to any violence at the hands of their fellow soldiers. On the contrary, the Methodist preacher Sampson Staniforth, upon returning to his regiment after a brief stint with the artillery train in Flanders in 1745, was touched by how he was welcomed back to his company by all his comrades, and not just by fellow Methodists. As Staniforth put it, ‘even the rest of the company were glad to see me, for I have frequently remarked, there is a kind of affection in the army toward one another, which is hardly to be found elsewhere’.187 Certainly, if one were to examine some of the principal grounds for contemporary anti-Methodist agitation, it is clear that these were much less likely to obtain in the army than in civilian life. Although their civilian counterparts were liable to be viewed in the 1740s and 1750s as a pro-French,

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crypto-Jacobite and even crypto-Catholic fifth column, soldier-Methodists shared the obvious dangers of campaigning against their country’s enemies with their fellow (unawakened) soldiers. Furthermore, civilian Methodists were often resented for the self-righteous stand which they took against an array of popular recreations and pastimes. In the army, however, dubious recreations such as gambling and whoring were often suppressed by commanding officers in any case and Methodists simply found themselves supporting an official line. As Duncan Wright remarked of his missionary labours among his comrades in Ireland during the Seven Years War: here there was none to hinder me but the commanding officer, and he did not choose to do it. Though he did not like the Methodists, yet he wanted us all to be very good, as we did not know how soon our valour might be tried by the French. Therefore we had very strict orders against swearing, drunkenness, &c; but those orders did not effect any great reformation.188 Finally, given that regular regiments at this time were composed of men drawn from wherever in Great Britain their roving recruiting parties could find them, it was hard if not impossible to recreate the degree of local patriotism and cultural consensus which, when outraged by the disruptive activities of Methodist itinerants, fed numerous anti-Methodist disturbances in the towns and villages of contemporary Britain.189 In explaining the army’s relatively painless assimilation of Methodism, it is important not to ignore the intrinsic appeal of this new form of religion to popular culture in general and to the religion of the soldier in particular. It is generally accepted that the raw supernaturalism of early Methodism rendered it an attractive and accessible form of religion for many ordinary people.190 However, it seems likely that Methodism may have had additional grounds for its appeal among soldiers. First, there was the ethnic factor. The British army of the eighteenth century contained a significant number of Scottish Presbyterians who were probably more disposed to accept the Methodist message of justification by faith than were their English counterparts. In 1755, Duncan Wright, himself a Scot and a Presbyterian by upbringing, heard William Coventry, a corporal of the 1st Regiment (Royal Scots), preach in a large encampment near Cashel some months before his own conversion in the spring of 1756.191 Furthermore, Highland soldiers of the Black Watch seem to have given a ready hearing to Methodist preachers.192 John Wesley remarked upon their attentiveness to his preaching in Limerick in 1750, noting that sixty men of this regiment were society members and that all were ‘men fit to appear before princes’.193 Many years later, and

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despite the very bitter and very public theological controversy which was then raging between Arminian and Calvinist Methodists in England, officers and soldiers of the same regiment were still anxious to hear Wesley’s preaching in Waterford in April 1775.194 Second, the many and potentially inexplicable dangers of a soldier’s life helped to generate a strong sense of fatalism. Such fatalism is a perennial aspect of the experience of war195 but, in the strongly Protestant culture of eighteenth-century Britain, this fatalism generally took the form of a profound belief in the all-directing hand of providence. Although precise statistical evidence for this period is lacking, it seems certain that far more soldiers died from disease than from enemy action. Conditions were particularly wretched on foetid and overcrowded transport ships and one guardsman summarised his relatively short passage to the Low Countries in 1708 as ‘continued destruction in the foretops, the pox above-board, the plague between decks, hell in the forecastle and the devil at the helm’.196 The situation on longer sea voyages was even worse and one expedition which sailed from Lisbon to Valencia in 1706 lost half of its 8,000 men en route. Similarly, between 1776 and 1780, 11 per cent of the reinforcements sent from Great Britain to the West Indies died aboard ship.197 In the Caribbean, tropical diseases ensured that mortality rates could be higher still. In 1740–1, nearly 70 per cent of the 10,000 British soldiers employed on the ill-fated expedition to Cartagena died of disease whereas the number of those killed as a result of enemy action numbered only 600.198 Given the seemingly random and even inexplicable dangers which stalked the battlefield, their transports and their bivouacs, most soldiers seem to have accepted that it was providence which ultimately determined who was struck down by disease or who fell on the day of battle. As Josiah Woodward reminded soldiers in his The Soldier’s Monitor: Is not the preservation of the soldier’s health in different climates a great mercy? Are you not sensible how watchful the great Preserver of mankind is, who defends you in the day of battle? Who but soldiers themselves can tell us the goodness of God which they have experienced? From whom can we have surprizing accounts of their being preserved on many occasions? Let these proofs of a gracious Providence constrain you, to exult with thankfulness to Him, who encourages our gratitude for one mercy by a multitude of others.199 That the early Methodist soldier-preachers appealed to this widely shared sense of the providential is indicated by a remarkably informed doggerel

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poem of 1746, according to which, on the eve of the battle of Fontenoy in May 1745, a Methodist preacher addressed his comrades along the following lines: Ye senseless Souls, how will ye die? How meet the Ball, or Sword, Which comes commission’d from our God, A Kiss to some, to some a Rod? Consider well his Word . . .200 The ubiquity of this sense of God’s all-embracing governance of human affairs was particularly gratifying for Philip Doddridge. For Doddridge, the remarkable survival of Sir Robert Munro at the battle of Fontenoy stood as a practical illustration of the truth of Calvinist theology: [Munro’s] preservation that day was the surprise and astonishment, not only of the whole army, but of all that heard the particulars of the action. This circumstance alone was said to be enough ‘to convince one of the truth of the doctrine of predestination, and to justify what King William of glorious memory had been used to say, That every bullet had its billet, or its particular direction and commission where it should lodge’. Unfortunately, and despite his remarkable survival at Fontenoy, Munro (who had done much to promote Presbyterianism in the Highlands after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715) was cut to pieces at the battle of Falkirk eight months later.201 The fact that British soldiers of the period generally construed their fate in providential terms can be illustrated ad infinitum. For example, two days after the battle of Culloden in April 1746, a soldier of Campbell’s Regiment of Foot wrote to his wife from Inverness: I hope by the Assistance of God almighty that the heart of the Rebellion is Broke & that [the rebels] will not be able to Rally any more for which great deliverance & my own Safety, I being not Hurt, I desire you would Return thanks and Praise to Almighty God, & desire the Minister to Remember me in his prayers to God for so great a delivery.202 Likewise, in 1708, Matthew Bishop had answered an uncle who had counselled him not to tempt the hand of providence by re-enlisting:

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as God’s providential Power has been over me hitherto, I never will despair of his Goodness: As he has conducted me and brought me through Fire, Sword, and Famine, from tempestuous Storms and the raging of the Seas, after all this Goodness, shall I say I have done enough? . . . No, that is not my Nature, for his Goodness I will return my Benediction, and do what I am able, till the Almighty think fit to make an Alteration.203 Despite this retort, there can be little doubt that wilfully provoking providence was widely regarded as an act of folly. As a diarist of the siege of Gibraltar of 1727–8 noted: March 9th [1727]. Came a [Spanish] deserter who reports that while our guns were firing at them an officer pulled off his hat, huzzaed and called God to damn us all, when one of our balls with unerring justice took off the miserable man’s head and left him a wretched example of the Divine justice.204 A very similar incident was recounted by John Haime, a Methodist preacher who was present at Fontenoy: For my own part, I stood the hottest fire of the enemy for about seven hours. But I told my comrades, ‘The French have no ball that will kill me this day’. After about seven hours, a cannon-ball killed my horse under me. An officer cried out aloud, ‘Haime, where is your God now?’ I answered, ‘Sir, He is here with me; and He will bring me out of this battle’. Presently a cannon-ball took off his head.205 Such conceptions of providence were common to officers as well as to ordinary soldiers. Colonel Blackader wrote in his journal after the bloody battle of Malplaquet in 1709: This morning I went to view the field of battle, to get a preaching from the dead, which might have been very edifying, for in all my life I have not seen the dead lie so thick as they were in some places about the retrenchments . . . The Dutch have suffered most in this battle . . . The potsherds of the earth are dashed together, and God makes the nations a scourge to each other, to work his holy ends, to sweep sinners off the earth. It is a wonder to me the British escape so cheap, who are the most heaven-daring

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sinners in the whole army, but God’s judgments are a great depth . . . I bless thee, O Lord, who brings me back in peace, while the carcasses of others are left as a prey in the fields to the beasts and the birds.206 In terms that were more subdued, though no less earnest, Captain Philip Browne wrote to his brother following the battle of Fontenoy: I admire and adore that kind Providence who hath been my great Protector & Preserver of my life & limbs during such a cannonading of nine hours as could not possibly be exceeded & which that at the battle of Dettingen was nothing to.207 Similarly, and while confined by the Spanish in another siege of Gibraltar thirty years later, Samuel Ancell wrote to his father: You will think that I engage in a brood of melancholy reflections, but believe me, I am as chearful as the God of mirth! amidst camps, martial sounds and all the din of war, I find complacency in a resignation to the will of God. If death attends, I hope to receive my fate with a Christian fortitude . . .208 An unorthodox variation on this providential view of human destiny was the Highland belief in curses and in second sight, which, as a result of burgeoning recruitment in the Highlands, manifested itself on a number of occasions during the latter half of the eighteenth century. According to Colonel David Stewart, an early champion of the Highland soldier, Highlanders brought with them into the army: [A]n impressive, captivating, and, if I may be allowed to call it so, a salutary superstition, inculcating on the minds of all, that an honourable and well spent life entailed a blessing on descendants, while a curse would descend on the successors of the wicked, the oppressor, and ungodly. These, with a belief in ghosts, dreams, and second-sighted visions, served to tame the turbulent and soothe the afflicted, and differed widely from the gloomy inflexible puritanism of many parts of the south.209 In his Sketches of the Character, Manners and Present State of the Highlanders of Scotland (1822), Stewart recounted several examples of how these beliefs had been manifested by Highland soldiers in previous decades. In terms of

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hereditary curses, he related the story of a Colonel Campbell of Glenlyon, a grandson of ‘the Laird of Glenlyon, who commanded the military at the massacre of Glenco’, whose career was ruined by a bizarre failure to reprieve a condemned soldier at Havana in 1771.210 As for second sight, Stewart recounted the experience of the late Lord Breadalbane who had been visited by one of his tenants in 1775. The man in question was: [B]itterly lamenting the loss of his son, who, he said, had been killed in a battle on a day he mentioned. His Lordship told him that was impossible, as no accounts had been received of any battle, or even of hostilities having commenced. But the man would not be comforted, saying, that he saw his son lying dead, and many officers and soldiers also dead around him . . . Breadalbane, perceiving that the poor man would not be consoled, left him, but when the account of the battle of Bunker’s Hill arrived some weeks afterwards, he learnt, with no small surprise, that the young man had been killed at the time and in the manner described by his father.211 An almost legendary example of this kind of presentiment occurred just before the disastrous British attack on the French positions at Ticonderoga in July 1758. The case concerned an officer of the Black Watch, Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, who had been convinced for some years that he would die at Ticonderoga as a punishment for unwittingly sheltering the murderer of a relative. During the attack on Ticonderoga, the Black Watch was almost wiped out and Campbell was mortally wounded. However, Campbell was not the only officer of this Highland regiment to have had a strong presentiment of death on this occasion, a lieutenant of its grenadier company (who was noted ‘for great firmness of character and good sense’) being similarly afflicted and killed that day.212 However, not all of these presentiments concerned individuals or transpired to be accurate. In 1780, during the siege of Gibraltar, a Highlander declared that he had the gift of second sight and that he foresaw the surrender of the garrison, a claim which earned him a stint in the cells and a warning against making similar prognostications.213 If the outlook of serving soldiers had a strongly providentialist character, the patterns of army life afforded plenty of time for the sort of introspection in which such sentiments could take root. Although hazardous, the soldier’s lot was not one of unremitting activity and toil and the slow rhythm of camp life and garrison duty could be exploited for the purpose of pious reflection and religious activity. Colonel Blackader confided in a journal entry of March 1707 that:

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Camps have been sweet places to me. Though I hate the evil company which prevails in camps, yet, by the presence of God with me and the rousing providences of war, I have never been better as to grace than in camps.214 Likewise, Josiah Woodward was keen to remind his readers of the spiritual benefits of a quiet garrison life and urged soldiers to: the exercise of a more retired, more settled, and composed Devotion, when you come from the Camp to your Quarters; where you have usually very great Leisure, and all desirable Conveniences for a fix’d and solemn Devotion, publick and private. Some have observed of a Soldier’s Life that it either has too much Business, or too little: But he that has a just Sense of Religion, finds so many noble ways of employing his Time, that it will never lie heavily on his Hands.215 During the eighteenth century, Irish garrison life was notoriously dull but the Methodist preacher Duncan Wright realised its religious potential when he relieved the tedium of garrison duty in Limerick by devouring the Puritan classics.216 The Flanders revival On 20 June 1745, John Mitchell, a Methodist preacher, wrote to Lady Frances Gardiner bemoaning recent Allied setbacks in Flanders and Silesia. However, his spirits were raised by encouraging signs of a religious awakening among British soldiers in the former theatre of war, declaring that ‘It gives me great pleasure to find that there are so many soldiers in our army abroad as well as several officers, who keep regular societies for prayer and spiritual conferences, and are allowed a Tent for that purpose’.217 Several months later, a lengthy doggerel poem appeared in print which was entitled ‘A Brief Account of the Late Work of God in the British Army in Flanders’. The poem, which was the work of an obscure Methodist named Godwin, celebrated the religious revival which had recently occurred under Methodist auspices among the British regiments then serving in Flanders. According to its author: A few unlearn’d despised Men, Taught in their Hearts how CHRIST was slain, Taught by the SPIRIT’S Voice: Could not contain their Happiness;

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Resolved they wou’d aloud express, How great their inward Joys . . .218 Although this was the clearest indication yet of growing Methodist influence upon the army, the Flanders revival did not emerge out of a vacuum. George Whitefield’s account of his long and circuitous voyage from England to Savannah (via Gibraltar) in 1738 provides an insight into the existing constituency of pious soldiers to which early Methodism appealed. In Gibraltar, Whitefield found that two religious societies were already active among the soldiers of the garrison. The first was an Anglican religious society which had been founded by a sergeant some twelve years earlier, a group which now gathered ‘three times in a day’ in the garrison church ‘to pray, read, and sing psalms’ with the support of Governor Sabine. Widely known as ‘The New Lights’, the members of this society had their Presbyterian counterparts in another society known by the name of the ‘Dark Lanthorns’, a largely Scottish group which had been formed a few months prior to Whitefield’s visit. As an Anglican clergyman, Whitefield was reluctant to give the Presbyterian society too much encouragement, preferring to send them ‘some proper books’ and to recommend uniting with ‘The New Lights’.219 Significantly, members of one of these societies were to accompany Whitefield’s convoy to America, an early indication of the potential of wartime circumstances to assist in the diffusion of the burgeoning revival.220 Similarly, John Wesley encountered a religious society composed chiefly of soldiers in Westminster in October 1738.221 It may well have been a soldier of this society who encouraged John Nelson in the process of his conversion, Nelson remembering the force of certain words spoken by an awakened soldier to his comrades in Westminster during the autumn of 1739.222 Besides all of this, there is evidence to suggest that these religious societies multiplied with the deployment of British troops to the continent upon the outbreak of renewed war with France. One British officer, for example, noted how ‘12 officers and near 60 Men’ were present at a meeting of a religious society in Bruges in October 1742.223 If George Whitefield was the first of the leading revivalists to elicit a positive response to his preaching among soldiers (Whitefield took his leave of Gibraltar with the reflection ‘Who more unlikely to be wrought upon than soldiers? And yet, amongst any set of people, I have not been where God has made His power more to be known’)224 it was the Arminian branch of the revival under John Wesley which had the greater influence in the army in subsequent decades. The pioneer of Wesleyan Methodism in the army was a soldier-preacher by the name of John Haime, a tortured soul who had deserted his wife and family in order to enlist in a regiment of dragoons in 1739.

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However, army life did not end Haime’s spiritual turmoil. Fortifying himself by regular attendance at church, by prayer and by reading John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), Haime continued to suffer bouts of acute guilt and self-recrimination. Snubbed by John Cennick (one of George Whitefield’s preachers), Haime concluded that ‘If I must be damned myself, I will do what I can that others may be saved’, a conviction which led him to: reprove open sin . . . and to warn the ungodly, that if they did not repent, they would surely perish. But if ever I found any that were weary and heavy-laden, I told them to wait upon the Lord, and He would renew their strength.225 Shortly thereafter, Haime read Cennick’s account of his conversion and Haime was moved to feel that his own sins had been forgiven and he was consequently ‘filled with joy unspeakable’. While billeted at Brentford, Haime also ‘had the happiness of hearing Mr. Charles Wesley preach’, Wesley giving him ‘much encouragement’ and bidding him to ‘go on and not fear, neither be dismayed at any temptation’.226 The revival among the army in Flanders was not the immediate product of Haime’s arrival in this theatre of war in June 1742, Haime being preoccupied with seeking assurance of his own salvation. However, in April 1743, and while advancing into Germany as part of the Allied army under the Earl of Stair, Haime wrote to John Wesley for advice. The following month, Wesley replied, advising Haime to: Speak and spare not; declare what God has done for your soul . . . Be not ashamed of Christ, or of his word, or of his work, or of his servants. Speak the truth in love, even in the midst of a crooked generation, and all things shall work together for good, until the work of God is perfect in your soul.227 It was following the battle of Dettingen, and after the army had returned to Ghent, that a Methodist society began to crystallise around Haime, the product, as he claimed, of a chance meeting with two artillerymen at the English church in that city. All three had appeared for a Sunday morning church service to which no minister or congregation had come, a clear example of the army’s inability to make effective provision for the spiritual needs of its soldiers while on campaign. Accordingly, the three agreed to take a room ‘and met every night to pray and read the holy Scriptures’.228 However, the revival really began to take hold among British troops in Flanders during the campaigning season of 1744. In May of that year, the

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Allied army encamped near Brussels and the society met regularly in ‘a small wood near the camp’. Thereafter, the army moved to Assche, where Haime ‘began to speak openly, at a small distance from the camp, just in the middle of the English army’. As in Ghent, it was the society’s hymn-singing which first drew crowds to their meetings. According to Haime’s letter of November 1744 to John Wesley, by that time the society had grown to ‘upwards of two hundred’ members, with more than a thousand hearers being present to hear Haime’s preaching, the latter including groups of officers who came to hear his sentiments for themselves.229 While the army was encamped at Lisle, makeshift meeting-houses (or ‘tabernacles’, as Haime termed them)230 made their appearance. As Godwin, the poet of the Flanders revival, put it: And when encamp’d the Pioneer, Wou’d dig a little Temple there, Leaving in many Rows, The Seats of Earth, as little Banks On which wou’d sit, in crowded Ranks, Men seeking Heav’nly Joys.231 By the end of 1744, the society may have numbered as many as three hundred members, including seven soldier-preachers.232 The size and the confidence of the society at this time was such that, upon the army entering winter quarters, Haime requested the keys of the English church in Bruges for the use of those society members under his direct care. With this as his base, Haime ‘fixed up advertisements in several parts of the town, “Preaching every day, at two o’clock, in the English church”’. Although at loggerheads with the army’s outraged chaplains, the members of the society endeavoured to advertise their loyalty to the Church of England by going to church together every Sunday where they edified the congregation with their psalmody.233 The resistance to the growth of Methodism in the Flanders army resembled to some extent the growth of resistance to Methodism at home, although in Flanders, as in Britain itself, those in authority were divided in their response to this new phenomenon. Even before the battle of Dettingen, Haime recalled how, on one occasion, ‘when I was speaking of the goodness of God, one of our officers (and one that was accounted a very religious man!) told me, “You deserve to be cut in pieces, and to be given to the devil”’.234 Similarly, in 1744, Haime remembered how ‘many of the officers and chaplains endeavoured to stop the work’, their machinations proving to be ‘lost labour’. Not surprisingly, the appearance of the society’s elaborate ‘tabernacles’ provoked curiosity and exasperation among some:

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One day three officers came to see our chapel, as they called it. They asked many questions: one in particular asked me what I preached. I answered, ‘I preach against swearing, whoring, and drunkenness; and exhort men to repent of all their sins, that they may not perish.’ He began swearing horribly, and said, if it were in his power, he would have me whipped to death. I told him, ‘Sir, you have a commission over men; but I have a commission from God to tell you, that you must either repent of your sins, or perish everlastingly’. He went away, and I went on, being never better than when I was preaching or at prayer.235 If such insolence to those in authority was subversive enough in civilian life, it tended towards the mutinous in the army. However, Haime and his associates appear to have had an invaluable ally in the form of the army’s provost marshal, who examined Haime several times but declined to take any action against him.236 At this point, it would be appropriate to consider what kind of man rallied around the fledgling revival in the Flanders army. Clearly, they were often men whose lives resembled that of John Haime. John Evans, who was one of the three founding members of the Flanders society, was described by Haime as being at first ‘a strict Pharisee, “doing justly, and loving mercy,” but knowing nothing of “walking humbly with his God”’.237 In a letter to John Wesley of November 1744, Evans revealed that he had been conscious of his sinfulness since childhood and that he had sought to gain salvation through his own works. He also remembered having previously heard Wesley preach on Kennington Common and confessed to having despised his message on that occasion. Nevertheless, like practically all of the Flanders converts, Evans was acutely aware of the guiding and protecting role of providence in his life. At Dettingen he recalled how ‘The balls then came very thick about me, and my comrades fell on every side. Yet I was preserved unhurt’. Not only this, but he also regarded his discovery of an old Bible in one of the wagons of the artillery train (and the death of one of his ungodly companions after the battle) as singular acts of providence.238 Evans also explained to Wesley why he had not warmed to Haime on first acquaintance: [He] robbed me of my treasure; he stole away my gods, telling me I and my works were going to hell together. This was strange doctrine to me, who being wholly ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, sought only to establish my own righteousness. And being naturally of a stubborn temper, my poor brother was so

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perplexed with me that sometimes he was resolved (as he afterwards told me) to forbid my coming to him any more.239 Despite Haime’s impatience with him, Evans was eventually converted during a society meeting at Ghent in October 1744, having been earlier convinced of his errors by Eph. 2: 8, ‘by grace are ye saved, through faith’. Another (and apparently less typical) Flanders convert was Sampson Staniforth. Born the son of a Sheffield cutler in 1720, in Staniforth’s words ‘There was no care taken in my education; none in the family having the form, much less the power, of religion: so that, while I was young, I heard nothing about either religion or morality’.240 At fourteen he was apprenticed to a baker, who sometimes made him read a chapter of the Bible on the Sabbath. However, Staniforth soon got into bad company, developing a fondness for gaming which was ‘to the great disadvantage of my master, and the great sorrow of my parents’.241 His friendship with soldiers then stationed in the town led him to consider enlisting, much against his mother’s wishes. At the age of nineteen, however, Staniforth finally took the king’s shilling, the product of a drunken spree with a soldier friend who was then on furlough. He was promptly bought out by his mother. Unimpressed by her anxiety or by the forbearance of his master, Staniforth enlisted in an alehouse eight days later, returned his basket to his master ‘and immediately went two miles to the justice’s to take the oath’. 242 While with the army in Germany, Staniforth, who had acquired a habit of ‘profane swearing’ since joining the army,243 added plundering (which was technically forbidden under the Articles of War) to his list of military accomplishments, twice escaping capture and execution at the hands of the military authorities while pursuing this latter vice.244 With the return of the army to winter quarters in Ghent, he added adultery to his growing catalogue of sins, becoming involved with ‘a Negro-man’s wife’, a woman who was probably the spouse of an officer’s servant or of one of the army’s negro musicians.245 It was in this degenerate state that Staniforth first became acquainted with a soldier in his regiment by the name of Mark Bond, whose career bears more resemblance to that of John Haime and John Evans. Bond was a native of Barnard Castle in county Durham and had been devoutly, even morbidly, religious from his earliest days. In fact, at the age of eighteen, Bond had ‘entered into the army, desiring and hoping that he should soon be killed’.246 Of Bond, Staniforth noted that his ways were not like those of other men. Out of his little pay he saved money to send to his friends. We could never get him

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to drink with us; but he was always full of sorrow; he read much, and was much in private prayer.247 Not surprisingly, the tormented Bond proved receptive to the message of justification by faith alone and was an early convert to the Flanders revival. In turn, his conversion led him to work sedulously upon Staniforth. Significantly, Staniforth had heard George Whitefield preach in Glasgow, but had then ‘no conception of what he said, or any desire to profit by it’.248 For a while, Staniforth remained obdurate in the face of Bond’s unwanted attentions. One evening, however, after Bond had procured a penniless Staniforth some food and drink, Bond led his reluctant comrade to one of the army’s new ‘tabernacles’, which was then ‘erected about half a mile from the camp’. According to Staniforth: God spake to my heart. In a few minutes I was in deep distress, full of sorrow, under a deep sense of sin and danger, but mixed with a desire of mercy . . . A cry after God was put into my heart, which has never yet ceased, and I trust, never will . . . I was as it were knocked down like an ox . . . I could only say, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’249 The following day, Staniforth returned alone to hear the preaching and his recollections furnish us with a vivid picture of the sort of meetings which characterised the soldiers’ revival, ‘There were several soldiers of other regiments come before me. Some were reading; others conversing of the things of God. Some at a little distance were singing; and some down in a corner were at prayer’.250 When the army divided and returned to winter quarters after the relatively uneventful campaigning season of 1744, Staniforth found himself at Ghent under the care of a preacher named William Clements. During much of his time at Ghent, Staniforth was still labouring under his conviction of sin and had not yet felt forgiveness. However, one night, while standing sentinel at an outpost close to the enemy, Staniforth knelt down in prayer, determined not to rise until he was assured of God’s forgiveness. As Staniforth remembered: How long I was in that agony I cannot tell; but as I looked up to heaven, I saw the clouds open exceeding bright, and I saw Jesus hanging on the cross. At the same moment these words were applied to my heart, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee.’ My chains

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fell off; my heart was free. All guilt was gone and I was filled with unutterable peace. I loved God and all mankind, and the fear of death and hell was vanished away.251 Soon after this experience, and principally through his conversation with Clements, Staniforth began to consider himself ‘united in affection to the Rev. Mr. Wesley’ and as under his particular care.252 Staniforth’s conversion and affiliations were subsequently consolidated by correspondence with Sheffield, his mother responding to the news of his conversion by sending him a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. This was eventually followed by a letter and a hymn book from a Wesleyan society member in the town. Furthermore, a local Dissenting minister who had known Staniforth in his earlier years and to whom his parents had conveyed the news of their son’s conversion, sent him a Bible and ‘a friendly letter’. At this time also, collectively as well as individually, the society in the Flanders army began to receive substantial material help from England, Wesley dispatching a consignment of books to the society which Staniforth described as being ‘of great service to us’.253 The memoirs of John Haime and Sampson Staniforth concur that the army’s Methodists began the ill-fated campaigning season of 1745 at the peak of their strength. Theologically untroubled, some hundreds strong, with a welldefined leadership structure and resourced morally and materially by John Wesley, the work of Haime and his associates had been rewarded with remarkable success, particularly in view of the opposition with which they had been faced. This situation was to prove short-lived, however, and the catalyst for change was to be the Allied army’s bloody and traumatic defeat at Fontenoy on 11 May 1745. At the end of the day, nearly 7,000 Allied soldiers had been killed or wounded,254 4,000 of whom came from the twenty battalions of British infantry which had attempted to carry the formidable positions on the left of the French line. Given the pitch of religious feeling in their society and the tension which was inevitably felt at the prospect of a major engagement,255 many of the army’s Methodists appear to have been gripped by a state of religious hysteria both before and during the battle. Six months later, Haime wrote to Wesley recalling how: Some days before, one of them standing at his tent door broke out into raptures of joy, knowing his departure was at hand, and was so filled with the love of God that he danced before his comrades. In the battle, before he died, he openly declared, ‘I am going to rest from my labours in the bosom of Jesus’.256

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Similarly, many years later Sampson Staniforth recalled how, in the tense moments prior to the battle, he fell out of the ranks of his regiment to find some consolation in prayer. As he put it: When I came into the ranks, I felt some fear: but as we came near the French army, we halted a little. I then stepped out of the line, threw myself on the ground, and prayed that God would deliver me from all fear, and enable me to behave as a Christian and good soldier.257 If their accounts are to be believed, Staniforth’s feelings were not unique, for John Haime recalled how his fellow society members: showed such courage and boldness in the fight as made the officers, as well as soldiers, amazed. When wounded, some called out, ‘I am going to my Beloved.’ Others, ‘Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!’ And many that were not wounded earnestly desired ‘to be dissolved and to be with Christ.’ When W[illiam] Clements had his arm broken by a musket ball, they would have carried him out of the battle; but he said, ‘No; I have an arm left to hold my sword: I will not go yet.’ When a second shot broke his other arm, he said, ‘I am as happy as I can be out of paradise.’ John Evans, having both his legs taken off by a cannon-ball, was laid across a cannon to die: where, as long as he could speak, he was praising God with joyful lips. Despite such courage, the carnage at Fontenoy had a devastating impact on the Methodist society, not only in terms of the members which it lost in the battle but also in terms of its morale and cohesion. Notwithstanding the valiant conduct of his flock, Haime admitted that the battle was ‘a full trial of our faith’.258 According to Haime’s correspondence with Wesley, three of the society’s preachers were killed, a fourth was wounded and the society’s two remaining preachers were reported as having ‘fallen into the world again’ after the battle.259 However, what actually seems to have happened is that they embraced the heresy of Antinomianism and their preaching of freedom from the moral law led to schism within the society. As Haime recounted in his memoirs: One of these Antinomian preachers professed to be always happy, but was frequently drunk twice a day. One Sunday, when I was five or six miles off, he took an opportunity of venting his devilish

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opinions. One [soldier] hasted after me, and begged me to return. I did so; but the mischief was done. He had convinced many that we had nothing to do with the law, either before or after our conversion. When I came in, the people looked greatly confused: I perceived there was a great rent in the society; and, after preaching and prayer, said, ‘You that are for the old doctrine, which you have heard from the beginning, follow me.’ Out of the three hundred, I lost about fifty; but the Lord soon gave me fifty more. The two Antinomians set up for themselves, until lying, drunkenness, and many other sins, destroyed both preachers and people, all but a few that came back to their brethren.260 That a mood of moral and theological libertinism should have set in after Fontenoy is not surprising, for it is quite possible that the experience of this battle may have tempted many of its survivors to seek solace in more worldly pleasures than Haime’s evangelical orthodoxy would have countenanced. It was at this time too, and possibly provoked by the lack of opportunity to partake of Holy Communion prior to the battle, that Haime began to declaim against the army’s chaplains for their failure to administer the sacrament. According to Haime’s version of events, ‘The chaplains were exceedingly displeased; but the Duke of Cumberland, hearing of it, ordered that it should be administered every Lord’s day, to one regiment or the other’.261 Nevertheless, persistent complaints against Haime eventually led to an interview with Cumberland himself. According to Haime: The duke, hearing many complaints of me, inquired who I was; if I did my duty, if I would fight, and if I prayed for a blessing on the king and his arms: they told his royal highness, I did all this as well as any man in the regiment. He asked, ‘Then what have you to say against him?’ They said, ‘Why, he prays and preaches so much, that there is no rest for him.’ Afterwards the duke talked with me himself, and asked me many questions. He seemed so well satisfied with my answers, that he bade me ‘go on’; and gave out a general order that I should preach anywhere, and no man should molest me.262 If this was the first occasion upon which a Methodist preacher was interviewed by an immediate member of the royal family, another notable precedent resulted from this meeting, for Cumberland made a point of hearing Haime preach. On this occasion Haime took care to tailor his sermon to the tastes of the soldier-prince:

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I that day desired the soldiers never to come there [Haime recalled], or to any place of public worship, so as to neglect any duty. I exhorted them to be ready at all calls, and to obey those who had the rule over them; and if called out to battle, to stand fast, yea, if needful, fight up to the knees in blood. I said, ‘You fight for a good cause, and for a good king, and in defence of your country. And this is no way contrary to the tenderest conscience, as many of you found at the battle of Fontenoy; when both you and I did our duty, and were all the time filled with love, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.’ 263 If the months after Fontenoy were troubled times for the Flanders Methodists, then the outbreak of another rising in the Highlands compounded their problems. Sampson Staniforth left Flanders with his regiment that autumn, part of a large contingent of British troops recalled by George II to help defend his capital and his regime.264 All along his route of march throughout the campaign of 1745–6, Staniforth ‘inquired if there were any Methodists, that we might sing and pray together’265 and his persistence in seeking the fellowship of other Methodists eventually brought him as a visitor to Wesley’s preaching house at the Foundery in London. However, Staniforth was not the first soldier to arrive from the continent seeking fellowship there, for a large group of Methodist soldiers had visited the Foundery on 17 October 1745, Charles Wesley noting how the society had on that occasion hosted ‘twenty of our brethren from Flanders’.266 In terms of the widely suspect political allegiance of English Methodists at this time, one can only surmise that such conspicuous visitors were most welcome advertisements of Methodist loyalty to the House of Hanover. If the campaigning season of 1745 did much to damage the Flanders society through casualties, dispersion and theological controversy, then that of 1746 brought further difficulties and complications, with Staniforth and Haime succumbing to the temptations of the world. Staniforth’s twice-weekly visits to London in order to hear congenial preaching had brought him into contact with a society member who was later to become his wife, although only at the cost of his military career. Upon proposing marriage, Staniforth met with the reply that ‘If I was out of the army, and in some way of business, she had no objection’.267 It is, of course, hardly surprising that a respectable woman should have chosen to present Staniforth with this ultimatum rather than be abandoned or join the disreputable ranks of the army’s female camp followers.268 However, Staniforth was married before his discharge had been obtained and, on his wedding day in June 1746, he was recalled from furlough to rejoin his regiment which was then re-embarking for the Low Countries.269

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If Staniforth’s days in the army were now numbered, Haime was once again mired in a slough of despond, his crisis being precipitated by a spot of Sunday shopping in Antwerp: Instantly my condemnation was so great, that I was on the point of destroying myself: God restrained me from this; but Satan was let loose, and followed me by day and by night. The agony of my mind weighed down my body, and threw me into a bloody flux. I was carried to a hospital, just dropping into hell. But the Lord upheld me with an unseen hand, quivering over the great gulf.270 Significantly, Haime’s transgression coincided with an outbreak of dysentery in the British army and Haime continued in this state of incapacitation for no less than eight months.271 However, his spiritual despair was much more prolonged and Haime found his only solace in preaching.272 In addition to these developments, 1746 brought further problems with the return of Methodist soldiers from Scotland. As Staniforth remembered, Calvinist views began to assert themselves: we found those of our society that had been in Scotland had lost their simplicity, and zeal for God; and, instead of that, spent all their time in disputing about this and the other doctrine. But blessed be God! He kept all in our regiment of one heart and of one mind.273 Methodist misfortunes were paralleled by those of the army as a whole, the campaign of 1746–8 in the Low Countries demonstrating the continuing superiority of French generalship over that of the Allied armies. However, for Staniforth at least (who delayed applying for his discharge for fear of being deemed a coward and bringing ‘a scandal upon the Gospel’) the campaign was not without opportunities for awakening souls. Furthermore, it also seemed to demonstrate the superior mettle and discipline of Methodist soldiers. On one occasion, without food or water and with the prospect of a battle looming, Staniforth noted the salutary difference between them that feared God, and them that did not. The latter cursed the king, and blasphemed God. And how did they groan and fret under their hardships! On the contrary, the former would cheerfully say, ‘The will of God be done’ . . . I felt much love and pity to my poor fellow-soldiers, and exhorted them to turn

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to God, and then they would find themselves happy under every trying circumstance.274 Staniforth was to seize a similar opportunity prior to the battle of Rocoux, a defensive battle which was fought near Liège on 30 September 1746. On this occasion, Staniforth’s regiment, along with another hapless British infantry regiment and some Dutch and Hanoverian battalions, bore the full brunt of the French attack. As the French massed for their onslaught, Staniforth recalled that, ‘While we lay on our arms, I had both time and opportunity to reprove the wicked. And they would bear it now, and made great promises, if God should spare them, of becoming new men’.275 Lord Ligonier described the battle of Rocoux as an ‘unlucky affair’, and it was particularly unfortunate for the two regiments who suffered the majority of the British casualties sustained that day.276 Among the rest, Mark Bond fell mortally wounded and two other Methodists of these regiments were also killed.277 Nevertheless, and as Staniforth wrote to Wesley shortly after the engagement, the battle was not without its spiritual consolations: The Lord gave us all on that day an extraordinary courage and a word to speak to our comrades as we advanced toward the enemy, to tell them how happy they were that had made their peace with God. We likewise spoke to one another while the cannon were firing, and we could all rely on God and resign to his will.278 In a further letter, Staniforth declared that his fellow Methodists had shown courage far beyond that of their comrades that day, claiming that: we were all endued with strength and courage from God, so that the fear of death was taken away from us. And when the French came upon us and overpowered us, we were troubled at our regiment’s giving way, and would have stood our ground and called to the rest of the regiment to stop and face the enemy, but to no purpose.279 After Rocoux, and despite a further defeat for the Duke of Cumberland at the battle of Laffeldt that July, neither Haime nor Staniforth appear to have seen any further action. Nevertheless, the eviction of the Allied armies from the Austrian Netherlands and their retreat into Holland before the victorious French brought Haime into contact with a number of Dutch Christians, a subject to which we shall be returning. While in Holland, Staniforth finally obtained his discharge, though only at the cost of fifteen guineas supplied by

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his wife. Staniforth returned to Deptford in February 1748, his last months in the army being blighted by sickness.280 At about the same time, Haime was also discharged from the army, finding employment as one of Wesley’s itinerant preachers, though still suffering from ‘that inexpressible burden of soul’ under which he had always laboured.281 Wesley, the army and the international revival Although active in supporting the revival in Flanders, John Wesley’s contact with soldiers during the 1740s had not been confined to correspondence with its leaders. In 1744, and possibly prompted by stirrings in Flanders, Wesley had published A Word in Season: or, Advice to a Soldier, which had taken the form of a ten-point exhortation beginning with the blunt enquiry, ‘Are you to die?’ and concluding with the exhortation, ‘Arise, and call upon thy God. Call upon the Lamb . . . to take away thy sins . . . Believe in him, and thou shalt be saved’. In between, Wesley castigated his intended readership for their swearing, sabbath-breaking, drunkenness, vengefulness and lustfulness, pointing out that death and judgement comes to soldiers and civilians alike, only that a soldier ‘has more to do with death than other men . . . to him it is just at the door’.282 Like the works of Woodward and Hanway, Wesley’s advice (in this and in subsequent editions) appears to have been distributed in bulk to serving soldiers.283 However, its caustic style and its uncompromising proclamation of justification by faith contrasted sharply with both the theology and the patriotic tone of their published homiletics. The government’s military response to the ’45 also enabled Wesley to take a much closer look at the British army en masse, especially in and around Newcastle, where he had his headquarters in the north of England. After the battle of Prestonpans, Newcastle was thought to be the first Jacobite objective in England, a fact which led to frantic defensive preparations and to the concentration of large numbers of government troops in and around the town.284 Clearly, Wesley was by no means impressed by what he saw of the military, and his perceptions no doubt influenced his damning depiction of the army in the second part of his Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, which was published the following year. Of his visit to Doncaster in October 1745, where he encountered elements of General Wade’s army as they were marching north to meet the rebels, Wesley wrote, ‘We lay at Doncaster, nothing pleased by the drunken, cursing, swearing soldiers, who surrounded us on every side. Can these wretches succeed in anything they undertake? I fear not, if there be a God that judgeth the Earth’.285 Later that month, he wrote to the mayor of Newcastle, Matthew Ridley, offering his services as an unpaid chaplain to the soldiers now encamped outside the town

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and pointing out the obvious symptoms and inevitable consequences of their spiritual neglect: My soul has been pained day by day, even in walking the streets of Newcastle, at the senseless, shameless wickedness, the ignorant profaneness of the poor men to whom our lives are entrusted. The continual cursing and swearing, the wanton blasphemy of the soldiers in general, must needs be a torture to the sober ear . . . Can any that either fear God or love their neighbour hear this without concern? Especially if they consider the interests of our country, as well as of these unhappy men themselves! For can it be expected that God should be on their side, who are daily affronting him to his face? And if God be not on their side, how little will either their number, or courage, or strength avail!286 Significantly, Wesley was at pains to point out to Ridley that he did not preach a pusillanimous form of religion which would sap their willingness to fight, and on this account the recent example of the Flanders Methodists proved invaluable: If it be objected (from our heathenish poet [i.e. Shakespeare]) ‘This conscience will make cowards of us all’, I answer, Let us judge by matter of fact. Let either friends or enemies speak. Did those who feared God behave as cowards at Fontenoy. Did J[ohn] H[aime], the dragoon, betray any cowardice, before or after his horse sunk under him? Or did W[illiam] C[lements], when he received the first ball in his left, and the second in his right arm? Or John Evans, when the cannon-ball took off both his legs? Did he not call all about him, as long as he could speak, to praise and fear God, and honour the king? As one who feared nothing but lest his breath should be spent in vain.287 In the absence of any firm prohibition, Wesley commenced his preaching on 31 October, his primary audience being the British regiments of General Wade’s polyglot army which was chiefly composed of Dutch, Swiss and German troops provided under treaty by the United Provinces.288 By all accounts, the situation of these troops was deplorable, their bivouacs being partly under water and their health and morale suffering terribly as a result of their general’s neglect.289 These factors may well have accounted for the listless reception which Wesley’s preaching initially received. As Wesley recalled:

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At ten I preached on the town moor, at a small distance from the English camp (the Germans lying by themselves), on ‘Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!’ None attempted to make the least disturbance, from the beginning to the end. Yet I could not reach their hearts. The words of a scholar did not affect them like those of a dragoon or a grenadier.290 Wesley, however, was undeterred. On the next two mornings, and in between downpours, Wesley preached to the same audience, on the second occasion perceiving that his words were at last beginning to have some effect. On Sunday 3 November, Wesley returned in the morning and in the afternoon, preaching on Mark 1.15 (‘the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the gospel’) and Rom. 3: 22–23 (‘There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God’). On the latter occasion he ‘observed many Germans standing disconsolate at the skirts of the congregation’ and felt obliged, although he was very much out of practice, ‘to speak a few words in their own language’. Clearly, this gesture seems to have been well received, for the Germans ‘gathered up close together’ and, according to Wesley, ‘drank in every word’.291 This picture of Wesley preaching to a forlorn congregation of German soldiers on a rainswept moor in the north-east of England may strike us as exceptional but it is worth stressing that this scenario was perfectly in keeping with the military nexus of the evangelical revival. Although the international character of the revival has been closely scrutinised in recent years,292 its military dimensions have been largely ignored, notwithstanding the fact that the wars of the mid-eighteenth century helped to displace tens of thousands of Protestants in northern Europe, the British Isles and North America and bring them into much closer contact with each other. We have already noted how awakened soldiers accompanied Whitefield to America in 1738, how Methodist soldiers from Flanders sought out their civilian brethren in England during the ’45 and how some of them acquired Calvinist views while in Scotland during the same campaign. However, the British army’s European commitments also ensured that similar intercourse occurred between Methodist soldiers and Protestant Dutch, German and even Flemish soldiers and civilians. While the revival swept through British regiments in Flanders in 1744, John Haime noted flickers of a similar awakening among their Hanoverian allies, flickers which were promptly doused by those in authority: While the work of God thus flourished among the English, He visited also the Hanoverian army. A few of them began to meet

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together, and their number increased daily. But they were quickly ordered to meet no more. They were very unwilling to desist. But some of them being severely punished, the rest did not dare disobey.293 Haime also remembered how, in winter quarters in Bruges in 1744, the English church (which by then appears to have been virtually controlled by the army’s Methodists) ‘had every day a numerous congregation, both of soldiers and townsfolk’.294 Similarly, while Haime was sunk in the depths of spiritual despair towards the end of the war, he received Holy Communion in a Dutch church and prayed and conversed with the local people. On one occasion he even sought out ‘an old experienced Christian at Rotterdam’, who comforted him, albeit only for a brief time, with the story of his own tortuous path to salvation.295 In the context of such encounters, even the theological differences between English Arminians and Dutch Calvinists could be quickly overcome if not resolved. While in winter quarters in a Dutch town, a gentleman invited Haime to attend a gentlewoman there: After a little conversation, she asked me, ‘Do you believe that Christ died for all the world?’ Upon my answering, ‘I do,’ she replied, ‘I do not believe one word of it. But as you know He died for you, and I know He died for me, we will only talk of His love to poor sinners.’296 Due to their joint prayers, both the maidservant and one of the sons of the house were convicted of sin ‘And before we left the town, the whole family were athirst for salvation’.297 Later, at Meerkirk, Haime convinced a local woman of the error of her reliance on good works, prompting her to exclaim, ‘Lord, what is this that Thou hast done? Thou has sent a man from another nation as an instrument of saving me from ruin!’298 All in all, so Haime remembered, by such means ‘we became acquainted with many of the Christians in Holland. They were a free, loving people. So we found them; and so did many of the Methodist soldiers: for they gave them house-room and firing freely’.299 This evangelical internationalism was not, however, without its attendant ironies. Some weeks after the battle of Culloden, a rebel by the name of Ninian Dunbar was hanged at Inverness. Dunbar, an ex-sergeant in Graham’s Regiment of Foot, was a native of Edinburgh, ‘a Man of good Education’ who had been converted under the preaching of George Whitefield. During the rebellion, he had deserted from his regiment ‘to be an Adjutant and Lieutenant with the Rebels’. Ironically, he was to be hanged in the uniform of a British officer for, as one eyewitness attested, ‘The Cloaths he wore belonged to

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Major Lockart, stript from him after the Battel at Falkirk’. According to this witness, who was then a volunteer in Cumberland’s army: when [Dunbar] walked to the Gallows, being a Mile from In[v]erness, he was attended by near a Dozen Methodists of his own former Regiment, with Books in their Hands all the Way singing Hymns. He refused to have a Kirk Minister with him, but seemingly behaved with Decency and Courage; and though he talked much of Jesus Christ, yet he died without acknowledging his Treason and the Justice of his Punishment.300 The existence of many British regiments on the Irish establishment provided further scope for the internationalisation of the revival. Throughout the eighteenth century, the stationing of more than one-third of the peacetime strength of the British army in Ireland at the expense of the Irish exchequer helped the British government to keep a strategic reserve in being without antagonising English voters and political commentators. For the Anglo-Irish ruling classes, this arrangement in turn provided a greater degree of security and also furnished ‘a large and rich field for careers and patronage’,301 these forces having their own Commander-in-Chief, staff and ancillary services. Ironically, even the siting of barracks (which were more lavishly provided than in England) was the subject of competition between Irish landlords, many of whom were anxious to harness the economic benefits which local garrisons brought with them.302 Naturally, the greater economic centres and garrison towns of Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Kinsale, Limerick and Galway were prime targets for Methodist preachers, but their missionary journeys around Ireland also brought them into contact with those smaller and more isolated garrisons in towns and villages scattered across the length and breadth of the kingdom, and more particularly in the overwhelmingly Catholic provinces of Leinster, Munster and Connaught.303 In the context of the period, these garrisons were another prime constituency for Methodist preaching, for not only were they situated in local centres and along major routes but they also represented small Protestant islands in an often turbulent Catholic sea. Although George Whitefield, John Cennick and others had preached in Ireland prior to Wesley’s first visit in 1747, it was once again the Wesleyan Methodists who enjoyed the greatest success in this difficult mission field. Wesley mentioned the existence of no fewer than 350 military converts in the hinterland of Dublin in a letter to Charles Wesley of April 1748, converts whom he described as ‘raw, undisciplined soldiers [who] without great care will desert to their old master’.304 However, his Journal does not explicitly refer to his preaching to soldiers of the Irish establishment until May 1749,

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when a dragoon prevailed upon him to preach in the marketplace at Nenagh.305 From this point onwards, soldiers appeared regularly among his Irish hearers in towns such as Limerick, Cork, Athlone, Dublin, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Kinsale, Waterford, Prosperous and Tullamore. Indeed, at least two exsoldiers became itinerant preachers on Irish circuits, namely Duncan Wright and John Dillon, the latter being a veteran of Dettingen and Fontenoy who had first heard Wesley preach while his regiment had been stationed in Limerick.306 On occasion, soldiers were prepared to serve as Wesley’s protectors from hostile Catholic crowds, an image much cherished by later Victorian Wesleyans. However, if soldiers helped to keep his more violent opponents at bay (as at Clonmel in May 1756 and Athlone in June 1758) Wesley was shrewd enough to realise that this probably had more to do with local rivalries and sectarian tensions than with any particular regard for the preacher or his message. Of the incident at Clonmel, Wesley noted that it was the troopers ‘that were not of the society’ who were particularly keen to get to grips with the ‘popish mob’ which appeared on the scene.307 Similarly, at Athlone, it was the fact that an assailant’s stone had struck a drummer which provoked some dragoons into a spirited search for the offender, a search which struck ‘terror into the rabble’.308 At Cork in May 1750, soldiers of the garrison were notably reluctant to force a confrontation with the same mob which had assaulted Wesley the previous year. However, they listened attentively to his sermon and provided an impromptu escort after he had finished. Apparently, on this occasion they were acting under orders from their commanding officer, who had instructed them to return to barracks at the first sign of any trouble.309 The pious and simplistic assumption that soldiers were necessarily pro-Methodist is thrown into question by the fact that one of Wesley’s itinerants, Joseph Counley, was assaulted by a mob in Limerick in 1750, its principal leaders being soldiers.310 It is clear, moreover, that these vaunted protectors never lost their ability to shock Wesley and that he remained wary of them to the end of his life. Apart from an apparent propensity for gambling, womanising and duelling among their officers,311 Wesley was also disturbed by the public execution of a deserter at Limerick in 1762, a spectacle which apparently made no impression on the victim’s fellow soldiers. As Wesley noted, ‘although they walked one by one close to the bleeding, mangled carcase, most of them were as merry within six hours as if they had only seen a puppet-show’.312 Furthermore, in May 1785, Wesley noted with disgust how, at Bandon the previous week, soldiers of the garrison had run amok after a brawl between one of their number and two local men, an incident which had been avenged by wounding, maiming and even murder.313

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Despite his well-founded reservations, Wesley was very clear as to the important place of soldiers within the work and expansion of his connexion in Ireland, in 1756 declaring that ‘in Ireland, the first call is to the soldiery’.314 Moreover, and because the Irish establishment functioned as a strategic reserve, this sustained work among troops in Ireland bore fruit much further afield. Although the religious society known as the ‘New Lights’ appears to have been meeting in Gibraltar as late as 1748, it was Henry Ince, a soldier of the 2nd Regiment, who revived Methodist fortunes on the Rock in the 1760s. Ince had almost certainly been exposed to Methodist preaching while stationed in Ireland in previous years and, by the late 1760s, the resurrected Methodist society in Gibraltar numbered between thirty and forty soldiers and enjoyed the protection of the governor, Lieutenant-General Edward Cornwallis. A steady and competent soldier, Ince transferred to the garrison’s Artificer Company in 1772 and distinguished himself during the siege of 1779–83. By 1787, his standing was such that he was able to secure from the governor the lease of a piece of ground for the purposes of the society.315 If the work in Ireland clearly paid dividends in Gibraltar, Thomas Coke discovered a similar process at work in the West Indies. In Barbados in December 1788, Coke discovered a Methodist society among ‘a company of soldiers who resided sometime ago at Kinsale in Ireland’.316 Important though it was, the survival of Methodism in the army was not solely due to Wesleyan work in Ireland. Although Haime and Staniforth had been discharged towards the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, by the 1750s it was apparent that they had helped to create a lasting legacy of army Methodism. In April 1753, Wesley noted how seventeen dragoons were members of his society in Manchester, observing that it was ‘remarkable that these were in the same regiment with John Haime in Flanders’, though they had then ‘utterly despised both him and his Master’ and had only become Methodists since their arrival in the town.317 Similarly, Thomas Rankin, a Scot, who was later to become a Wesleyan itinerant, was influenced as a youth by ‘ten or twelve’ pious dragoons who were quartered in his native town of Dunbar in the mid-1750s. As Rankin recalled: they hired a room, and met together for prayer and hearing the Word of God every morning and evening. I did not know then, but I have been informed since, that those men were part of the religious soldiers who used to meet with John Haime and others in Germany.318 These gatherings sparked something of a revival in the town, and a society of soldiers and townsfolk was eventually formed. However, its class meetings

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provoked the suspicions of local Presbyterian ministers who were alarmed by reports that the soldiers were pardoning those who confessed their sins at these meetings.319 Notwithstanding this episode, the evangelistic work of these soldiers continued unabated and Rankin noted that a Methodist society was also formed in Musselburgh owing to the zeal of other dragoons ‘of the same regiment with those who first brought Methodism to Dunbar’.320 During the period of the Seven Years War, Methodism continued to flourish in the army. Although it is clear that some Welsh Calvinist Methodists enlisted at this time, the initiative still lay with the Wesleyans. In addition to his ongoing preaching in Ireland, John Wesley addressed large numbers of troops in the north-east of England, preaching at Alnwick and at Morpeth to soldiers en route for Germany in 1761.321 Nor was the great age of Wesleyan soldier-preachers quite past, for Duncan Wright was converted in April 1756, just as the prospect of another European war was looming. In subsequent years, Wright propagated Methodism in the Irish garrisons of his own regiment (the 10th Regiment of Foot), establishing a soldiers’ classmeeting in Limerick in 1758 and a small society in its encampment near Kilkenny the following year.322 Significantly, and just after the outbreak of war, Willliam Agar was fretting over Methodist penetration of the 20th Regiment, which was then stationed near Blandford in Dorset. In a sermon preached to its soldiers, Agar specifically warned them against: [the] fallible and diabolical Opinion [which] has lately Crept into the Hearts of the more low-bred People of this Age, that by a Mark of a new Birth, and a heated misled Reason and bewildered Fancy, (for Zeal I cannot call it) they strait imagine themselves by a sort of Inspiration, become perfect even as God is perfect, being without Sin, are certain of Salvation, and by a strange Enthusiasm blind themselves by seeking for the saving Grace.323 The spread of Methodism among the soldiers of the 20th proved to be of great concern to Agar, prompting him to petition the archbishops of Canterbury and York for a new form of prayer to be inserted in the Prayer Book which would be appropriate for military use and which would complement its existing ‘Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea’. In a letter of 1757 to Archbishop Herring of Canterbury, Agar related how: at the Camp at Blandford were Methodist Preachers, who harangued the vulgar and inferior Soldiers; and in my own Regiment were two, who had set up the Art of preaching and Praying in their own way, so that in Cirencester a Subscription was

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set on foot to buy off from the Service one of our common Soldiers, who took their vulgar Humours.324 Although Agar helpfully offered Herring some drafts of his own, the conservative reaction against innovation which the revival had spawned among the Anglican episcopate helped to ensure that this lobbying came to nothing. As the ailing archbishop reminded Agar shortly before his death: I have read over your Prayers twice, and therein find nothing contrary to the Establishment of the Church of England; but I give it as a thing worthy [of] your own Consideration, whether, as Enthusiasm prevails in this Age, it may not give room for it to creep into the army, and by a Precedent let them give Handle to others to vent Compositions of their own.325 As in the case of the Irish garrisons, the spread of Methodism within the army as a whole during the Seven Years War was an anomalous and sometimes painful process. For example, Methodist meetings at Canterbury seem to have attracted large numbers of soldiers throughout the course of the war.326 In February 1756, a supportive colonel at Canterbury even assured Wesley that ‘No men fight like those who fear God. I had rather command five hundred such [men] than any regiment in his Majesty’s army’.327 Much of the success in Canterbury was due to the work of Thomas Hanby, a Wesleyan itinerant preacher, who did much to increase the number of soldiers who were members of the society. However, at least part of his success was owing to the fact that he was robbed on his very first visit to the city by two soldiers who had turned highwaymen, an event which, in Hanby’s words, ‘excited a curiosity in their comrades to hear the preacher who had been robbed’. Fortunately, ‘it pleased God to convince many of them’.328 However, a much uglier incident occurred in March 1760, when troopers of the 6th Dragoons joined enraged locals in an attack upon a Methodist meeting in Kingston-upon-Thames. According to a report in the Gentleman’s Magazine: Some of the Inniskilling dragoons being among the mob, with their swords, wounded several of the people, and put the whole town in an alarm, but by the prudent behaviour of their commanding officer, all ill consequences were prevented, he ordered the drums to beat, assembled the dragoons . . . and then ordered them to their quarters, and to behave peaceably . . . which put an end to the whole disturbance.329

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Perhaps the most notable single achievement of these years was the work of Samuel Walker and his society among the men of the 58th Regiment who were billeted in Walker’s parish of Truro in the winter of 1756–7. Although these soldiers initially proved reluctant to attend his specially organised Sunday afternoon services, the indefatigable Walker eventually succeeded in creating a sizeable Methodist society in the ranks of this regiment.330 Along with the expansion of the regular army, the Seven Years War also saw the establishment of a new 32,000 strong militia in 1757. This measure was sorely needed, for such was the nation’s vulnerability to French invasion that even George Whitefield and John Wesley had joined the clamour for action in this regard, jointly offering to raise ‘a company of volunteers for His Majesty’s service’. When Whitefield was ‘persuaded that such an offer [was] premature’, Wesley persevered, writing to James West, an MP and Treasury official, in March 1756 offering to raise ‘at least two hundred volunteers’ for the defence of London and requesting that ‘some of His Majesty’s sergeants’ be provided to drill them and that arms be provided from the Tower of London.331 Although this offer was never acted upon, because the remodelled militia suffered from the same shortage of chaplains as the regular army,332 Wesley went on to preach to the new militia regiments in the same manner as he preached to regular troops in Great Britain and Ireland. As with regular soldiers, his reception was mixed. For example, in the early summer of 1768 Wesley found the Yorkshire Militia, which was then encamped for annual training at Richmond, to be a ‘rude rabble rout . . . without sense, decency or good manners’. However, the Durham Militia at Barnard Castle proved to be a different proposition, their commanding officer cancelling evening drill in order to permit officers and men to hear his preaching.333 For George Shadford of Scotter, the trials and trepidations of militia service during the Seven Years War proved decisive in his subsequent conversion. Shadford had enlisted in his native Lincolnshire Militia as a substitute for another man who had been balloted for militia service, receiving seven guineas in exchange and anticipating that ‘as we had no expectation of marching from home, it would be [a] pretty employment for me at Easter or Whitsuntide’.334 However, William Pitt’s reformed militia was intended for sterner stuff than holiday exercises, as Shadford discovered to his cost. Falling seriously ill while stationed in Manchester, Shadford’s discomfiture was completed by an order to march with his company to Liverpool, en route for Ireland, following the brief French occupation of Carrickfergus in February 1760. As Shadford remembered, ‘My chief concern now was for fear (if we should have an engagement) that my life and soul should be lost together, for I knew very well I was not prepared for death’.335 The unexpected hazards of

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militia life, coupled with the influence of Methodist preaching first heard in Gainsborough, engendered a new seriousness in Shadford’s life and he was converted, just after leaving the militia, at a Methodist meeting in Scotter in 1762.336 During and after the Seven Years War, Methodism made further inroads among the officer corps. At Canterbury in September 1759, for example, Wesley noted that ‘a whole row of officers’ was present for his preaching at the Methodist meeting house.337 However, Methodist officers had been in evidence in the more patrician circles of the Countess of Huntingdon since the 1740s. Colonel Samuel Gumley, who was once described by the countess as ‘a second Colonel Gardiner’,338 was converted at her home in Chelsea under the preaching of George Whitefield. Gumley went on to introduce some soldier Methodists to this matriarch of eighteenth-century Methodism shortly after the ’45.339 By 1748, Gumley was corresponding with John Wesley and signing himself ‘Your affectionate brother in Christ’.340 So well known were Gumley’s Methodist predilections that, on one occasion, when he reported to the Duke of Cumberland that a tree had been set on fire near the powder magazine in Hyde Park, Cumberland had quipped that this could be yet another manifestation of ‘the new light’.341 Humour aside, there are strong indications that, in the years following the Seven Years War, Methodism continued to find converts among army officers. For example, the journal of John Valton, a French-born Roman Catholic and civilian clerk to the Board of Ordnance (who himself turned Methodist under the influence of an army officer’s wife)342 attests to the conversion of at least one other officer and to the existence of a lively Methodist subculture in Chatham, Tilbury and the king’s magazines at Purfleet during the years 1763–74.343 These post-war years also saw significant Wesleyan growth in the North American colonies, hitherto very much ‘Whitefield’s territory’,344 and one of its principal agents was Captain Thomas Webb. A colourful figure, Webb had served in North America during the Seven Years War, suffering the loss of his right eye during an engagement with the French. A flamboyant preacher, his preferred style was to preach in full uniform with his sword laid before him on the preaching desk.345 On his return to England, Webb was converted by a Moravian preacher in 1765 but subsequently transferred his allegiance to Wesley and his connexion and became a local preacher in Bath. Shortly thereafter, Webb returned to the colonies in the semi-retired capacity of barrack-master at Albany, where he soon gathered a society around him. Between his return to America and his arrest and imprisonment as a British spy by the Continental Congress in 1777, Webb was instrumental in planting Wesleyan Methodism in the colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware

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and New Jersey. Though undoubtedly a useful source of British military intelligence during the American War of Independence,346 Webb also helped to establish the first Wesleyan society in Philadelphia and was one of the founding trustees of the first Wesleyan meeting house in New York city. In 1772, Webb appealed in person to the Leeds Conference on behalf of the burgeoning American mission, bringing George Shadford and Thomas Rankin back to Philadelphia on his return to America the following year.347 In the case of Captain Jonathan Scott, a Calvinist Methodist and an officer in the 7th Dragoons, his religious zeal proved to be his professional undoing. In 1765, the 7th Dragoons’ riding house in Northampton was being used to accommodate Methodist meetings and, by the following year, Scott was actively proselytising among the troopers of his regiment.348 By this time, however, Scott was already anticipating a backlash from his fellow officers, who were by now very alarmed that he had ‘turn’d an arrant Methodist’.349 Eventually, Scott was forced to resign his commission in 1769 owing to the offence which he had caused his superior officers.350 Echoes of Scott’s treatment can be discerned in Andrew Burn’s semi-autobiographical The Christian Officer’s Panoply of 1789, in which one of his fictional characters is denied promotion because of his refusal to cease his attendance at Methodist meetings.351 Nevertheless, and despite these signs of persecution, other officers were more favourably disposed to the Revival and facilitated the work of Methodist preachers. As we have seen, in 1768 John Wesley benefited from the assistance of the commander of the Durham militia. More significantly still, his stature as a public figure, a preacher and a staunch Loyalist was recognised at Plymouth in August 1782 when one colonel paraded his entire regiment before Wesley in order to hear him preach and receive his blessing.352 During the American War of Independence, Methodist preachers also continued their well-established practice of seeking out army encampments as preaching venues. In 1778, James Rogers, a Wesleyan itinerant, was appointed to Thomas Hanby’s old circuit in Kent. As Rogers recalled: It was the first year of the grand encampment upon Cox Heath; which consisted of about fifteen thousand men. Being only at the distance of half a mile from the Heath, for two or three weeks before I entered upon my circuit, I generally preached in the camp once a day. I have reason to believe some of the seed then sown was not lost, having since met with persons both in England and Ireland who testified they had cause to thank God for the few opportunities they then enjoyed.353

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Conclusion In 1779, Jonas Hanway expressed his disgust at a view which an MP had aired during a Commons debate on ‘whether soldiers of the Romish persuasion, should be sent to certain of His Majesty’s settlements abroad’. The offending MP had enquired: ‘What signifies the religion of soldiers? They have no more religion than my horses.’ Hanway duly recalled that ‘The house was offended at so absurd and false a doctrine’.354 Nevertheless, and as we have seen, the opinion expressed by this anonymous MP was very widely shared among the civilian population of eighteenth-century Britain. Clearly, and as Hanway realised, this was an unjust and simplistic view which failed to take into account a strong religious subculture within the army itself. As some more thoughtful observers had long been aware, the perils of army life were prone to generate a heightened awareness of their religious condition among a small but significant number of soldiers. Moreover, the randomness with which these perils manifested themselves gave rise to a sharply accentuated belief in the pervasive workings of providence, a belief which appears to have been widely shared by officers and men alike. This propensity, when combined with the chronic and widespread neglect of soldiers by their regimental chaplains, rendered the army fertile ground for the growth of Methodism, a growth which was favoured by factors such as the presence of Scottish Presbyterian soldiers, by wartime troop concentrations and even by the comradely nature of army life. Certainly, and prior to the mass influx of Irish Catholics into the army during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Methodism appears to have been the dominant form of army piety, particularly among the rank and file. During and after the Seven Years War, it seems clear that Methodism was making slow but steady progress among the army’s commissioned ranks as well. Obviously, each of these developments does much to undermine the established view that evangelical penetration of the army was a mid-nineteenth-century phenomenon. In fact, Methodism’s popularity among soldiers was evident from the late 1730s, its most dramatic efflorescence being the Flanders revival of 1744–7, an event which was to have lasting long-term consequences. Such was the acknowledged strength of army Methodism that in 1759 Sir Robert Nugent suggested to William Pitt that the assistance of Wesley and Whitefield should be harnessed for the purposes of recruitment as so many of their followers were former soldiers.355 If the army was heavily influenced by the revival, then the reverse was also true. As we have seen, the army provided John Wesley with many of his itinerant preachers, their military backgrounds being ideally suited for the rigours and dangers of this ministry. In addition to this, the Life of Colonel

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James Gardiner provided British evangelicals with their own soldier-saint more than a century before Hedley Vicars fell outside Sebastopol and Henry Havelock breathed his last at Lucknow. Similarly, and far from being a nineteenth-century innovation, the oft-used military metaphor in mid- and late-Victorian hymnody had notable precedents in the work of Charles Wesley and Philip Doddridge. By the time Charles Wesley’s Hymns and Sacred Poems appeared in 1749 (only a year after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had brought the War of the Austrian Succession to an end) his earlier hymn ‘Soldiers of Christ, arise’ had acquired a new and obvious military resonance in Methodist circles.356 Moreover, Doddridge composed not only a sermon and a biography but also a hymn on the death of Colonel Gardiner, a hymn which tellingly proclaimed: Lord, ‘tis enough! Our Bosoms glow With Courage, and with Love: Thine Hand shall bear thy Soldiers thro’, And raise their Heads above.357 Methodism’s early inroads into the British army reveal a further, generally unrecognised, dimension of the international evangelical revival. Due to its British, European and transatlantic commitments at this time, the British army became an important medium of evangelical expansion and, in the interaction of Methodist soldiers with other awakened Christians elsewhere in Europe and North America, it helped to give the international dimension of the revival concrete expression. However, what must be borne in mind is that the majority of British soldiers remained at best only intermittently subject to the influences of organised religion and, at worst, living fulfilments of their popular stereotype. Nevertheless, what is also very much the case is that the British army in the eighteenth century was by no means as unredeemed or as unredeemable as most of its civilian contemporaries appear to have believed.

Chapter 2

T H E S O L D I E R A N D S O C I E T Y, 1793–1914

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Introduction a popular subject for historians and its significance for British imperial, social and cultural history has generated far greater interest among academics than has been apparent in the British army of the eighteenth century. In contrast to the 1700s and early 1800s, even the religious dimensions of Victorian military life have received a fair amount of attention. Apart from some invaluable articles on the administrative history of the Army Chaplains’ Department which appeared in the inter-war period,1 the vogue for the study of war and society in the early 1970s saw a fleeting interest in the subject of the Victorian army and religion more generally. In 1973, H.J. Hanham published ‘Religion and Nationality in the Mid-Victorian Army’, an essay which examined issues of faith and ethnicity in the ranks and which also touched upon the reasons for the army’s growing standing with the churches from the latter half of the nineteenth century. Some of these reasons had already been investigated by Olive Anderson in a broader essay entitled ‘The growth of Christian militarism in mid-Victorian Britain’, which appeared in 1971. In this seminal essay, Anderson studied the rise of this phenomenon during the 1850s and 1860s, arguing that it grew out of a transformed civilian perception of the religious potential of the soldier. This transformation was prompted by the circumstances of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny (which had seen the soldier cast as an object of public sympathy and then as a champion of Christian civilisation) and it was exemplified by the cults of the various ‘soldier saints’ to which these conflicts gave rise.

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This new fascination with the Christian potential of the soldier (and, indeed, with the military potential of the Christian) reinforced a nascent conviction that soldiers could and ought to be evangelised. Various initiatives and reforms aimed at raising the tone of army life and improving the lot of the common soldier augured well for this enterprise, even though they were partly driven by the need for the army to attract recruits in an increasingly competitive labour market.2 The need for recruits and the growing interest of the Christian public in the spiritual plight of the soldier certainly spurred some important developments in the army. As Anderson argued, there was the official recognition of the religious rights of Nonconformists, or ‘Other Protestants’, by the War Office in 1862. Furthermore, there was a dramatic change in official provision for the army’s spiritual welfare, a change which was reflected in the expansion and reform of the Army Chaplains’ Department and in a greater willingness on the part of the War Office to spend public money on a new breed of chapel-huts and chapel-schools. Among the churches, changing perceptions as to the moral and religious potential of army life also encouraged a favourable view of the emerging Volunteer movement and fostered the growth of a quasi-military style in sermons, hymns and evangelistic work among the young. By the mid-1860s, and with the American Civil War having sharpened the note of militancy in British religious life, Christian militarism had become part of the rich fabric of Victorian Christianity, its currency being reflected and enhanced by the national reaction to the death of General Gordon – ‘its chief idol’– at Khartoum in 1885.3 Anderson’s thesis has enjoyed considerable currency and longevity in its own right. While John Wolffe echoed Anderson’s arguments in his God and Greater Britain: Religion and National Life in Britain and Ireland 1843–1945 (1994),4 Kenneth Hendrickson embellished her analysis in a full-length study entitled Making Saints: Religion and the Public Image of the British Army, 1809–1885 (1998). Here, Hendrickson boldly asserted that ‘carrying the ramparts of British social respectability’ was ‘the greatest victory won by the Victorian army’, its soldiers being transformed in the eyes of the British public from a dissolute ‘rabble’ to ‘a band of white Christian crusaders’.5 In tracing this process, Hendrickson placed a special emphasis on the work of the Army Chaplains’ Department and of a growing band of evangelical ladies and their celebrated soldiers’ homes.6 He also underlined the importance of the famous Mutiny hero and soldier-saint, Sir Henry Havelock, whose cult was founded on an evolving ideology of empire, on the rehabilitation of Oliver Cromwell and on missionary ambitions for the Indian subcontinent.7 Like Anderson, Hendrickson viewed the public reaction to the death of Gordon as conclusive proof of the army’s new-found standing with the religious public, this reaction being ‘so extravagant it had to emanate from some

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source beyond the man: a public predisposition, based upon the tradition of Havelock and new realities within the army, to see a saint in the soldier’.8 More recently, however, attention has shifted away from the image of the army in Victorian society and toward the efforts of the churches to establish their respective positions within this national institution. In this respect, the conflicting claims and interests of Anglicans and Wesleyan Methodists in relation to military chaplaincy have aroused particular interest, especially in the light of the ongoing rivalry of church and chapel in nineteenth-century British society.9 Important though these contributions have been, for our purposes they are unsatisfactory in several important respects. Firstly, studies of disputes over army chaplaincy reveal much about the aspirations of contemporary churchmen but very little about the beliefs and attitudes of soldiers themselves. Secondly, studies of the army’s improved standing with the religious public tend to assume that civilian perceptions of the hitherto lamentable state of religion in the army were reflections of fact rather than prejudice. Consequently, they dispense with a detailed examination of the state of religious life in the army in earlier decades and they wholly fail to appreciate the strength of its existing religious subcultures. Indeed, and notwithstanding a conspicuous Methodist presence in the army which went back to the 1730s, Wolffe argued that ‘attempts to evangelize in the armed forces’ began in ‘the late eighteenth century’ and that they enjoyed only ‘scant success and limited support’.10 Similarly, Hendrickson averred that ‘Despite the political successes and increasing influence of Evangelicals in British society after the Napoleonic Wars, the impact of vital religion on the army was delayed and minimal’,11 a conclusion which he based on his verdict that ‘No useful records on soldiers’ religious practice exist for the British army in the nineteenth century. Attendance at services was mandatory, and the denominational affiliation of each man subject to his ignorance, indifference, and the whims of his superiors’.12 Thirdly, such studies have a tendency to exaggerate the extent to which the army became subject to religious influences, an exaggeration epitomised in John Keegan’s assertion that ‘the Widow of Windsor’s army was run as strictly as a Sunday School’.13 Clearly, these perceptions are hard to justify in relation to an institution which regulated military brothels in India, which committed atrocities in the Sudan and in South Africa and which even shot and killed a Sunday school teacher during the Featherstone colliery riots of 1893.14 The prevailing consensus also overstates the degree to which the army redeemed itself in the eyes of the late Victorian public, a public which, as Kipling’s eponymous Tommy complained, was all too ready to exult in the martial exploits of the British soldier abroad while holding a disdainful view

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of the soldier at home and of soldiering as a career.15 As one eminent twentieth-century soldier observed, there remained ‘in the minds of the ordinary God-fearing citizen no such thing as a good soldier; to have a member who had gone for a soldier was for many families a crowning disgrace’.16 Illustrative of this phenomenon is the fact that when William Robertson (a future field marshal and Chief of the Imperial General Staff) left domestic service to join the 16th Lancers in 1877, his enlistment elicited an angry reaction from his devout mother, who complained: ‘there are plenty of things Steady Young Men can do when they can write and read as you can . . . [the Army] is a refuge for all Idle people . . . I would rather Bury you than see you in a red coat.’17 It must also be borne in mind that large sections of Christian opinion proved notably impervious to the much-vaunted, late nineteenth-century enthusiasm for the British army. Besides the obvious but relatively minor examples of the Society of Friends and the Peace Society, Catholic Ireland had turned hostile to the army by the end of the nineteenth century.18 Although the Russophobes of the Irish Catholic hierarchy had endorsed Irish Catholic involvement in the Crimean War,19 grievances over alleged religious discrimination in the army20 and the onset of the Fenian disturbances in the late 1860s helped to alter this picture. As one soldier observed of rural Ireland at this time, ‘if Biddy or Kathleen were once seen talking to a Saxon soldier she was “for it” the next time she went to confession’.21 Besides the growing alienation of Catholic Ireland, Nonconformist Wales remained immune from the appeal of soldiering. Thirty years after Edward Cardwell’s Localization Act of 1872, there was still an obvious gulf between the Royal Welch Fusiliers and their notional home in North Wales. The reason for this situation was simple enough. As Robert Graves put it, ‘The chapels held soldiering to be sinful, and in Merioneth the chapels had the last word’.22 The distaste which Welsh Nonconformists felt for soldiering was captured in the following anecdote from the time of the Boer War: In ordinary times Welshmen do not take to soldiering. A famous regiment marched through its territorial district in that country in order to get recruits. In one town it succeeded in securingone recruit. The following Sunday, in the Nonconformist Chapel to which the military aspirant belonged, the minister announced from the pulpit- ‘We will now take up a collection for the purpose of buying the discharge of our young brother, Morgan A.P. Jones, who has gone for a soldier.’23 It was a reflection of such attitudes that, in the Edwardian period, the second battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers was largely composed of ‘Cockneys

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and Midlanders’ and over ‘ninety per cent of the Battalion were nominally Church of England men’.24 In order to place the following chapters in their proper context, it is necessary to make some observations as to the size, function and character of the British army between 1793 and 1914. Leaving aside Britain’s auxiliary forces (namely the Militia, the Fencibles, the Volunteers, the Yeomanry and the later Territorial Force), the size of Britain’s regular army varied dramatically between 1793 and 1914. In 1793, when Republican France declared war on Britain, the army numbered no more than 50,000 men. However, by the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the number of its non-commissioned officers and men had swollen to nearly 234,000.25 After two decades of postwar retrenchment, the army’s other ranks numbered just over 102,000 in 1835. However, by 1860, their numbers had once again climbed to a total of nearly 220,000 as a consequence of the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and contemporary fears of French invasion. Although these numbers fell once more during the 1860s and 1870s, Cardwell’s creation of an army reserve in 1870, growing imperial commitments in the 1880s and 1890s and the crisis of the Boer War helped to increase them to 291,000 by 1900. In 1910, and in the aftermath of a further round of far-reaching reforms under Richard Burdon Haldane, there were almost 252,000 men in the ranks of the regular army and nearly 136,000 in the army’s reserve.26 Although the size of the regular army was subject to great fluctuations, the scale of its imperial commitments grew progressively over the same period. While retaining its defensive and policing roles in Great Britain and Ireland, over the course of the nineteenth century the army progressively assumed the role of a highly professional (and chronically overstretched) imperial gendarmerie. During the long years of war with Republican and Napoleonic France, ongoing expansion in India and a succession of conquests in South Africa, the Mediterranean and the East and West Indies meant that the army’s global commitments by the time of Waterloo were much greater than they had been in 1793.27 In the century after 1815, further expansion in India, Africa and the Pacific added to the army’s burden, a burden which was only partially alleviated by the fostering of colonial self-reliance and, ultimately, by a strategy of collective imperial defence.28 Notwithstanding these developments, the army was once again obliged to tap into the militia and to raise legions of foreigners during the Crimean War.29 Once again, the regular army’s manpower problems were cruelly exposed by the Boer War of 1899–1902, its soldiers and reservists being reinforced by a motley array of militiamen, volunteers and yeomanry from home in addition to volunteers from the self-governing colonies of Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Indeed, and despite an initial concern to fight a ‘white

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man’s war’, such were the demands of war on the veldt that black and coloured South Africans were quickly armed and deployed in significant numbers against the Boer commandos.30 Despite its fluctuating size and its growing imperial commitments, in the defence and the expansion of the empire Britain was primarily dependent on an army whose social composition remained largely unchanged from the previous century. Although mass mobilisation, high wastage rates and a large crop of free commissions broadened the social base of the officer corps between 1793 and 1815,31 the officer corps essentially retained its upper class character and aristocratic ethos throughout the nineteenth century. Despite John Bright’s quip that the British army provided ‘a gigantic system of outdoor relief for the aristocracy’,32 even after the purchase of commissions in the infantry and cavalry was abolished in 1871, the lifestyle of army officers in Great Britain could rarely be supported by those who were without substantial private means. As Byron Farwell put it, ‘the need for a private income to live in a regiment stationed in England’ continued to act ‘as an effective social filter’.33 In the Guards and in cavalry regiments especially, mess and other expenses far outstripped officers’ pay and, by the end of the century, a hierarchy of fashionable regiments had emerged even among the army’s ordinary infantry regiments.34 Whatever representation the commercial classes may have retained among the army’s junior officers, more than 70 per cent of regimental colonels throughout the Victorian era were sons of army officers, of the landed gentry or of the Anglican clergy.35 The most important qualification for a commission was that one could pass muster as a gentleman, an elastic concept which was nevertheless sufficiently precise to ensure that the tiny percentage of soldiers commissioned from the ranks were placed in an untenable situation in their own regiments, being neither accepted by their fellow officers nor respected by their erstwhile comrades.36 The aristocratic ethos of the officer corps was also reflected in the fact that most officers aspired to a lifestyle resembling that of a country gentleman. Field sports remained important recreations and some regiments even kept their own packs of hounds.37 Furthermore, officers routinely kept their own servants and regimental messes were run in the manner of the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs.38 Few regimental officers were heavily burdened with professional responsibilities, leaves of absence were lengthy and the day-to-day running of the regiment or battalion was generally left to key functionaries such as the lieutenant-colonel, the adjutant, the quartermaster and the senior NCOs.39 By the end of the century, the great majority of officers had received a public school education, an education which, in theory at least, provided them with all the moral and social attributes necessary for their future careers and which (through

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their schools’ rifle and cadet corps) had even provided them with a modicum of military training.40 So closely intertwined were the new and reformed public schools with the late nineteenth-century officer corps that it was estimated in 1902 that they had provided the regular army with 62 per cent of its officers, 11 per cent of the entire officer corps being old Etonians.41 As far as the other ranks were concerned, a veteran who had enlisted in 1853 no doubt spoke for many when he commenced his account of army life by stating that: ‘At the age of eighteen I found myself, by force of circumstances, starving in the streets of London, and determined to tramp to Chatham and enlist as a soldier.’42 John MacMullen, a Dublin businessman who enlisted after falling on hard times, drew a vivid picture of 200 fellow recruits in the early 1840s, men whom he described as ‘the very offscourings of several of the principal cities of the United Kingdom’. MacMullen recalled that the majority were: [I]n no way distinguished for orderly conduct, while many of them had vice and ruffianism stamped indelibly on their faces . . . Rogues and scoundrels were jumbled together en masse; and these, despite their relationship, agreed in no one respect, save in fleecing their more simple companions, by means of cards, pitch and toss &c., to the utmost extent of their knavish abilities, and in utter contempt of Her Majesty’s regulations touching gambling. They likewise indulged without restraint in the most foul and abominable language, and I certainly felt considerable pain of mind as I asked myself, are these to be my future companions?43 By the end of the eighteenth century, the growing urbanisation of mainland Britain, which was to continue apace throughout the following century, was already drawing attention to the relative military merits of town-dwellers and countrymen. In 1794, Rowland Hill, then lieutenant-colonel of the 90th Regiment, declared that he would sooner pay fifteen guineas to recruit a Shropshire countryman than five guineas to recruit a townsman from Manchester or Birmingham.44 By the 1830s, levels of rejection of recruits on medical grounds were significantly lower in rural areas than in urban ones and in 1847 William Grattan asserted that the living conditions of the Irish peasant rendered him far better military material than his English counterpart. Irish troops were not only generally more robust, Grattan claimed, but they were also much better marchers for the ‘plain reason, that scarcely one of them wore many pairs of shoes prior to the date of his enlistment’.45 By the 1870s, the declining number of recruits from the rural areas of Scotland and Ireland had prompted a growing lament for the passing of the ‘peasant

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soldier’, a breed which had once been so numerous in the ranks of the British army.46 Although this concern was probably exaggerated (if only because the army’s urban recruits inevitably included some emigrants from the countryside), what Edward Spiers has described as ‘the urbanisation of the Victorian army’ proved an irreversible process and was so complete by 1913 that agricultural labourers made up only 11 per cent of the army’s recruits for that year.47 One consequence of the changing provenance of the army’s recruits was a sustained attempt to raise their quality. Although incremental reforms had been taking place for decades, during Edward Cardwell’s years as Secretary of State for War (1868–74), recruitment practices were reformed, further restrictions were placed on corporal punishment, short-service enlistments and an army reserve were introduced and the army’s regimental system was given a firmer territorial base.48 However, the limits of the late-Victorian public’s love affair with the military was highlighted by the fact that even these reforms did not serve to provide the army with a markedly better class of recruit and nor did they solve its chronic problem of under-recruiting. Despite Cardwell’s initiatives, the relatively unfavourable pay and conditions of the late-Victorian army ensured that, by the turn of the twentieth century, the army still took more than 60 per cent of its recruits from ‘the least skilled sections of the working class’.49 Even on the brink of the First World War, the army was consistently failing to meet its annual recruitment targets50 and, as Correlli Barnett has put it: Although the gradual reform of the conditions of army life and discipline had put an end to a rank-and-file of felons, drunks, and pathological outcasts, the army was still recruited mostly from the very poorest and most ignorant. The army was, in a real sense, the only welfare service provided by the British state for the rescue of such unfortunates.51 In the 1840s John MacMullen had claimed that the overwhelming majority of the army’s recruits were ‘Indigent’, ‘Idle’, ‘Bad characters’ or ‘Discontented and restless’.52 Notwithstanding decades of reform, one army chaplain identified very similar categories of recruit sixty years later. First, there were those who were seduced by ‘the glamour of military life, the fine uniform and smart appearance of our soldiers’. Second, there were many who drifted into the army when they were ‘“stone broke”, out of work, not wanted at home, nothing to do, nothing to eat, nowhere to go’. Third, there were those who, after getting into trouble, sought to go where they could ‘make a fresh start’. Fourth, there were those who enlisted to forget a woman, abandoning themselves ‘to despair

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and the recruiting sergeant’. Fifth, there were those for whom ‘steady, ill-paid labour’ was ‘unbearably monotonous’ and who preferred a life which afforded plenty of scope for ‘idleness’. Finally, there was a small element of men who had ‘“soldiering” in the blood’: sons of old soldiers; and those who join the army for romantic reasons, lads who dream dreams of honour and glory and travels in foreign lands, and who love the strong manliness of a soldier’s life; lads who live in their imagination, which can find no scope in the dull grinding monotony of dreary toil.53 The growing ‘urbanisation’ of the army during the course of the nineteenth century was closely associated with significant changes in its ethnic composition. In the case of the Scottish Highlands, the weakening of the traditional social system and depopulation in the form of emigration overseas or to the industrial Lowlands dramatically affected the productivity of these once fertile recruiting grounds.54 In 1798, the 42nd Highlanders drew 51 per cent of its recruits from the Highlands; by 1854 this proportion had fallen to just 5 per cent.55 Similarly, in the case of Catholic Ireland, the Potato Famine, mass emigration, later nineteenth-century agricultural prosperity and Nationalist politics all conspired to reduce its yield of recruits.56 During the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Scottish and the Irish had tended to be over-represented among the rank and file of the army. J.E. Cookson has estimated that, by 1813, the British army ‘was about one-half English, one-sixth Scottish, and one-third Irish’ at a time when their countrymen comprised 57 per cent, 10 per cent and 33 per cent of the British population respectively.57 Leaving aside the sizeable number of foreigners serving in British regiments, it is clear that Scotland’s contribution was much greater in relative terms than that of England or Ireland at this time. However, and although the absolute size of the army declined sharply after Waterloo, the Irish proportion of the army continued to grow, a function of low agricultural wages, rural overpopulation and the continuing poverty of the Irish peasantry.58 By 1830, the army was more than 42 per cent Irish at a time when the Irish comprised just over 32 per cent of the British population. At this time, Scotland still provided over 13 per cent of the army while its population was less than 10 per cent of the British total. In contrast, England and Wales, home to 58 per cent of the population of Britain, furnished only 44 per cent of the army’s rank and file.59 However, during subsequent decades this situation was dramatically reversed and the army’s own statistics show that the Victorian army experienced a prolonged and decisive process of Anglicisation. By 1870, and despite

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their vaunted military reputation, the Scots were already under-represented in the British army.60 Similarly, by the turn of the twentieth century, Ireland’s representation was also falling below its proportionate share of the British population.61 By 1905, 75 per cent of the army’s rank and file were English by birth, 11 per cent Irish, 8 per cent Scottish, 2 per cent Welsh and the remainder were either born elsewhere in the empire or were volunteers of foreign extraction.62 By the first years of the twentieth century, therefore, the British army was quite probably more English in composition than it had ever been, the army’s typical recruit being an impoverished and urban-bred Englishman. Despite the hallowed figures of Havelock and Gordon and the celebrated exploits of the late Victorian army, the public at large continued to view ordinary soldiers as profane, hard drinking, promiscuous and brutal. Certainly, there were many occasions throughout the nineteenth century when they lived up to this reputation. Although the Peninsular War was legendary for its ferocity, the storming of the fortress cities of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz and San Sebastián by British and Allied troops in 1812 and 1813 were accompanied by scenes of massacre, looting and rape which were shocking even by the dreadful standards of the wider conflict. Indeed, they led General Sir William Francis Napier, historian and veteran of the campaign, to lament that ‘no wild horde of Tartars ever fell with more license upon neighbours than did English troops upon Spanish towns taken by storm’.63 However, similar scenes occurred elsewhere, most notably after the fall of Seringapatam in 1799, the capture of Multan in 1849, the storming of Delhi in 1857 and in the destruction of the imperial summer palace outside Peking in 1860. During the Crimean War, Charles Kingsley felt compelled to warn the soldiers in the trenches outside Sebastopol of the evils which might follow in the wake of their capture of the port: I know [he wrote tremulously] how when towns are taken, some soldiers fancy that they may do things for which (to speak the truth) they ought to be hanged. I mean, in plain English, ravishing the women, and ill-treating unarmed men, to make them give up their money. Whosoever does these things, God’s curse is on him, and his sin will surely find him out. No excuse of being in hot blood will avail him.64 Despite several decades of rehabilitation, the same suspicions as to the lascivious brutality of the British soldier were aired during the Boer War, particularly in the light of alleged atrocities against Boer civilians. As the crusading Congregationalist journalist, W.T. Stead, put it in his pamphlet ‘Methods of Barbarism’; the Case for Intervention:

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[No one] would allow their servant girl to remain out all night on a public common in England in time of profound peace in the company of a score of soldiers. Why, then, should they suppose that when the same men are released from all the restraints of civilisation, and sent forth to burn, destroy and loot at their own sweet will and pleasure, they will suddenly undergo a complete transformation as to scrupulously respect the wives and daughters of the enemy.65 In addition to its conduct abroad, the existence of a standing army continued to generate political tensions at home. If the muted agitation of the Peace Society had little tangible impact on military matters,66 hostile criticism from stronger civilian interest groups could and did have a significant influence on military affairs, the virtual eradication of flogging in the army during the course of the nineteenth century owing much to pressure from this quarter.67 Furthermore, if civilian agitation brought about the demise of the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1886, the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 prompted a high-profile anti-enlistment campaign by Irish Nationalists, a campaign which further weakened the army’s links with Catholic Ireland.68 Although flogging, the sexual misadventures of the common soldier and the army’s recruitment of the Irish to crush other small nations halfway across the globe were controversial enough in the late Victorian period, the status of the army was even more problematic in the years following Waterloo. Inevitably, the demobilisation of tens of thousands of soldiers stoked fears of mass brigandage69 and the broad diffusion of military expertise throughout civilian society also heightened fears of political subversion, fears which persisted for decades and which were hardly allayed by the quasi-military drill and appurtenances evidenced at large political meetings across Britain and Ireland between Waterloo and the Crimean War.70 However, for contemporary radicals the existence of a standing army was a mixed blessing at best. Although the Chartists showed that individual soldiers could be suborned (one of the rebels killed in the ‘Newport Rising’ of 1839 was a sergeant who had deserted and become a rebel drillmaster)71 the army as a whole retained its role as the armed champion of the status quo and the ultimate enforcer of law and order. Moreover, its attachment to the lash as a means of maintaining its own internal discipline did little to alter its abiding image as an instrument of oppression.72 The ethos and image of the regular army was certainly alien to the liberal spirit of the mid-Victorian Volunteer movement, the Volunteer being seen as the virtuous embodiment of the patriotic, part-time citizen soldier. One of the ways in which the Volunteer movement chose to differentiate itself from the regular army was by dressing its regiments in rifle

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green rather than in the red of the regular (and militia) infantry regiments.73 Even in the euphoric heyday of popular imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century, the more liberal and radical sections of the press remained deeply critical of the army, reworking traditional suspicions into new charges of institutionalised hooliganism.74 Besides doubts as to the army’s conduct abroad and its role and significance in domestic politics, civilian society remained fundamentally convinced of the degraded nature of a soldier’s life. In 1808, Viscount Melville (formerly the country’s first Secretary of State for War) echoed Bernard Mandeville in informing the House of Lords that ‘The worst men were fittest soldiers. Keep the better sort at home’.75 During the first half of the nineteenth century, even military tailoring and military music could be regarded as degenerate and contaminating influences on society at large, a danger which was heightened by the considerable appeal of reviews and other military spectacles for the weaker brethren.76 While moralists had always been uncomfortably aware of the sexual excitement engendered by military uniforms,77 as late as 1850 (and just before the Highlander became the living embodiment of all the manly and homespun Christian virtues) a parliamentary petition from Stirling called for the abolition of the kilt, describing it as ‘an exceedingly indecent and inconvenient dress’ and alleging that it was ‘painful to the feelings of all men imbued with a correct sense of the principles of propriety, morality and religion’.78 As for military music, in 1801 a complainant to the Gentleman’s Magazine condemned the debilitating effects of military bands on public morality, bemoaning the fact that ‘the number of military bands established in the kingdom, have so much extended a degree of knowledge in musick, that either some discarded soldier, servant, or player, scrapes a fiddle in every parish, and promotes drunkenness, lewdness, and idleness, by bringing the lads and girls together to dance’.79 According to Joseph Mayett, it was Satan’s cunning in exploiting his taste for martial music which led to his enlistment in the Buckinghamshire Militia in 1803. Such profane music was, Mayett claimed, ‘Congenial with my Carnal nature’ and from the singing of ‘a good war song’ it was an easy decline into ‘all the paltry and filthey songs that Could be devised’.80 Although the attitudes of respectable civilians to military dress and military music were to change dramatically in the course of the nineteenth century, the foul language of the common soldier remained proverbial and irredeemable. The Methodist dragoon, Thomas Hasker, professed to be ‘shocked, beyond expression, at the horribly blasphemous language used by a dragoon of another regiment’ as he and his comrades disembarked at Ostend for the Waterloo campaign.81 A century later, John Lucy found conversation in the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles equally unedifying: ‘our Dublin friends blas-

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phemed softly and easily’, he recalled, ‘and the slum adjective for fornication preceded every noun they uttered. The staccato talk of the northerners was interspersed with obscure or obscene words, which we soon discovered was simply the mode and entirely meaningless’.82 Notwithstanding the foulness of his language and his many other vices, it was generally accepted that the moral nemesis of the common soldier was his overweening fondness for alcohol. In part, this was a function of the class and the culture from which the ordinary soldier was recruited, Wellington’s memorable dictum that the rank and file of the British army had ‘all enlisted for drink’83 being as much a comment on wider social problems as it was on the proclivities of his own men. However, and for the ordinary soldier, a lack of family life, the unreliability of local water supplies and even regular rations of salt meat could exacerbate an unhealthy dependence on alcohol.84 Furthermore, the army’s own traditions compounded this problem. A drunken spree in the company of a recruiting party was still the setting for many enlistments until well into the nineteenth century85 and the daily rum ration (which had found its way into the army during the later years of the eighteenth century)86 continued to be issued into the twentieth, being substituted for potent native spirits in India and the Far East. Ironically, until the 1830s, it was still a widely held belief that drink rendered soldiers less vulnerable to tropical diseases, much as it inured them to the discomforts of bivouacs and to the pangs of fear before battle.87 Finally, the sheer monotony of barrack life naturally drove many to drink as a form of recreation. As one soldier observed of conditions in India in the 1840s, there were certainly ‘a great many inducements for a man to become a drunkard. The want of good society, pernicious example, the absence of employment or innocent amusement, and that which makes the sailor fly to the spirit room when the bark is sinking, despair’.88 In general terms, the effects of the army’s drinking culture could be dire. Reflecting on his experiences as a soldier, one veteran of the Napoleonic Wars was convinced that, in tropical stations, even regulation rum issues had the effect of ‘thinning the ranks of regiment after regiment with a more fatal certainty than the ball or the bayonet’.89 Besides helping to consign individual soldiers to an early grave, drink also posed a distinct threat to military discipline and efficiency. According to the Duke of Wellington, drunkenness was ‘the parent of every other military offence’ and one Highlander even remembered that, in Gibraltar in the 1790s, the various regiments of the garrison had to be paid on different days so that ‘the garrison might not be involved in one general state of intoxication at the same time’.90 On campaign, the soldier’s fondness for drink could have terrible consequences, and not only for the civilian population. One veteran of the 71st Regiment recalled that, even amidst the miseries of the retreat to Corunna in 1809:

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The great fault of our soldiers . . . was an inordinate desire for spirits of any kind. They sacrificed their life and safety for drink, in many ways; for they lay down intoxicated upon the snow and slept the sleep of death; or, staggering behind, were overtaken and cut down by the merciless French soldiers . . . So great was their propensity to drown their misery in liquor that we were often exposed to cold and rain for a whole night in order that we might be kept from the wine stores of a neighbouring town.91 Fifty years later, and with the onset of full-scale rebellion in northern India, a former officer of the Bengal Artillery warned the readers of The Freeman of the dangerously vulnerable state which mass drunkenness could induce among European soldiers in India: ‘I tremble even yet’, he shuddered, ‘when I recall scenes usually witnessed among our European soldiers at Christmas, &c.; not a sober man even on guard by noon!’92 As the nineteenth century progressed, a growing professional ethos within the officer corps produced a raft of new initiatives aimed at reducing the chronic problem of alcoholism in the ranks, these initiatives ranging from the introduction of good conduct badges to the tighter regulation of regimental canteens and the encouragement of military temperance societies.93 These measures seem to have encountered a certain degree of success for, by the 1880s, drunkenness as a military offence appeared to be on the decline.94 However, there can be no doubt that the problem was contained rather than eliminated. As Edwin Mole recalled of his days in India, some of his comrades were hopeless in this respect: ‘No red tape regulations could keep such men from boozing’, he wrote, ‘and if get drunk they must, it was far better they should do so on pure spirit than on bazaar poison’.95 Notwithstanding the high-level temperance initiatives of recent years, drink proved to be a serous problem during the Boer War, even among soldiers on the veldt.96 In the aftermath of the Boer War, and after seventy years of temperance activity in the army, Paul Bull could still echo the Duke of Wellington in confirming that most of the army’s disciplinary problems were alcohol-related: ‘Ninety-five per cent of all crime in the army comes from drink. Drink inflames men for every act of lust, and is the main cause of the ruin of our comrades and our homes.’97 In fact, and as Frank Richards testified, by this time so-called ‘boozing schools’ had emerged among veteran soldiers, fraternities which existed for the benefit of the hardened drinker and which fed upon the temperance culture which the military authorities were keen to foster, their members turning teetotal in order to save their pay for ever-greater excesses.98

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Despite Kipling’s famous plea that ‘single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints’,99 it is nevertheless true that army life throughout the nineteenth century was heavily associated with moral turpitude. Besides the problems of swearing and drinking, petty theft was also endemic, so much so that the pilfering of military property was the army’s second biggest disciplinary problem by the late 1880s.100 However, perhaps the most controversial of the soldier’s vices was his promiscuity. In part, this was a function of the army’s drinking culture, public houses in garrison towns being notorious as dens of prostitution.101 Nevertheless, the army’s own restrictions on soldiers’ marriage also played their part. On balance, the army preferred not to enlist married men and the limited number of soldiers’ wives which regiments were prepared to support on their establishments rendered marriage problematical for the unmarried soldier. Faced with the army’s unrelenting parsimony and with a common regimental restriction of six married men per hundred-man company,102 many soldiers were compelled to marry ‘off the strength’ (and thus condemn wife and children to an uncertain future without regimental support) or find sexual release elsewhere.103 Because of this situation, prostitution was particularly rife in and around military camps and garrisons, a situation which led to worryingly high levels of hospitalisation for venereal disease among soldiers in Great Britain and India. In fact, by the end of the 1850s, venereal disease was by far the greatest cause of illness among British soldiers stationed at home, their rates of infection comparing unfavourably to the sailors of the Royal Navy and even to the soldiers of other European armies.104 The implications for the army’s efficiency were obvious and resulted in some of the most controversial legislation of the Victorian era. The successive Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869 created a system of regulation in the major garrison towns of Great Britain, a system whereby prostitutes could be apprehended, medically examined and detained in hospital or in prison depending on the level of co-operation they showed the authorities.105 Naturally, the Contagious Diseases Acts provoked a furore. In 1886, and following a lengthy campaign, the Acts were repealed by a Liberal government, their opponents by this time including churchmen, feminists and the TUC.106 Inevitably, public controversy over the Contagious Diseases Acts did little for the army’s reputation, particularly as it was accompanied by attacks on its policies on soldiers’ marriage and by increased activity on the part of purity campaigners in garrison towns.107 While obvious enough at home, soldiers’ promiscuity was even more blatant overseas. In India and the Far East, where there were relatively few British women,108 soldiers could be in prolonged contact with non-European cultures whose sexual mores were radically different from those which prevailed in Victorian Britain. As Ronald Hyam has argued, the imperial experience gave

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Britons ‘an enlarged field of opportunity’ in terms of sexual relations, relations which were rendered still more immoral because of their fundamental impermanence.109 In the days of East India Company rule in India, native wives, concubines and their children were forbidden to follow soldiers back to Great Britain, where, it was argued, they would be unable to obtain poor relief.110 Similarly, when the last soldiers of the 19th Regiment left Ceylon in 1820 after a posting of more than twenty years, their ship was surrounded by abandoned native women, ‘some with three and four children’.111 Particularly notorious was the moral laxity of India, the home of Britain’s largest overseas garrison, which ‘offered the libertine abundant and various sexual experiences’.112 Here, of course, prostitution was ‘a recognised and respected professional means of livelihood’, as James Coley, an East India Company chaplain, sourly noted.113 In 1846, the same clergyman wrote of Lahore: The people seem to live in filth and to rejoice, like pigs, in mire and stench . . . All the inhabitants of this Sodom, men and women alike, have a sinister and diabolical expression of countenance . . . As we passed along, almost every window was filled with prostitutes . . . From all I hear and read of the depravity of this place, I should suppose a virtuous woman in Lahore would be a rara avis. This however is nothing: a Hindoo once told me that he believed such a person would be a rarity in any town of Hindoostan.114 For the British army in India, prostitution and venereal disease remained intractable problems. It has been estimated that, in the decades prior to the Indian Mutiny, at any given time more than 30 per cent of European soldiers in India were hospitalised because of sexually transmitted diseases.115 However, the problem may well have worsened following the trauma of the Mutiny, monogamous unions with native women declining as inter-cultural relations hardened in its aftermath.116 Nevertheless, and well before the rebellion broke out, few could fail to notice the pernicious effects of prostitution upon India’s European population. John MacMullen, who served as an ordinary soldier with the 13th Regiment in India in the 1840s, noted that not only were ‘the large towns . . . full of brothels’ but the ‘Europeans in India’ were not ‘much behind the natives in libidinous practices’.117 Indeed, much of this vice was essentially recreational. For the rank and file of the army in India throughout the nineteenth century, leisure remained largely a choice between drinking in the regimental canteen, lying for hours in the barrack room or visiting a local prostitute.118 It was this situation which led Edwin Mole to reflect on service in India in the 1870s:

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There is an old proverb which says ‘Idleness is the root of all evil,’ [and] this may be applied to the British soldier in India [because] the long, long, weary day from ten to five – seven mortal hours with nothing to do but keep out of the sun – has been to blame for many a crime committed, many a constitution wrecked, and many a man gone wrong.119 Furthermore, and as Frank Richards of the Royal Welch Fusiliers confirmed, it was accepted army wisdom that soldiers should frequent the regulated brothels ‘For the benefit of our health, because it was said that to abstain was unhealthy in a hot climate’.120 Despite the army’s maintenance of an elaborate system of regulated brothels and lock hospitals in its Indian cantonments, the incidence of venereal disease among British soldiers in India remained disconcertingly high throughout the nineteenth century and it was certainly very much greater than among soldiers stationed in Great Britain. Nevertheless, the wisdom of the army’s interventionist approach was demonstrated after the official suspension of its regulating activities in 1888, a result of unrelenting pressure from the purity lobby at home. In the aftermath of this suspension, rates of infection soared and the new dispensation proved untenable in the long term.121 Besides the dangers of drink and venereal disease, the unattractiveness of army life was further accentuated by the physical dangers with which the soldier had to contend. Despite the manifold dangers of other occupations, and also the terrible living conditions which prevailed in the urban slums of nineteenth-century Britain, soldiering as a way of life remained a relatively hazardous undertaking. One corollary of the army’s imperial commitments was that its soldiers could expect to spend long periods at sea. Besides the torrid and unsanitary conditions of their transports (conditions which were still in evidence as late as the Boer War),122 disaster at sea was also a definite risk. Catastrophe was only narrowly averted when one transport – the Sarah Sands – caught fire off Mauritius in 1857 with the 54th Regiment on board.123 However, one of the most famous maritime disasters of the Victorian era was the loss of the Birkenhead off the coast of South Africa in 1852, a tragedy which cost the lives of nearly 450 soldiers on board. Enemy action was, of course, a far more common and obvious cause of death or injury. Despite an impressive record of British military success in this era, victories were not won cheaply in human terms. The battle of Waterloo cost the British regiments of Wellington’s Allied army 7,500 killed, wounded and missing, or 30 per cent of their strength.124 However, when facing ‘savage’, non-European enemies in the many colonial wars of the period, relative

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casualties could be higher still, and signal defeats such as Isandlwana in 1879 and Maiwand in 1880 saw the slaughter of almost all British regulars present. Notwithstanding the hazards of the sea and the malice of his enemies, the most potent and ubiquitous danger to the British soldier throughout this period was disease. Ironically, for much of the nineteenth century even his barracks in Great Britain posed a serious threat to the health of the British soldier. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars saw an extensive and highly controversial barrack-building programme in mainland Britain, a programme which saw the capacity of Britain’s barracks swell from 20,000 to nearly 100,000 men. In general, living conditions in these new barracks were squalid in the extreme. Many were situated in growing manufacturing towns and most lacked basic amenities and adequate ventilation.125 In 1857, when the annual mortality rate among the home army exceeded seventeen per thousand, a Royal Commission concluded that this compared unfavourably even to mortality rates among the most dangerous of civilian occupations.126 In fact, the conditions in army barracks were so poor that in 1858 they were even likened in the pages of The Times to those on slave ships.127 Thereafter, and aided by the soldier’s qualified rehabilitation in the eyes of the British public, gradual improvements to barrack accommodation in the British Isles contributed to a three-quarters reduction of the mortality rate among the home army by 1899.128 Despite its evident shortcomings, the health of the army at home was generally better than the health of the army abroad. Naturally, the climate and healthiness of the army’s overseas stations varied considerably. As Sir John Fortescue put it: [T]hose in Canada, Australia and the Cape [were] the best, the Mediterranean coming next, with the Ionian Islands at the bottom of the list; then Bermuda and Mauritius; then St. Helena; then, with a deep downward plunge, Ceylon, the Windward Antilles and India; then, with another terrible fall, Jamaica; and finally Sierra Leone.129 According to the army’s own estimates, for the period 1817–36 average annual mortality rates among soldiers at these stations ranged from 15.5 per thousand at the Cape to 85 per thousand in the Windward and Leeward Islands and 130 per thousand in Jamaica.130 West Africa was, of course, ‘nothing more nor less than an open grave to the white man, where the annual death rate ranged from 75 to 80 in the hundred’.131 However, these statistics disguised the toll which climate and disease took on soldiers of

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different age groups. In the Windward and Leeward Islands, the average annual mortality rate among soldiers aged between 18 and 25 was 50 per thousand; among those aged between 33 and 40 it was 97 per thousand, rising to 123 per thousand among those aged between 40 and 50, figures which represent a grim reflection of the debilitating effects of long-term postings to the tropics.132 On campaign, of course, disease could lead to extremely high casualties rates and it almost invariably accounted for the major part of the army’s losses. One recent estimate has put the British army’s losses during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars at around 240,000 men, of whom only ‘27,000 fell in battle or died from their wounds’.133 In the Crimea, just over 4,000 British soldiers died as a result of enemy action whereas over 17,000 died from disease – chiefly cholera, typhus and scurvy.134 Despite the progress apparent in the Abyssinian War of 1867–8 and the new standards set by Sir Garnet Wolseley in safeguarding the health of his soldiers during the Second Ashanti War of 1873–4,135 disease continued to exact a higher death toll than enemy action throughout the campaigns of the nineteenth century. During the Boer War of 1899–1902, twice as many British soldiers died from disease than died at the hands of the Boers.136 In summation, and despite the growing appeal of the army to many British civilians in the latter half of the century, the lot of the ordinary British soldier in the nineteenth century remained closely comparable to that of his predecessor of the eighteenth century. Although his pay and conditions of service were gradually improved, his was still a dangerous occupation which was shunned by respectable society and which tended to attract the poorest and least promising members of British society. As the century wore on, and as recruitment fell away in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, its rank and file became more homogeneous, soldiering becoming increasingly the business of the poorer members of the English urban working classes. Plagued by drink, riddled with vice, living in unusually close proximity to death and, ironically enough, the unlikely representative of a Christian nation when serving abroad, the British soldier remained very much in need of the consoling and remedial influence of religion. During the nineteenth century, this influence was brought to bear on the soldier to an ever-increasing extent and we must now turn to consider the scale, the diversity and the impact of the means by which this was achieved.

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Chapter 3

T H E C H UR C H E S A N D T H E S O L D I ER , 1 7 9 3 – 1 9 1 4

Official religious provision S I N T H E E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U R Y , the army exerted a range of institutional religious influences upon its soldiers. Although the nineteenth century saw significant changes to its internal discipline, weekly public worship in the form of the parade service remained a duty under the Articles of War and under subsequent Queen’s Regulations. Moreover, the frequent absence of commissioned or officiating chaplains often meant that the spiritual care of soldiers devolved upon their officers. In 1811, and at a time when the shortage of chaplains was acute among Wellington’s troops in the Peninsula, a War Office circular authorised any officer of captain’s rank or above to perform certain religious offices in the absence of a clergyman.1 In subsequent years, Dr Thomas Arnold even demonstrated his faith in the alumni of the reformed public schools by arguing that officers be allowed to administer Holy Communion to their men in the absence of a priest.2 Although this was never formally authorised, the officers of the British army continued to perform various religious functions when occasion demanded. Frequent campaigns in distant corners of the world ensured that they were often required to lead burial services3 and, in pre-Mutiny India, the chronic shortage of East India Company chaplains ensured that the spiritual remit of army officers was often much wider. In 1819, it was reported from Madras that one officer read services to his men so ‘regularly and affectionately’ that their Company chaplain concluded that it was ‘a pity for him to interfere’.4 This reliance on officers to perform the most basic religious services in pre-Mutiny India is reflected in the memoirs of John MacMullen, who wrote of the predicament of his regiment in the early 1840s:

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The burial service [was] read over my departed comrade by the captain of the company, as there was no Christian minister at the station, a circumstance which was a matter of much regret to every one. Marriages and christenings had been performed by General Sale up to his departure, by virtue of a licence granted him by the Bishop of Calcutta to that effect; and the last sad rites to the dead were usually rendered by officers commanding companies, who read over Protestants the burial service of their own ritual, and over Catholics that of theirs . . . We had a parade every Sunday for divine service, an officer reading prayers for the Protestants while another, (the only Catholic one in the corps) performed the same office for those of his own faith.5 As we shall be seeing in Chapter 4, it is quite likely that such responsibilities may have encouraged many officers to go much further in promoting the religious well-being of their men. Nevertheless, the army’s spiritual oversight between 1796 and 1914 was primarily the responsibility of the Army Chaplains’ Department. Established by Royal Warrant in September 1796, the creation of the Department was one of many reforms for which the Duke of York was responsible as Commander-in-Chief. With the creation of the Chaplains’ Department, the old regimental chaplaincies were abolished (along with the sale of chaplains’ commissions) and a system of commissioned and officiating chaplains was created in their stead. The administration of the new department was placed under a Chaplain-General, the first being the Revd John Gamble, who was answerable to the Secretary at War, a functionary who was effectively the Commander-in-Chief’s principal clerk.6 However, and despite every appearance of good intentions and of root and branch reform, the creation of an all-embracing Chaplains’ Department succeeded in creating new difficulties while failing to eliminate the old problems of absenteeism and inadequate pastoral oversight for soldiers serving abroad. In terms of creating administrative problems, the Royal Warrant of 1796 had the effect of turning the army’s commissioned chaplains into an exclusively Episcopalian body, applicants for commissions becoming subject to the approval of an episcopal committee comprising the bishop of London and the archbishops of Canterbury and York.7 While this was to cause considerable friction in the long term, the problem of absenteeism among commissioned chaplains on campaign was not remedied, notwithstanding a considerable increase in their pay and status during the course of the Napoleonic Wars. Prior to the Peninsular War, several major expeditions went overseas without a single commissioned chaplain being present. Furthermore, at the height of the

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Peninsular War in 1811, Wellington was compelled to complain to the army’s Adjutant-General, Sir Harry Calvert, about the paucity of chaplains ministering to his troops.8 After the end of hostilities in 1815, the Chaplains’ Department, like the rest of the army, fell prey to draconian cutbacks. Worse still, following the Revd Robert Hodgson’s quarrel with the Secretary at War in 1829, the office of Chaplain-General was ignominiously reduced to that of Principal Chaplain, its pay being adjusted accordingly.9 Whereas there had been thirty-six commissioned chaplains in 1814, by 1844 this number had been reduced to four.10 However, in April of that year the Revd George Gleig, hitherto chaplain at Chelsea Hospital, was appointed Principal Chaplain. A former infantry officer and a veteran of the Peninsula, Gleig adopted the role of a zealous military reformer.11 In 1846, he secured the restoration of the title of Chaplain-General and was appointed Inspector of Military Schools. Gleig held this post for eleven years, a period in which he oversaw the army’s system of regimental schools which had been created by the Duke of York in 1812. Despite Gleig’s activism on this and other fronts, the coming of the Crimean War in 1854 showed that the Chaplains’ Department was still wholly incapable of supporting a major campaign overseas. With the outbreak of war, only one of the army’s seven commissioned chaplains was available to go to the East, a situation which prompted a flurry of hasty commissions and which compelled the acceptance of the SPG’s offer to provide twenty-four temporary chaplains who were to be jointly maintained by the Society and the War Office.12 The war in the Crimea produced some notable manifestations of public religiosity, not only in the national fast days and days of thanksgiving which marked its course but also in the considerable public interest which was aroused in the spiritual plight of the army in the East.13 As Olive Anderson has argued, the experience of the Crimean War meant that ‘for the first time the question of the religious care the state should provide for its soldiers became a matter of topical concern’.14 Clearly, the Chaplains’ Department was a major beneficiary of this upsurge in public interest and also of the reforms which ensued. In October 1856, the number of the army’s commissioned chaplains was increased to twenty, with thirty-five assistant chaplains also being appointed.15 Two years later, another Royal Warrant introduced new rates of pay and allowances and inaugurated four new classes of commissioned chaplain, awarding each class a relative rank. Henceforth, the Chaplain-General was to hold the relative rank of major-general, chaplains of the first class that of colonel, chaplains of the second class that of lieutenant-colonel, chaplains of the third class that of major and chaplains of the fourth class that of captain. This assimilation into the officer corps was confirmed in May 1860, when a chaplain’s

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uniform was introduced which the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Cambridge, ordered should be worn ‘in the field, in Home Camps, and in Garrison towns when visiting the Hospital or otherwise engaged in military duty’. Two months later, the Duke issued a general order that soldiers ‘be instructed to salute all Military Chaplains, paying them the compliment due to their relative rank’.16 Nor, it should be stressed, were the Anglican clergy the sole beneficiaries of these new arrangements. In 1859, commissions were at last granted to Presbyterian and Roman Catholic chaplains, two of these being granted retrospectively in recognition of previous service.17 Besides the expansion of the Chaplains’ Department and the aggrandisement of its members, the creation of a new military camp at Aldershot and the expansion of existing camps at Shorncliffe, Colchester and the Curragh during the Crimean War led to the construction of six chapel huts and the building of attached chaplains’ residences. Although of ‘the rudest and cheapest character’ and built ‘on the plan of covered-in railway stations’,18 these edifices were a further indication of the new concern with which government and the War Office treated the religious welfare of the common soldier. With public interest in the religious state of the army heightened by the apocalyptic overtones of the Indian Mutiny,19 the army’s chapel building programme (which had begun rather tentatively in the 1840s) gathered momentum. Whereas, in 1833, there were only three garrison chapels in England (namely those at Portsmouth, Plymouth and Chatham),20 by 1869 the army’s camps and garrisons in Great Britain were home to no fewer than twenty-six chapel huts and twenty-eight chapel schools, the latter being dual function buildings which combined the role of classroom and place of worship.21 As the army estimates reveal, the Crimean War also saw a dramatic rise in public expenditure on the soldier’s other religious needs. For the financial year 1852–3, the army estimates allocated £18,500 to supporting the army’s system of officiating chaplains at home and overseas. By 1855–6, this figure had risen to £27,197, with a further £14,210 being allotted to the maintenance of the army’s chaplains in the Crimea. In addition to this, the scale and cost of the distribution of religious literature increased dramatically during the war years. In 1853–4, the War Office purchased 2,907 Bibles and 2,536 Prayer Books at a cost to the Treasury of £452 18s 2d. However, in 1855–6 purchases amounted to 29,298 King James Bibles, 22,275 Prayer Books and 1,814 Douai Bibles, the costs involved rising nearly tenfold to a total of £4,376 10s 5d.22 If the size and fortunes of the Anglican component of the Chaplains’ Department fluctuated in the half-century after Waterloo, it was also confronted with an array of increasingly assertive competitors. As we have

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seen, the Church of Scotland had lost out with the creation of the Chaplains’ Department in 1796. Although its clergy retained their historic monopoly over a handful of garrison chaplaincies in Scotland and were eligible to become officiating chaplains north of the border, any opportunity to become regimental chaplains to Scottish regiments had been eliminated and no official provision was made for Church of Scotland chaplains to minister to their coreligionists outside of Scotland. Moreover, the exclusion of Roman Catholics and Nonconformists from the new Chaplains’ Department was unfortunate at a time when both groups were becoming more numerous in the army and increasingly assertive of their rights in civil society. In these circumstances, the 1796 dispensation was bound to become a long-term casualty of the seismic constitutional upheavals which occurred in Great Britain between 1828 and 1832. With the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828, the passage of Catholic emancipation in 1829 and the advent of an aggressively reformist Whig government in the wake of the Reform Act of 1832, the rights of the army’s sizeable religious minorities could not be denied indefinitely. Accordingly, in 1835, the routine payment of officiating Presbyterian chaplains was sanctioned outside of Scotland while, in 1836, officiating Catholic chaplains were accorded the same rights. Presbyterian ministers and Roman Catholic priests served as temporary chaplains in the Crimea and they were formally commissioned in 1859. However, the rights of Nonconformist soldiers were also asserted from the 1830s onwards, although here the struggle for recognition and equality was complicated by the ambivalent attitudes of the Nonconformist churches towards soldiering as a profession and towards the principle of state-sponsored religion. In 1839, and partly because of Baptist lobbying from India (lobbying in which Henry Havelock had played a prominent part) the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Rowland Hill, issued a general order which confirmed that no soldier was to be ‘compelled to attend the Divine Worship of the Church of England; but that every soldier is to be at full liberty to attend the Worship of Almighty God according to the forms prescribed by his own religion, when military duty does not interfere’.23 However, rather than resolving matters, this order merely served to encourage greater Wesleyan assertiveness, particularly on the part of the combative and widely-travelled champion of army Methodism, Dr William Harris Rule. After two decades of skirmishing over the rights of Wesleyan soldiers at Gibraltar and Aldershot,24 Rule obtained the powerful support of the Earl of Shaftesbury, through whose influence the War Office was compelled to recognise a fourth (if rather broad) denominational category of ‘Other Protestants’ in 1862.25 In 1864, a further general order confirmed the army’s growing

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religious diversity by directing that a soldier’s denomination should be formally entered in his pay book and verified by his signature.26 Over succeeding decades, Wesleyan Methodism received separate recognition in 1881, Judaism was recognised eight years later and the Baptists and Congregationalists were recognised in 1903, thus leaving a very small number of soldiers in the category of ‘Other Protestants’.27 However, it must be stressed that the practical impact of this growing pluralism was limited by the relatively small numbers of soldiers involved and also by the reluctance of the Nonconformist churches to accept remuneration or other forms of support from the state for their services. Even the Wesleyans proved reluctant to accept anything other than bare recognition from the War Office, the Wesleyan Conference only agreeing to accept capitation fees for its officiating ministers in 1881.28 Indeed, it was not until the First World War that Wesleyan and other Nonconformist chaplains were formally commissioned. By the mid-1860s, therefore, the impact of tradition and of more recent reforms upon the individual soldier was such that his religious affiliation was officially registered and he was furnished with religious literature appropriate to his denomination. Furthermore, he was compelled to attend church regularly (often in purpose-built places of worship, which came to be shared by the recognised denominations) and he was ministered to by a greatly expanded system of commissioned and officiating chaplains. Given that all of this was financed by the taxpayer, it is hard to dispute Olive Anderson’s assertion that, in Britain by the mid-1860s, ‘more complete provision . . . existed for the religious care of the troops than for either the town or the country population in general’.29 This is not to say, however, that the system was without its faults and the Chaplains’ Department in particular had to contend with some serious long-term problems. Despite the considerable expansion of the Department following the Crimean War, its growth was not sufficient to provide the chaplains necessary for the many far-flung colonial campaigns of the late nineteenth century, a situation which often left British troops reliant on whatever spiritual assistance could be locally procured. Inevitably, when war broke out in South Africa in 1899, the army had to resort to the expedient of recruiting temporary chaplains from among the civilian clergy of Great Britain and South Africa.30 What compounded these problems from the perspective of the Church of England was the fact that commissioned Anglican chaplains were usually posted to garrisons rather than to regiments. Whereas the army’s Presbyterian and Roman Catholic chaplains were attached to Scottish and Irish regiments as a matter of course, the system of garrison chaplaincy effectively placed Anglican chaplains on the periphery of the army’s vitally important regimental system, a predicament which led to vain but recurrent calls in Anglican circles for the restoration of regimental chaplaincies.31

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Given the shortcomings of the army’s chaplaincy system, the provision of religious literature was seen as essential by those who wished to promote the moral and spiritual well-being of the soldier. As in previous generations, the Napoleonic Wars threw up plenty of individuals who were prepared to offer this comfort to soldiers on a freelance basis. John Green of the 68th Regiment remembered that, while stationed in Ripon in 1806–7, ‘The reverend the Dean of Ripon made a present of a great number of prayerbooks to our men: I received one, and carried it with me into Holland, Portugal, and Spain’.32 If civilian concern to provide soldiers with the word of God was reflected in the rise of local auxiliaries to the Naval and Military Bible Society,33 the importance of religious literature was not lost on the Chaplains’ Department either. Shortly after becoming Chaplain-General in 1810, the Revd John Owen, a clergyman with Wesleyan connections and strong evangelical convictions,34 instigated a campaign to place the provision of religious literature on a systematic footing.35 Such was the strength of Owen’s commitment to this cause that, from 1818, he founded and endowed the SPCK’s ‘Clericus Fund’, the sole purpose of which was to supply the Book of Common Prayer and the Society’s own publications to serving soldiers.36 Although Owen gave nearly £9,000 to the Clericus Fund,37 the Duke of York also evinced strong personal support for the same objectives, becoming the patron of the Naval and Military Bible Society while Commander-in-Chief. The ‘grand and important object’ of the Naval and Military Bible Society, which had been established by William Wilberforce and others in 1780, was to put ‘the Bible into the hands of every British sailor and soldier desirous of reading it’.38 At the Society’s annual general meeting of 1814, at which the Duke of York took the chair and the Adjutant-General was in attendance, it was reported that the Society had distributed ‘about 100,000’ Bibles and Testaments since its formation and that many auxiliary societies had emerged which shared the burden of its work.39 At this meeting, the Duke of York expressed his warm and continuing support for the Society and its objectives. In 1818, the Duke even issued orders to regimental commanders requiring them to correspond with the Naval and Military Bible Society ‘with respect to the supply of Bibles and Testaments’. Furthermore, he directed that they were to: take special care that whatever Bibles or Testaments are transmitted to you by the Committee, for the use of the men, are distributed in the most appropriate manner, and that the greatest attention is given to their preservation which may be consistent with the free circulation and use of them.40

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In an additional general order of March 1825, the Duke went on to direct that every soldier who could read was to be issued with a Bible and a Prayer Book, the cost of which was to be met by the War Office. Furthermore, a supplementary library of religious books was to be maintained by each regiment. These books were to be kept in a special box and the library was to be regularly inspected. As religious literature now formed part of their personal kit, soldiers who were found to have lost the books issued to them were obliged to replace them at their own expense.41 The Duke of York’s policy of issuing religious literature at public expense represented a major advance in religious provision for the army and it inaugurated a massive distribution effort. Books were provided by the SPCK and the NMBS and distributed to detachments of troops from Regent’s Park to Hobart’s Town. It was indicative of the dispatch with which the distribution was implemented that, of the army’s ninety-nine line infantry regiments, nearly three-quarters received a consignment of Bibles and Prayer Books in 1825–6. Although there is evidence that certain regimental commanders were wary of foisting Anglican publications on their men (Major Allen of the 93rd Highlanders requisitioned only fifty-five Bibles and fifty-four Prayer Books in 1825), the scale of the requisitions was often surprising. One of the largest requisitions was from the commanding officer of the 1st Regiment (Royal Scots), who ordered 464 Bibles and 583 Prayer Books. However, even this was dwarfed by a requisition from the 3rd Foot Guards which amounted to 839 Prayer Books and the same number of Bibles. By 1831, the distribution had largely been completed and another major effort was not mounted until 1844, when George Gleig became Principal Chaplain and decided to replenish the army’s stocks. With the rights of Presbyterian and Catholic soldiers now on a firmer footing, the requisitions for this later period reflected some interesting variations. The 26th Regiment, which had become something of a praying regiment under the command of Colonel Oglander, requisitioned 632 Bibles and 499 Prayer Books while the commanding officer of the 88th Regiment (the Connaught Rangers) requested no Bibles and only sixteen Prayer Books. Significantly, the largely Presbyterian 93rd (Highland) Regiment required no Prayer Books but availed itself of 1,550 Testaments.42 If soldiers were hardly bereft of Bibles, Testaments and tracts in the preCrimean period, the impact of their distribution is hard to gauge. However, it is likely that the mass distribution of religious literature during the Napoleonic Wars helped to bolster the army’s evangelical subculture. The importance of religious literature is borne out by the memoirs of several Methodist soldiers, for whom spiritual reading continued to play an important part in their journey to salvation. George Billanie, a veteran of the French Revolutionary War, recalled that reading his Bible and ‘several religious

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books’ led him to ‘hunger and thirst after personal holiness’.43 According to an evangelical officer of the Bengal army, stocks of religious books at cantonments in pre-Mutiny India represented an essential spiritual resource for British soldiers, not least because ‘The want of employment through confinement to barracks in the hot weather makes reading a much-valued recreation’.44 In the light of this, the apparent shortage of religious literature in early nineteenth-century India caused alarm to Churchmen and Dissenters alike. Writing in the 1830s, the Scottish Baptist, William Innes, averred that ‘neither Bible nor New Testament could be found in the whole British army’ for the swearing of oaths during the Seringapatam campaign of 1799. Furthermore, Innes claimed that: The scarcity of pious books, and even of the Bible . . . is stated to me by an officer who went to India in 1811 . . . He mentions, that books were very scarce at the station at which he was placed, and the only two that could be found at the merchant’s shop were, Hawker’s Zion Pilgrim, and Zion’s Warrior, which sold for sixpence or a shilling in England, but there cost £1, and a Bible costing 7s in England, brought £3.45 Although the Duke of York’s general order of 1825 was designed to eliminate such spiritual destitution, the success of this measure was naturally limited by the attitudes and circumstances of soldiers themselves. A particularly gross manifestation of soldiers’ irreligion was alleged to have occurred when men of the 9th Regiment exchanged their newly acquired Bibles for drink before going overseas, an incident which may have led to their regiment being dubbed ‘the Holy Boys’.46 Whether apocryphal or not, this story does reflect a certain carelessness towards items of this nature. In some instances, this carelessness worked to the advantage of pious soldiers, some of whom were quite prepared to relieve their comrades of unwanted Bibles. While in Limerick in 1798, a newly awakened Methodist was able to buy a Bible from a Scotsman in his own company, a Bible which he surmised had been ‘the parting gift of his mother, but of which, like too many more, he made no use’.47 Besides those who were simply indifferent, John MacMullen questioned the very point of issuing Prayer Books and Bibles to soldiers when they and their luckier wives were compelled to live in the degrading conditions of a common barrack room. ‘It is in vain’, MacMullen wrote, ‘that every soldier is provided with a bible and prayer-book and that annual returns are supplied by regiments to the principal chaplain of the forces, to enable him to ascertain that they are so provided; if this Spartan indelicacy be forced upon women, the demoralisation of them and of the men must follow’.48

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The experiences of an East India Company chaplain during the First Sikh War suggests that the wider availability of the scriptures to the common soldier in India scarcely affected his reading habits, let alone his general conduct. At Ferozepore in January 1846, the Revd James Coley wrote: To-day I received from [the chaplain at Agra] two parcels of tracts of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for the men in the hospitals . . . We are at a great loss for books. The regimental library of [the 61st Regiment], like most libraries of this kind, contains but a scanty sprinkling of religious books. Every soldier of course is understood to have his Bible, i.e. in peaceful times; but Bibles are exceedingly scarce in such times as these. The tracts certainly will not go very far among so many: still they are a help, and I trust they may do some good, and so multiply themselves, as it were, like the loaves and fishes. Many a man too, I believe, will read a tract, that would not have courage to read his Bible in the sight of his comrades.49 A year later, Coley was beginning to apprehend the whereabouts of the soldiers’ missing Bibles: ‘I do not know how it is’, he wrote, ‘every soldier ought to have his Bible and Prayer-book; but I very rarely find in hospitals more than one or two, and when I ask where their Bibles are, the usual answer is either, “I have lost it”, or “It is locked up in my box.”’50 Despite Coley’s indignation, it is likely that most soldiers neglected their Bibles not through sheer viciousness but through dint of circumstances. Although the Naval and Military Bible Society had long prided itself on publishing volumes ‘peculiarly adapted to the use of our army employed on service in the field’,51 there were many reasons why even these Bibles should have been jettisoned by soldiers on campaign. High levels of illiteracy, the desire to discard non-essential equipment and (until they were issued with their Catholic equivalents) the suspect nature of Protestant Bibles to Catholic soldiers no doubt contributed to the conspicuous lack of King James Bibles in the field. Furthermore, after 1825, the fear of having to pay for a lost Bible may have persuaded many soldiers to keep theirs safely under lock and key. The religious military press In addition to the army itself, there were many other providers of religious literature for soldiers. One historian has used the term ‘religious military press’ to denote the numerous purveyors of such literature to the Confederate

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armies of the American Civil War and this term is also useful in describing the religious publishing industry which emerged after the Napoleonic Wars for the benefit of the British soldier.52 After 1825, the SPCK and the NMBS benefited from a steady War Office demand for their publications, the two agencies supplying the standard issue Bibles, Testaments and Prayer Books to the army at cost price.53 Furthermore, and largely by virtue of the Clericus Fund, the SPCK was able to furnish military hospitals, regimental schools and the new regimental libraries with significant stocks of religious books.54 The capacity of Britain’s religious military press by the middle of the century can be gauged by the fact that, on the outbreak of the Crimean War, the NMBS donated a New Testament for every British soldier sent to the East.55 Following the terrible winter of 1854–5, the British army in the Crimea appears to have been inundated with Bibles, Testaments and tracts, the SPCK alone sending 50,000 books and pamphlets, all of which were distributed free of charge.56 However, the efforts of these two societies were dwarfed by those of the interdenominational Soldiers’ Friend and Army Scripture Readers’ Society, an evangelical organisation which originated in the 1830s and which distributed such a vast number of tracts in the Crimea that it averaged out at more than twenty per soldier.57 Although this society remained prolific in its publishing for the British soldier, by the later decades of the nineteenth century it was but one of a host of similar organisations. Besides the SPCK, the NMBS, the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society and the Wesleyan Book Room, much smaller bodies – such as the Drummond Tract Depot and Sarah Robinson’s Soldiers’ Institute at Portsmouth – were also publishing literature of their own. Despite this array of suppliers, there was clearly no limit to the perceived need. In 1885, for example, voices were raised at the Church of England’s Church Congress concerning the apparent lack of catechetical literature for Anglican soldiers, Quartermaster Clisham of the Royal Scots Fusiliers proclaiming that more tracts were required ‘on the teaching of the Church and her services’.58 Naturally, the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 triggered another boom in the publication and distribution of religious literature for the army, a boom which represented an important aspect of the wave of patriotic philanthropy which swept through Britain during the war years.59 According to Wesleyan sources, by New Year’s Day 1900 a single stalwart evangelist in Southampton had distributed ‘8,000 Gospels and Psalms, 7,000 marked Testaments, and three tons of good and new gospel books and booklets’ among soldiers embarking for South Africa.60

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Army scripture readers Besides pious officers, chaplains and the religious military press, another means of bringing religion to bear upon the soldier was through dedicated scripture readers. Although vigorous in terms of religious publishing, the SFASRS originated in The Army Scripture Readers’ and Soldiers’ Friend societies, both of which arose out of the work of the London City Mission.61 Lay rather than clerical in its ethos, the amalgamated Soldiers’ Friend and Army Scripture Readers’ Society employed paid, full-time scripture readers to work as lay evangelists, many of these being superannuated soldiers. In 1859, the SFASRS was superseded in this field of work by a more Anglican and clerically controlled organisation, namely the United British Army Scripture Readers’ and Soldiers’ Friend Society.62 Working under the terms of a War Office charter,63 its scripture readers were initially attached to individual regiments but, by the mid-1860s, they appear, like chaplains, to have been posted to specific garrisons.64 By 1864, the patrons of the Society included the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Chaplain-General and the ubiquitous Earl of Shaftesbury. Among its seventeen vice-presidents, there were ten army officers and six clergymen but only one lay civilian.65 Perhaps because of its safely hierarchical ethos, the work of the society flourished. By 1867, the society had its own auxiliary societies and it employed sixtyfive scripture readers who were stationed in Great Britain, Gibraltar, the West Indies, Canada, Nova Scotia and India.66 In its annual report of 1864, the society claimed that, over the previous year, its scripture readers had made more than 52,000 visits to soldiers, they had read the scriptures to them more than 47,000 times, they had held more than 7,700 Bible-class meetings and had distributed nearly 190,000 tracts and books ‘exclusive of 30,000 Soldiers’ Almanacks’.67 Besides its evident ability to minister to soldiers in peacetime stations, the Society also proved capable of providing scripture readers for the colonial campaigns of the post-Crimean period, scripture readers being sent to New Zealand in 1864, to Zululand in 1879 and to Egypt in 1882.68 Although overshadowed and controlled by the army’s commissioned chaplains, the humble army scripture reader was thought to have considerable missionary potential. In a visitation charge of 1863, Bishop Frederick Gell of Madras informed his clergy that: Such an agent is now indispensable in a Military cantonment. He can be useful at seasons and under circumstances when the Clergyman cannot. He can ascertain more exactly the character and feelings of individual soldiers. He can greatly assist in bringing

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religion into their homes and hearts . . . wherever there is a considerable number of troops, I strongly recommend that application be made to the Soldiers’ Scripture-readers’ Society [sic] for a Reader.69 In a similar vein, Bishop Robert Bickersteth of Ripon argued at the Society’s anniversary meeting of 1866 that: [I]t was never intended for a moment, by the employment of Scripture-readers, to supersede the employment of ordinary chaplains. But we have found at home, in our own sphere of labour in parishes in this country, that there is no aid more valuable to a settled ministry, than that of pious laymen, who go forth and read the Word of God to their fellow-men . . . They act as pioneers for the clergy . . . An agency so useful at home among our spheres of parochial labour, is surely adapted to be of equal value in the British army.70 In fact, the indications are that these men – old soldiers for the most part – enjoyed a fair measure of success among soldiers and their families, factors such as a shared military background and the absence of any barrier posed by rank probably working to their advantage. One scripture reader credited with a great deal of influence was Paul Porter, a veteran of the 43rd Regiment who went on to make a notable success of his ministry to the 69th Regiment when it was in Burma in the early 1860s.71 Through his ministry of visiting both barrack rooms and married quarters, the scripture reader’s influence tended to work on an individual level. Sergeant Beatson of the 99th Regiment (who wrote his memoirs of the Zulu War in order to advertise this work) was particularly impressed by a reader named Diprose, whom he met soon after joining the 99th at Chatham in May 1878. Beatson claimed to have been instantly impressed by ‘his free, open, and somewhat pleasing countenance, and upon his expressing his delight or pleasure in thus forming my acquaintance, I could not help experiencing a sense of that “at home” feeling even in that our first and brief interview’. Thereafter, Diprose cultivated his acquaintance with Beatson, visiting his family in their quarters and giving him a copy of St Mark’s gospel which Beatson kept in his breast pocket throughout the Zulu War.72 Clearly, and as Beatson’s case illustrates, besides the work of evangelisation, one of the prime functions of the scripture reader was to encourage and sustain Christian soldiers in their everyday lives. As a soldier of the Black Watch wrote from India in 1864, he had not appreciated the

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importance of the army scripture reader until he had experienced the lonely ordeal of barrack-room life: It is a hard struggle for a young man to remain a sincere Christian in a barrack room . . . He has no one to commune with, no one to lend him a helping hand. He feels like an outcast amidst a crowd, who are constantly tormenting him, and calling upon him to give up his odd ways and join them . . . Gradually, he forgets friends and home, and, last of all, his God, and joins the crowd; whereas, had he even one on his side to encourage him to persevere, he would have been better able to combat and overcome his sinful temptations, and to remain faithful to his Master.73 Soldiers’ homes Despite the expansion of the Army Chaplains’ Department, the industry of the religious military press and the activities of the army’s scripture readers, the flagships of religious work among the mid- and late-Victorian army were the various soldiers’ homes which sprang up throughout the empire during this period. Inspired by the post-Crimean popularity of the army as a mission field (as late as 1885, one retired officer was still prepared to claim that ‘The army is the greatest mission-field that has ever existed’)74 and also by a profound faith in the civilising and christianising potential of a home environment, these institutions were the work of numerous churches, evangelical organisations and even freelance ‘soldiers’ friends’. Although their size, facilities and ethos varied considerably, their common aim was to provide religious opportunity, spiritual sustenance and wholesome recreational facilities for soldiers in camps and garrisons across the empire. Among the main denominations the most enthusiastic supporters of soldiers’ homes were the Wesleyan Methodists. Between 1875 and 1893, the Wesleyans established no fewer than twenty-seven homes ‘for the use of all members of H.M. sea and land forces’.75 By 1906, the Wesleyan element of the soldiers’ home movement had grown to forty homes and had evolved into ‘a vast commercial and philanthropic enterprise’.76 Patronised by the royal family and subsidised by the War Office because of the non-denominational tenor of their homes,77 Owen Spencer Watkins felt justified in arguing that the Wesleyans were ‘the pioneers of the Soldiers’ Home Movement’ and as such could claim a large share of the credit for the moral improvement of the army.78 Regardless of the zeal and energy with which soldiers’ homes were founded by the Wesleyan Methodists and other religious groups from the 1860s, the

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conviction that the British soldier was in need of wholesome recreation was no more than conventional army wisdom throughout most of the nineteenth century. As an alternative to the regimental canteen, enlightened regimental officers were creating regimental libraries from as early as the 1830s. Furthermore, in the early 1840s, Lord Hill ordered the establishment of barrack libraries at all major military stations, a policy which resulted in the provision of reading rooms in all new barracks. By 1844, there were already seventy-eight barrack libraries at home and abroad and, in 1853, it was estimated that the army’s 150 libraries had 117,000 volumes and 16,000 subscribers.79 When Major-General Eyre’s committee of inquiry reported to the War Office in 1861 on the state of the army’s recreational facilities, it found that, in the United Kingdom at least, ‘In almost every barrack there is a room devoted to the purposes of a garrison library’.80 Sporting activities were also encouraged in many regiments and they were promoted during the 1840s by the creation of cricket pitches and fives courts at many barracks.81 These attempts to stimulate improving forms of recreation (which were the military counterpart of the promotion of rational recreation in civilian life)82 continued during the Crimean War. Mary Seacole (the daughter of a British army officer and a black Jamaican woman) ran a popular and respectable establishment at Balaclava which was known as the British Hotel, a sizeable institution built from materials salvaged from vessels which had been wrecked in the harbour. The British Hotel had its own shop, canteen, dispensary and accommodation.83 Furthermore, in March 1856 a Times correspondent reported that lectures, magic-lantern shows, schools and a ‘dry’ canteen were all well-supported by British troops at Scutari.84 Following the Crimean War, and at the prompting of Eyre’s committee, the cause of wholesome leisure opportunities for the British soldier was further advanced by the establishment of regimental and garrison clubrooms in barracks, rooms which were provided with games, refreshment bars and reading materials.85 Amid its deliberations, Eyre’s committee considered the question of whether the army should go still further and establish its own soldiers’ homes, these having the perceived advantage of being ‘places of rest and recreation when the soldier gets away from the barrack yard, and where he can have a sense of ease and comfort without resorting to public houses and other similar places’.86 Indeed, the army already had a successful pattern for institutions of this kind. In 1858, Lieutenant Pilkington Jackson of the Royal Artillery had established a soldiers’ institute at Gibraltar. This was based in rented accommodation, sold refreshments and deliberately cultivated a homelike environment. The rules of the institute forbade gambling, swearing, drinking and – rather interestingly – the discussion of ‘religious subjects of a controversial nature’.87 By 1861, the home had more than 2,000 subscribers

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among the garrison and an enthusiastic supporter in the person of the governor, Lieutenant-General W.J. Coddrington. Branding Gibraltar ‘one universal spirit canteen’, in 1859 Coddrington had informed the War Office that: It is needless to enlarge upon the desirableness of providing for the British soldier the means of healthful recreation and mental improvement. The fatal effects of intemperance, which so seriously affect the health of the men, and which are the cause of almost all the cases of crime in the army, cannot be checked effectually in this fortress without some counter agency to the allurements of sensuality.88 However, by 1861 Gibraltar was not the only garrison town to have developed a secular soldiers’ home in order to divert the energies of its soldiers, similar establishments having sprung up at Dover, Woolwich and Canterbury.89 By this time, enthusiasm for similar establishments was also growing in India, where, with the support of Sir James Outram, so-called ‘Outram Institutes’ began to be opened for the benefit of soldiers.90 Indeed, the War Office was sufficiently convinced of the potential value of soldiers’ homes that it invested in two lavishly equipped institutes at Chatham and Aldershot, both of which were opened in 1862. Nevertheless, Eyre’s committee was reluctant to recommend ‘their universal introduction’ owing to the fact that some of its members ‘rather questioned the value of such “Homes” on account of their apparent want of success at certain stations’.91 By the time the committee undertook its work, a soldiers’ institute in Dublin had already folded and, as the annual report for of the soldiers’ institute at Gibraltar revealed in 1861, even here subscriptions were on the decline.92 Besides the perennial problem of dwindling enthusiasm for a new idea, subscription lists were highly vulnerable to regimental redeployments and, quite apart from the counter-attractions of pubs and brothels, the army’s own canteens, libraries and clubrooms already offered plenty of alternative diversion. In fact, some members of Eyre’s committee were of the opinion that these homes ‘might have a tendency to defeat the object of the Regimental Clubs in barracks, and that . . . Government cannot be expected to originate or support them . . . they should, therefore, not be established by Government, but by private agency’. The compromise verdict of the committee was that the taxpayer should not be expected to fund a raft of new institutes but that private soldiers’ homes should be eligible for government grants upon application, a policy which was adopted to the advantage of many religious homes in the longer term.93

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It is clear, therefore, that the soldiers’ homes which were opened for religious reasons in the latter half of the nineteenth century operated not only in competition with public houses but also with improving initiatives which were already being pursued by the army. Inevitably, there was a certain convergence between the methods and the goals of pious civilians and the military authorities. As early as the 1830s, the establishment of regimental libraries had been paralleled by the creation of a Methodist soldiers’ reading room near the artillery barracks at Woolwich, a place where ‘godly soldiers might come for reading, writing, and devotional purposes’.94 In 1851, a prototype soldiers’ home had also been established by Wesleyan soldiers on Malta.95 However, the originator of the first civilian and evangelical soldiers’ home appears to have been Miss Lucy Papillon, who opened a small establishment at Sandgate (near Shorncliffe Camp) in the early 1850s. According to Sarah Robinson, Papillon’s soldiers’ home consisted of ‘two rooms for reading and writing, a few games on the table, and a lending library’ and was simply ‘a quiet place of refuge’. Nevertheless, there was an evening ‘Bible-class, or Gospel-meeting’ which was ‘conducted by Christian officers and friends invited by Miss Lucy’.96 The existence of Papillon’s home was recognised by Eyre’s committee in 1861, its report noting that ‘The founder has in her possession upwards of 100 letters from men who have left the station, speaking in grateful praise of the benefits they have received there’.97 In addition to Papillon’s home (which appears to have closed shortly after Eyre’s report was submitted), a larger home was established in Portsmouth in 1855 by an Anglican clergyman, the Revd William Carus-Wilson. Although afflicted by chronic ill health, Carus-Wilson had great ambitions for this important station. Commencing with weekly preaching to the soldiers of the garrison, the establishment of a soldiers’ home was just part of a much wider missionary strategy, a strategy which included the distribution of tracts and the maintenance of a correspondence programme with soldiers who went overseas.98 Despite the modest scale of Portsmouth’s first soldiers’ home, it counted Portsmouth’s lieutenant-governor as its president and a bishop and four MPs among its patrons.99 However, following the death of Carus-Wilson in 1859, the home declined and it closed after its second bid for War Office funding was turned down following an inspection by Pilkington Jackson in 1861.100 Despite its dubious claim to have been ‘the parent of all other Institutes’,101 the failure of the first Portsmouth home was so complete that Sarah Robinson claimed only to have heard about it following the commencement of her own work at Portsmouth in 1872.102 Notwithstanding the mixed success of soldiers’ homes to date, in 1861 a more enduring institution was opened at Chatham by the Wesleyan minister, Charles Henry Kelly, who arrived that year from the Wesleyan mission at Aldershot. This new venture

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was located in the basement of an old Wesleyan chapel and it consisted of a reading room-cum-night school, a prayer room and sleeping apartments.103 Despite these earlier experiments, Aldershot was to emerge as the epicentre of the religious soldiers’ home movement. As one of Britain’s newest and largest military camps, Aldershot achieved national notoriety when Charles Dickens described its squalid and depressing character in a magazine article of 1859. By this time, Aldershot was recognised as ‘one of the most important stations of the British army, in a moral as well as in a military point of view, inasmuch as nearly all the troops pass through it in turn’.104 Although the camp was only established during the Crimean War, within the space of a few years it had become ‘a centre of evil, corrupting the entire neighbourhood’.105 In 1861, Pilkington Jackson (who had been asked by the War Office to consider ‘whether it be necessary to establish a Soldiers’ Home in Aldershot’) had reported that Aldershot boasted eighteen canteens, twenty-five pubs and forty-seven beer houses. The former were ‘the largest, most comfortable, and cheerful huts in the camp’, the latter ‘almost without exception, public brothels of the worst description’.106 The connection between drink and vice was underlined by Aldershot’s high rate of hospital admissions ‘for diseases incident to lust’. As Pilkington Jackson viewed the situation, the conditions at Aldershot were such that ‘No system could be better imagined or more successfully carried out, if the object were to sap gradually the health of the soldiers . . . induce early debility [and] hasten a premature death’.107 According to his calculations, the troops at Aldershot had ‘on an average . . . nearly 50,000 hours daily of time to be occupied for good or evil’ and therefore ‘an imperative and urgent necessity’ existed for establishing a soldiers’ home for the camp.108 The home opened by the War Office at Aldershot in 1862 was soon to be joined by others, Aldershot having become a focus of interest to the churches and their home missionaries. By 1862, Aldershot’s 5,000 civilian inhabitants already possessed an enlarged parish church, several Anglican schools, a Wesleyan chapel, a Presbyterian mission, a Baptist meeting house and a non-denominational mission in one of Aldershot’s ‘worst localities’. A second Anglican church and permanent Baptist and Presbyterian chapels were also being planned.109 Although the Wesleyan minister, William Harris Rule, had planned to establish a soldiers’ home when he commenced his ministry at Aldershot following the Crimean War,110 the catalyst for the evangelical blitzkrieg on Aldershot was the Barnet conference of 1862, an annual evangelical gathering which helped to promote and co-ordinate missionary enterprise. By 1862, the debased condition of Aldershot was very much on the public mind, details of Jackson’s rather overdrawn report on the town (in which he described it as being ‘inhabited principally by

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publicans, brothel keepers, prostitutes, thieves, and receivers of stolen property’) having appeared in The Times.111 Consequently, at Barnet in August 1862 Aldershot was identified as in urgent need of missionary attention and Mrs Louisa Daniell was prevailed upon ‘to adopt Aldershot’ as a new mission field. As the widow of an Indian army officer, Daniell had some knowledge of soldiers and she had acquired considerable experience of rural missionary work, particularly among vagrants.112 Her work in Aldershot commenced that autumn, Bible classes being held and local support recruited from sympathetic officers, soldiers and chaplains. Before the end of the year, accommodation had been hired ‘to serve as a little Mission House and Soldier’s Home’. However, this proved a temporary expedient and, with the assistance of a number of wealthy benefactors, the Earl of Shaftesbury laid the foundation stone of a permanent soldiers’ home in February 1863. Eight months later, the home was formally opened ‘and dedicated to God by a week of special services’.113 If it drew its inspiration from earlier missionary ventures of this kind, Daniell’s new home was rather different in two important respects. First, although Daniell was an Anglican, her home was avowedly non-denominational from the outset. This facilitated evangelical co-operation (Daniell’s first housekeeper, Sarah Robinson, was a Presbyterian) and it helped to recommend it to the military authorities. Second, the design of the building was modelled on that of a substantial country house (complete with garden, ivy and mullioned windows) and its staff was composed solely of women. In other words, and as Kenneth Hendrickson has emphasised, the home appealed to contemporary ideals of femininity and domesticity in order to promote ‘Christianity and Christian personal ethics among the soldiers’.114 Daniell’s institute at Aldershot became the model for scores of later soldiers’ homes. In the six years following her death in 1871, five additional ‘Branch Homes’ were established under the auspices of her daughter, these being at Weedon, Colchester, Manchester, Plymouth and Chatham.115 By the end of the nineteenth century, there were seven of Miss Daniell’s homes in existence116 and dozens of imitations had been established in garrison towns such as Portsmouth, Gravesend and Cork, these being run by resourceful evangelical ladies such as Sarah Robinson, Elizabeth Wesley and Elise Sandes. In fact, between 1877 and 1896, Sandes alone either established or adopted nine homes in Ireland and two in India, her homes also publishing a magazine for soldiers under the title Forward!117 By the time of the Boer War, Aldershot was home to no fewer than seven soldiers’ homes and, in Sarah Robinson’s estimation, there were approximately eighty in existence worldwide. In these far-flung establishments, Robinson surmised that as many as ‘a thousand ladies’ were employed in the evangelisation of soldiers and sailors.118

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Although intended as places where soldiers could be drawn into the orbit of Christian womanhood and saved, soldiers’ homes were also bases for much wider missionary activity. Miss Daniell’s home at Aldershot ran a soldiers’ night school in addition to Band of Hope and mothers’ meetings.119 Similarly, while based in Brighton in 1865, Sarah Robinson made it her policy to visit soldiers in their barrack rooms, being convinced that soldiers’ homes per se ‘did not reach the worst men’.120 Temperance work was inevitably regarded as a vital part of this saving ministry to soldiers. Louisa Daniell founded her own Total Abstinence Society at Aldershot in 1863121 and Elizabeth Wesley made it her policy to intercept soldiers entering gin-palaces in Gravesend.122 For her part, Sarah Robinson was an enthusiastic worker for the National Temperance League. Besides writing temperance tracts, Robinson encouraged the creation of regimental temperance societies, the 46th Regiment (which was known in some quarters as ‘Miss Robinson’s Own’) being hailed as ‘the Champion Temperance Regiment of the British Army’ at an NTL meeting at Exeter Hall in 1870. At that time it had no fewer than 250 teetotallers – roughly a quarter of the regiment – in its ranks.123 In addition to this, in 1874 Robinson was prevailed upon by Sir James Hope Grant to run a temperance canteen for troops involved in that summer’s manoeuvres at Aldershot.124 Robinson and her ilk certainly brought a formidable combination of innocence and guile to their missionary work. Elizabeth Wesley’s first meeting with soldiers in Gravesend in 1874 was described in revealing if stereotypical terms by her father some years later: Lizzie . . . spoke to them a few words of home, the Sundayschool, and the Saviour, persuasively inviting them to the services, and wishing them to inform their comrades that a lady was about to employ herself as a friend of soldiers . . . The right chords were touched, tears stood in their eyes, and as soon as choked utterance was relieved one said, ‘I am a Wesleyan, Miss, I was taught in a Sunday-school, but have gone wrong;’ and the other said, ‘My mother was a good woman: if I had only followed her advice I should not have been here.’125 However, and notwithstanding her apparent artlessness, Elizabeth Wesley made a careful study of Queen’s Regulations, military etiquette and the arrival of new detachments of soldiers for musketry training at Gravesend, being aware that ‘These men will only be with us two or three short weeks; our opportunity of benefiting them will soon be gone; we must strive to get them speedily convinced of sin, and saved’.126 Likewise, Miss Daniell’s homes

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courted support from officers through the United Service Magazine, stressing the professional utility of their work and soliciting donations by appealing to its readers’ sense of ‘Responsibility’ and ‘Noblesse oblige’.127 In a similar vein, Sarah Robinson (who was clearly miscast by some of her critics as ‘thweet Miss Wobinson’)128 assiduously cultivated her allies in the military establishment, prevailing on some commanding officers to allow her the use of army school rooms in order to deliver inspiring lectures on Christian subjects ranging from ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ to ‘Livingstone’s Travels’.129 The Boer War saw the soldiers’ home movement reach its zenith. During the course of the conflict, South Africa saw a proliferation of new homes130 and the Salvation Army, the Church of England’s Church Army and the Soldiers’ Christian Association took the institution on campaign in the form of mobile huts and marquees. The SCA, which had been founded in London in 1886, was an auxiliary of the YMCA and was born out of Dwight Moody’s mission to London in 1883, when Moody had asked Miss Lucy Deacon to sit with a number of soldiers who had come to hear his preaching at Exeter Hall. It was out of their subsequent meetings that the SCA was born.131 The inauguration of the SCA in 1886 was no doubt timely, for the YMCA was beginning to attract some criticism for its slowness in developing links with soldiers. Speaking in 1885 against the background of Gordon’s death at Khartoum, N.R. Hughman, an ex-soldier and a serving YMCA secretary, had urged the Association’s British conference to consider ways in which the YMCA could help to nurture more ‘soldiers of Christ’. The Christian soldier, he declared, was still ‘the best missionary’ to the army, notwithstanding the sterling work of the soldiers’ homes and the army’s scripture readers.132 As Hughman had only envisaged a greater effort on the part of local associations in reaching out to soldiers, the formation of the SCA was clearly a great step forward and it was warmly endorsed and supported by Elise Sandes, among others.133 The Boer War saw the work of the SCA come into its own. Inspired by YMCA work among Volunteers during their annual training camps at home and by the apparent success of the ‘tent work’ of the American YMCA during the Spanish-American War of 1898,134 the SCA threw itself into the war with a vengeance. In response to a request to Britain’s National Council of the YMCA for ‘Writing Tents’ for Natal,135 the SCA sent the first of its civilian volunteers to South Africa in November 1899, among them being several male volunteers from Elise Sandes’ soldiers’ homes.136 Within a year, eight tents, ‘fully equipped and capable of seating two hundred and fifty men’ and ‘four iron buildings to take the place of tents in the colder districts’ had been dispatched to the seat of war.137 In addition to providing writing materials and a team of civilian evangelists for the army in the field, SCA facilities

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provided many of the amenities which were to be found in more permanent soldiers’ homes. According to John Kinahan, who served as an SCA worker in South Africa in 1900, each of its marquees was provided with ‘all the requisites for a comfortable reading room, such as literature, games, and writing materials, and [was] specially adapted for the short, bright religious services which have been held in them nightly during the long months of this protracted war’.138 By all accounts, the SCA met with a good reception in South Africa and its tents appear to have succeeded in their aim of becoming mobile soldiers’ homes. As one admirer noted: In them, stationery, ink, and pens are all free; and there are books to read and games to play . . . Occasionally they have been put to other uses, such as hospital depots, shelters for refugees, and temporary hospitals. Generals and their staffs have been quartered in them for the night, and, in fact, they have accompanied the British soldier to the front as his ‘home from home’ wherever he has gone.139 At the army’s base in Cape Town, the SCA tent became an important ‘amateur post-office’, forwarding soldiers’ letters and remitting soldiers’ pay to their families. However, and despite these other activities, the evangelical work of the SCA was not forgotten and its workers at Cape Town also held services, visited military hospitals and distributed religious literature to troops moving up country.140 As at annual Volunteer camps in Great Britain, this work appears to have been warmly appreciated by its intended beneficiaries. In December 1902, one tent worker confided to a YMCA secretary in Great Britain: ‘If you could talk with many of the men I meet here [in South Africa], who have been through the Campaign, they would tell you that the work done by the SCA, organised by the YMCA was, in many cases, more effective because more spontaneous, than the regular Chaplaincy of the Army’.141 In its varied manifestations, the soldiers’ home movement has been identified as being a key agent in the moral transformation of the British soldier in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1885, Garnet Wolseley claimed that these homes had raised ‘the moral tone of soldiers in the large garrison towns’ to the extent of making half of the army’s prisons redundant.142 Heartened by such encomiums, the friends and promoters of these establishments were tempted to make great claims for them. In 1904, Paul Bull, an experienced Anglican chaplain, wrote of Aldershot, ‘The temptations of a garrison town are blasting, withering, appalling in their intensity, and few come through unscathed’. Although some men stayed in barracks and availed

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themselves of ‘the canteen or the regimental recreation-room, which the government provides to keep men away from the town’, the one thing a soldier needed was lacking in such facilities, this being: the touch of personal sympathy, someone to take an interest in him, to listen to his troubles, and to encourage him in his sore battle. These he finds down the town in the Church of England’s Soldiers’ Institute and other Soldiers’ Homes, which do a noble work in saving men from temptation, and leading them to God.143 Two years later, Owen Spencer Watkins cheerfully pronounced that ‘during the past thirty years the rank and file of the army has been transformed, lifted on to a higher plane, and the chief instrument in this reformation has been the Soldiers’ Home’.144 However, the success of the soldiers’ homes was far more modest in missionary terms. Although Edward Spiers and Alan Skelley have acknowledged them as one factor in the declining incidence of crime in the army between 1856 and 1899,145 it is unlikely that they reaped a significant harvest of souls. In part, this failure was due to the fact that much of their ministry was to the converted. As early as 1861, Pilkington Jackson had observed of Carus-Wilson’s pioneering home at Portsmouth: There is reason for believing that [its] subscribers have been the best and steadiest men in the garrison: and, if so, the Institute may be viewed as having been a kind of hospital for healthy patients. Now, although it has been useful in providing a few good soldiers with a quiet and respectable place of resort, where they have passed their leisure time in improving or harmless recreations, yet if it has not attracted and retained the less steady, and some portion of the bad characters in the garrison, it has failed in effecting the chief good for which it was professedly established.146 Likewise, and reflecting on his experiences as an ordinary soldier in the 1870s, the gentleman volunteer J.E.A. Acland-Troyte wrote: Those most excellent institutions which are being generally started now in large garrisons, and called ‘Soldiers’ Institutes,’ appear at first sight to provide exactly the soldier’s requirements; and they are a great attraction to every steady-going man, more especially to the teetotallers. But it seems to me that these are not the

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soldiers requiring any extra inducements to keep straight; but rather that large middle class of young men who are not confirmed in steady habits, and indeed more inclined to follow the bad characters.147 Soldiers’ homes clearly had a core of pious supporters among ordinary soldiers but it also seems evident that the majority of those who visited them had a purely utilitarian view of their facilities, using them much as workingclass men made use of church-sponsored sports clubs and other amenities in civilian life. One such patron was Sergeant Edwin Mole, a steady career soldier who described his visit to Sarah Robinson’s home in Portsmouth in the following terms: I had heard a good deal of Miss Robinson’s kindness and philanthropy to soldiers and their families . . . So I spent the night at her Home, and never was I more comfortably and cleanly housed, or better fed, than in this institution which owes its existence to the good, benevolent lady who is known throughout the British army as The Soldier’s Friend.148 Although similarly appreciative of the soldiers’ homes he visited in India, Frank Richards seemed indifferent as to their fundamental purpose: At Landaur there was a very large Soldiers’ Home, run by a man called Jimmy Taylor, a North Country man. There was a similar one at Meerut, but I don’t know whether they were Jimmy Taylor’s property or whether he was only managing them. They did an excellent trade in the evening selling cooked suppers to the troops. It was customary there to hold evening prayer-meetings in one of the rooms, where the so-called Bible-punchers sang hymns until they were black in the face. There were not many genuine Bible-punchers in the Royal Welch [Fusiliers]. I can only remember about half a dozen of them during the whole of my soldiering days.149 If the homes seem to have won few actual converts, Sarah Robinson also had grave reservations as to their quality. By the 1890s she was convinced that the manifest improvement of religious facilities for the army had sapped the character of the Christian soldier and had even created a pernicious spirit of religious consumerism:

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An old Christian veteran with whom I conversed a few years ago on the subject of barrack-room religion rather startled me by saying, ‘The real thing is seldom seen now. Religion is made too easy for a soldier.’ Certainly, there is a great lack of backbone, of stability, and of humility in many a present-day convert. Injudicious people are ready to pet and praise him until he almost feels he has done rather a fine thing in ‘getting saved’, and he backslides and gets restored over and over again. He speaks of patronising the Institute or Bible class he attends, and if he feels huffed at one (and a very small thing will huff him), he will transfer his patronage to another. Plenty of places are open to him now. He expects everything done for him, instead of thinking what he ought to be doing for others. In contrast, so Robinson maintained, ‘Thirty to forty years ago, when Christian soldiers had only the Lord and their Bibles, lives were lived to His glory in barrack-rooms by hundreds of men who were enabled to fight the good fight, and to keep the faith right onward from the day of their conversion’.150 In addition to the converts, sympathisers and occasional patrons of soldiers’ homes, there were many soldiers who avoided them altogether, particularly those which were of an aggressively evangelical kind. In understanding this tendency, it is important to bear in mind the situation in which soldiers found themselves during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The decades following the Crimean War saw soldiers (who were always rendered conspicuous by their uniforms) become targets for a large assortment of civilian evangelists. The exasperation which this situation engendered is echoed in Kipling’s vicarious protest, ‘it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”’ Certainly, John Lucy of the Royal Irish Rifles had anything but fond memories of evangelical activity in a northern Irish garrison town in the early 1900s. Soldiers, he noted, were ‘fair game for all religion mongers’: There were tracts everywhere, the products of a dozen queer sects. There was no dodging them. Our tunic fronts were often stuffed with them, and we found them on our beds on return to barracks . . . Intimate details of the agony of Our Lord were emblazoned on the cheap broadsheets; and the Day of Judgement, always imminent, only appeared to promise a change-over to worse conditions . . . A counter-offensive by the gayer Salvation Army drummed sinners back from the gates of perdition, but their preachers also ranted too openly of God. Uniformed women

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asked us in the streets if we were saved. We were told that we were on the downward path.151 Although Protestant Ulster may have been an extreme case, even in more secular London, earnest civilian evangelists were hard at work. While en route for South Africa during the Boer War, Paul Bull remembered being accosted by a fellow passenger on a train bound for Tilbury Docks. Failing to recognise the chaplain’s badges on his uniform, ‘this good earnest Christian’ gave him a tract and ‘much good advice’ and discoursed eloquently ‘on becoming a soldier in Christ’s army as well as in the Queen’s’.152 The army’s Roman Catholic soldiers also comprised a significant constituency which was not enamoured of Protestant soldiers’ homes. In 1861, Pilkington Jackson noted how Roman Catholic soldiers avoided CarusWilson’s home at Portsmouth.153 Later in the century, the multiplication of soldiers’ homes in garrison towns across Ireland elicited strong protests from the Catholic clergy.154 In India, Catholic chaplains issued explicit cautions against ‘bigoted Protestant ladies, who try to estrange Catholic soldiers from the priest’.155 A Catholic himself, John Lucy was repelled by the methods and theology of evangelical homes. He recalled that in his own garrison town: An ancient spinster tried to bribe us to join her prayer meetings by promising tea and buns in the Soldiers’ Home, on the condition of going upstairs to sing hymns. The promise of food once tempted my brother. He muttered something equivocal, and went upstairs with another Catholic boy, in a state of mental reservation, to tea and salvation. They were overheard vainly trying to fit the words of ‘God save Ireland’ to the tune of ‘Shall we gather at the river?’ and were ejected. Sometimes all the soldiers declined the invitation to go aloft, and then the sweetly smiling spinster tricked them by starting hymns in the reading room, which most of them did not mind, though we always bolted. We thought it a dirty trick to open a home for the material comfort of men with few amusements, and then to dope them with a peculiar brand of spiritual discomfort.156 Temperance work If the sustained endeavour to improve the recreations of the British soldier revealed key similarities and differences between the methods and priorities of the military authorities and those of religious organisations, then the same was also true of the history of temperance work in the army at this time.

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As we shall be seeing in Chapter 4, organised temperance work in the army was pioneered by Baptists in India prior to the Indian Mutiny. By the 1860s, the organising genius of temperance work in the subcontinent was the Revd John Gelson Gregson, a Baptist missionary and one-time chaplain to Henry Havelock. Gelson Gregson was hailed by one of his military admirers as ‘The Apostle of Temperance in the British Army’157 and his principal achievement lay in the creation of the Soldiers’ Total Abstinence Association, which was formed in 1862 and which absorbed many of India’s former regimental temperance societies. Despite its uncompromising position, the STAA made significant headway under Gelson Gregson’s leadership and its military value was recognised in the form of a government grant towards its work. Between 1874 and 1878, the membership of the STAA grew from 4,343 to 10,886, its societies being present in all three of India’s presidencies.158 By 1885, there were 144 STAA societies and more than 12,000 STAA members in India, steady growth having been facilitated by the Association’s strategy of courting commanding officers, establishing coffee rooms and holding regular society meetings. In an institutional context where decorations were greatly coveted, its appeal was heightened by the fact that it awarded medals, certificates and other distinctions to proven abstainers.159 Despite its notionally non-denominational character, the STAA was clearly part of the army’s evangelical subculture. The rules of the Association stated that ‘The Second Monday in every month is observed by the members of Soldiers’ Prayer Unions and Bible Classes, for Special Prayer, on behalf of the Association’. Moreover, the Association’s pledge ran: ‘I promise with God’s help to abstain from all Intoxicating Liquors, except when administered medicinally or in a religious ordinance, so long as I retain this pledge’.160 Following Gelson Gregson’s departure in 1886, Sir Frederick Roberts, the newly-appointed Commander-in-Chief in India, sought to maximise the influence of the Association (and of the army’s Outram Institutes) by merging them into a new and more plausibly non-denominational organisation known as the Army Temperance Association. Although a prominent supporter of the STAA, Roberts was convinced that there were significant advantages to be gained by bringing the STAA under direct army control and by moderating its uncompromising position on drink. As Roberts hoped, the new organisation would accommodate those soldiers ‘for whom it was not necessary or expedient to forego stimulants altogether, but who earnestly desired to lead temperate lives’. Moreover, it ‘would admit of more united action and a more advantageous use of funds, besides making it easier for the Government to assist the movement’. As Roberts saw the situation, ‘The different religious and “total abstinence” associations had no doubt done much towards the object they had in view, but their work was necessarily spasmodic,

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and being carried on independently of regimental authority, it was not always looked upon with favour by officers’.161 Despite some opposition from ‘the various sectarian societies’ which it superseded,162 from its inception in 1887 the Army Temperance Association appears to have lived up to Roberts’ expectations, a success which was aided by substantial Government of India investment in special ATA rooms.163 By the time Roberts left India in 1893, nearly one-third of the 70,000 British soldiers in the subcontinent were members of the ATA and its apparent success in reducing military crime ensured its extension to Great Britain under the name of the Army Temperance Association (Home Organisation). This was dignified with a ‘Royal’ prefix in 1902 and grew from a membership of under 4,000 in 1894 to over 22,000 in 1913.164 As in India, much of this growth was achieved by merging existing temperance organisations among the home army, the National Temperance League and the Church of England Temperance Society both throwing in their lot with the new organisation.165 The considerable success of the army’s temperance organisations needs to be accounted for, particularly in view of the fact that the religious character of the temperance movement in the army continued to be evident even after the founding of the ATA in India and Great Britain. The members of the new organisation still pledged ‘with God’s help’ to ‘practise sober habits and to discourage excess in all its forms’.166 If Frank Richards was characteristically sceptical about the ATA, its propaganda and its ‘bun-punchers’,167 there can be no doubt that there were practical as well as religious advantages in taking the pledge. The commitment of the military authorities to the temperance cause reflected the fact that temperance was strongly associated with professional military values. While Commander-in-Chief in India during the 1870s, Lord Napier had concluded that the army’s teetotallers committed almost no military offences.168 Furthermore, and as Gelson Gregson claimed from his experiences in the Second Afghan War, lower rates of sickness among teetotallers during this campaign were ‘ample proof of the fact that abstainers are better able to endure fatiguing marches than non-abstainers, and more to be relied upon in the hour of battle, when steadiness is essential to victory’.169 In view of the equation of temperance with personal efficiency, soldiers with an eye to promotion were no doubt tempted to take the pledge as a matter of course. Furthermore, the existence of a subculture which encouraged thrift and sobriety also had attractions for those with a desire to save their pay or safeguard their health in potentially lethal climates. Finally, taking the pledge ensured access to certain amenities and (very significantly in an era of short service enlistments) membership of the ATA offered better prospects of employment for discharged soldiers, the Association having its own employment bureau and its own network of civilian patrons.170

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Conclusion Throughout the nineteenth century the British soldier was exposed to a large and diverse range of official and unofficial religious influences. Given the enduring stipulation that soldiers attend public worship at least once a week, government employed large numbers of clergy to act as part-time officiating chaplains throughout Great Britain and the empire. During the course of the nineteenth century, the number of commissioned army chaplains also increased, particularly in the aftermath of the Crimean War. Not only this, but the army’s chaplaincy system grew more inclusive, with Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan and even Jewish chaplains being recognised by the end of the nineteenth century. The expansion of military chaplaincy was paralleled by a proliferation of military chapels and chapel schools, by the recording of soldiers’ denominations and by the issuing of religious literature at government expense. However, and besides the substantial religious provision made by government, from the mid-1850s the army also came into its own as a mission field for civilian evangelists. Already benefiting from the attention of the Naval and Military Bible Society and the Soldiers’ Friend and Army Scripture Readers’ Society, evangelical work in the army mushroomed during and after the Crimean War, being apparent in the growth of a specialised publishing industry, in expanding temperance work and in the development of a worldwide network of dedicated scripture readers. However, its apogee was reached in the decades following the Crimean War by the scores of soldiers’ homes established in Britain and across the British empire. However, if a greater premium came to be placed on the soul of the British soldier, it must be stressed that both governmental and non-governmental efforts met with only limited success and that they were liable to generate problems of their own. For the Anglican clergy of the Army Chaplains’ Department, expansion was bought at the cost of an awkward system of garrison chaplaincy, a system which placed them at a disadvantage relative to their Presbyterian and Roman Catholic counterparts. As for missionary efforts by civilian agencies, success was similarly mixed. If enormous quantities of dedicated religious literature was printed and pressed into the hands of soldiers, its effects were hardly noticeable. Furthermore, the strongly religious character of the army’s temperance movement was diluted when its principal Protestant agencies were subordinated to the priorities and control of the military authorities in the 1890s. As for the much-vaunted soldiers’ homes, it would seem that they enjoyed scant success in winning soldiers for Christ. Although a broad clientele was attracted by the amenities which many of them could offer, they largely failed to turn their customers into converts. While a

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wholesome alternative to the pub and the gin-palace, the soldiers’ homes operated in indirect competition with the army’s own recreational facilities and the more overtly evangelical homes were shunned by large numbers of soldiers because of their narrow ethos and proselytising intent. If this expanding religious provision failed to create a new order of devout soldiery, it could not claim sole responsibility for raising the tone of army life either, as the proliferation of religious provision for the British soldier was contemporaneous with improvements to the soldier’s education, accommodation and other conditions of service. In short, the enormous efforts of government and of civilian agencies with respect to the religious and moral state of the soldier met with only limited success and their supposed achievements should be regarded with some scepticism. This will become still more apparent as we turn to examine the religious attitudes and behaviour of soldiers themselves throughout the course of the nineteenth century.

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Chapter 4

T H E S O L D I ER A N D T H E C H UR C H E S , 1 7 9 3 – 1 9 1 4

Introduction H E A R G U M E N T T H A T British military life was effectively Christianised during the latter half of the nineteenth century rests partly on an underestimation of the extent of religious provision for the British soldier in the pre-Crimean period. However, it is also based on ignorance of the existing state and dynamics of religious life among soldiers themselves. The presence of a significant evangelical subculture in the army was recognised in a number of publications prior to the great flowering of civilian interest in its spiritual condition from the mid-1850s. Although one veteran maintained in 1820 that ‘The attention of the religious world has not yet been sufficiently drawn to the importance of the object’, he nevertheless recognised the burgeoning work of the Naval and Military Bible Society: ‘I rejoice’, he declared, ‘that the army is beginning to be more attended to of late, in a religious point of view.’1 Likewise, William Innes’ book, The Church in the Army, which was first published in 1835, was composed of biographies of over a dozen pious soldiers of recent years and was an additional indication of religious vitality in this quarter. Furthermore, George Gleig’s Religion in the Ranks, which was published by the Religious Tract Society in 1857, testified to the industry shown by certain army chaplains in leading religious societies and Bible classes for soldiers. In fact, one particularly hardworking chaplain, the Revd William Hare, declared that:

T

[T]he army, far from being a desert waste, where nothing but weeds and thorns are to be gathered, is a field in which a rich

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harvest, with proper culture, may be reaped to the glory of God’s grace. Such at least have I found it to be; for I can truly say that during the twelve years that I have been a military chaplain, I have seen far more to encourage me in sowing the seed of eternal life, than during an equal period of my ministry among civilians.2 As the timing of Religion in the Ranks might indicate, the development of Christian militarism in mid-Victorian Britain involved a measure of civilian recognition for the army’s existing constituency of pious soldiers. As the Revd Henry Press Wright declared in 1857 in his memoirs of the Crimean War: No one has been more misrepresented than the British soldier. In days gone by – I hope for ever – he was spoken of as an outcast ‘fit only for drinking, swearing, and fighting;’ but those who know him well will tell you that in the British army there are noble spirits, unnoticed by the world, but seen by God, whose unpretending piety might with benefit be imitated by those who malign them.3 Perhaps most revealingly of all, at the laying of the foundation stone for Mrs Daniell’s home at Aldershot, the Earl of Shaftesbury gave an address in which he drew attention to the existing evangelical subculture in the British army. On this occasion: [Shaftesbury] powerfully repelled the objection that soldiers were a hopeless class, and that to attempt to Christianize them was merely the dream of pious enthusiasm. He appealed to facts, to the lives of Christian soldiers whose names shone so brightly in the pages of history, and he appealed to the examples of true piety which are still the ornament of the British army. He recalled the letters from private soldiers in India during the fearful revolt which for a moment shook our Indian empire. These letters were not intended for publication, but they showed the Christian spirit of the men who turned the tide of war and re-established Her Majesty’s dominion. He appealed in like manner to the letters from private soldiers during the Crimean war, and to the evidence which these letters gave, that the prayer-meetings, the Bible-readings, and the religious intercourse of the soldiers helped to inspire them with new endurance and with redoubled energy, whether in the dreary trenches of Sebastopol, or in the shock of battle.4

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This chapter will examine the nature and dynamics of religious life among soldiers between 1793 and 1914. In doing so, it will show that the public’s apprehension of the state of religious life in the early nineteenth-century army was unduly pessimistic, owing far more to traditional perceptions of the moral and spiritual condition of the soldier than to the contemporary state of religious life among officers and other ranks. Furthermore, and notwithstanding the great missionary efforts of the post-Crimean period, it will demonstrate that the religious behaviour of ordinary British soldiers in the late Victorian period was not very different from that of their civilian peers. The officer corps and the churches, c.1800–1860 In 1845, George Gleig sketched a bleak picture of the moral and religious condition of the army in general and of the officer corps in particular. In an essay for the Quarterly Review entitled ‘The Moral Discipline of the Army’, Gleig dourly asserted that ‘in all those moral accomplishments which go to form the character of the Christian soldier, the officers of the best British regiments come infinitely short of the point to which, considering their station in life, we have a right to expect that they should attain’. In less prestigious regiments in particular, Gleig believed that ‘the average rate of moral feeling’ was ‘miserably low’. While most officers languished in this depressing condition ‘rather from want of thought than through any corruption of principle’, the attitudes and lifestyle of regimental officers militated against any moral and spiritual improvement. In a hierarchical society comprised largely of young bachelors, company commanders were inclined to indulge their subordinates, thereby showing a grave deficiency in moral leadership. Furthermore, given the luxurious lifestyle of the regimental mess and the tendency of officers to live ‘like gentlemen of large fortune’, officers felt no compunction about running into debt and cheerfully indulged in gambling and cruel sports. In sum, so Gleig maintained: wherever the officers of the British army retain any reverence for their Maker, any love of religion, any desire to become good men as well as good soldiers, they owe it to God’s special mercy, or to the lingerings of early associations within them – certainly to nothing which they either hear or see in the general run of the society of which they are members.5 There is, of course, plenty of evidence to support this view. In the Peninsular War, divisional generals such as Sir Thomas Picton and Robert (‘Black Bob’) Craufurd were renowned for the coarseness of their language and behaviour.6

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The conduct of regimental officers could be equally unedifying. While there is no evidence to suggest that Deism had much currency among officers in the Peninsula, the sheer irreverence of his fellow officers in the 43rd Regiment shocked George Hennell, a pious Unitarian, who wrote: They do not content themselves with a little swearing and joking about serious things but they are generally openly profane and coolly and deliberately take the seat of the scorner. My Bible has been attacked in every way and the more impious the quotation the louder the laugh.7 Things were little better for Henry Preston, a prudish young ensign who joined the 90th Regiment in the 1840s. For Preston, his first two weeks with his new companions were a living hell. On his first night in the officers’ mess, his immediate superior was ‘three parts gone’ and another captain ‘volunteered a bawdy song and sang it seemingly to the edification of the assembly’. Three days later Preston confided in his diary that he was ‘astonished at the immorality of the officers’ and perplexed by the fact that he had ‘not yet found a friend’. A few nights later, his misery was compounded when his fellow officers put all their drinks on his account, tried to get him drunk and delivered two prostitutes to his room.8 In India in 1846, the Revd James Coley concluded that ‘with regard to officers [I] never had any reason to suppose that the generality of them were at all more spiritually-minded than the mass of the common soldiers’.9 Despite these views and experiences, it is easy to overstate the degeneracy of the early nineteenth-century officer corps. After serving with distinction in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, John Charles Beckwith of the Rifle Brigade spent much of the remainder of his life working among the Waldenses of northern Italy.10 Other Peninsular officers went on to take Holy Orders, among them Charles Boothby (who served in the Royal Engineers in Spain and Italy) and the future Chaplain-General, George Gleig.11 Furthermore, the memoirs of E.M. Davenport of the 66th Regiment betray no more than a spirited young officer whose fondness for field sports was essentially typical of the English rural gentleman. Although Davenport incurred the wrath of local Presbyterians for shooting on the Sabbath while stationed at Fort William in 1842, it is clear from his autobiography that he had enough religion to appreciate a good sermon.12 By the time of the Crimean War, the Army Prayer Union, the direct ancestor of the twentieth-century Officers’ Christian Union, was already in existence13 and new opinions as to the religious condition of British officers were freely aired as a result of the war itself. Henry Press Wright, who served as Principal Chaplain in the

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Crimea, made much of Lord Raglan’s piety and of its effect on the atmosphere of his headquarters, stating ‘I attribute greatly to the example set by Lord Raglan the happy fact that three-fourths of my congregation at headquarters were always found at the Lord’s Supper’.14 In fact, Wright claimed to be struck by the moral and spiritual calibre of army officers in general: Taking them as a body, there was a very high tone of religious feeling among the officers of the British army throughout the war; thanks to the attention paid . . . to religious duties in our public schools during the past quarter of a century, and to the discouragement by the lieutenant-colonels commanding regiments of anything like open profligacy in their corps.15 The connections of the nineteenth-century officer corps with the landed classes and with the reformed public schools illustrate an important aspect of its religious character, namely that it was very largely Anglican in composition.16 The Anglican character of the Victorian officer corps was partly reflected in the relatively large proportion of its members who were sons of Anglican clergymen. In fact, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, the proportion of army officers recruited from clerical families appears to have grown significantly, 10 per cent of regimental colonels being sons of clergymen in 1854 while 14 per cent were of clerical parentage sixty years later.17 Although precise figures for the religious affiliation of officers do not exist for the whole period, as late as 1865 regimental returns indicate that 92 per cent of the officer corps was Anglican (or Episcopalian) by profession.18 Lord George Hamilton, a successful late-Victorian soldier turned politician, acknowledged that Nonconformists were a rare breed in the officers’ mess: ‘Socially and financially’, he declared, ‘the great mass of Nonconformists are below the status of the officer and above that of the private’.19 The cadet registers of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich during the last three decades of the nineteenth century underline the truth of Hamilton’s assertion. Even here, among aspirants to some of the least fashionable branches of the army (and where promotion had always been by seniority) Anglicans were in a majority of 94 per cent.20 Given such circumstances, Nonconformity was clearly at odds with the prevailing culture of the officer corps. Indeed, the term ‘Methodist’ was used as a pejorative for evangelical officers until well into the nineteenth century, the epithet being applied to Hedley Vicars as late as the 1850s.21 Given that the army continued to draw a significant proportion of its officers from the county families of rural Scotland,22 the vast majority of the army’s other Protestant officers were Presbyterian (and presumably Church of Scotland)

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in allegiance. In 1865, Presbyterians seem to have comprised around 3 per cent of the total officer corps.23 In view of this apparent and overwhelming preference for Britain’s historically established Protestant churches among army officers, the religious loyalties of certain regiments could even divide along lines of rank. As a result of the disruption of 1843, for example, most of the men of the 93rd (Highland) Regiment joined the Free Kirk while their officers remained loyal to the Church of Scotland.24 Furthermore, when the Irish Guards were formed in 1900, it was widely understood that, while the majority of its rank and file would be Irish Roman Catholics, its officers would be recruited from among the Irish landowning class, a body which was overwhelmingly Church of Ireland in allegiance.25 Although Roman Catholics were never very numerous in the officer corps, with the Irish Parliament’s Catholic Relief and Militia Acts of 1793, the practice of commissioning Catholic gentlemen into regular and militia regiments greatly increased, particularly given the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France. Indeed, the return from France of many Irish Catholic émigré officers even prompted the formation of a wholly Catholic (and short-lived) Irish Brigade in Ireland in 1794.26 Although their commissions were legally precarious (Catholic officers being required to satisfy the terms of the Test Acts when serving in England or Scotland) this requirement was seldom made of them. In fact, J.R. Western argued that, by 1798, this disability was ‘already a sham’ and that ‘the only bar to holding a military commission was to be known as a Roman Catholic to King George III’.27 In 1807, Sir Arthur Wellesley noted that ‘it was notorious that no officer of the army and navy had been required for many years to take an oath or to qualify in any manner’28 and, under these lax circumstances, Catholics such as Edward Stack and Sir Henry Sheehy Keating even became generals during this period.29 However, Catholic gentlemen continued to serve in other armies. Austrian service appealed until well into the nineteenth century30 and the reformed Portuguese and Spanish armies of the Peninsular War appear to have attracted a large number of Catholic officers, who often transferred from British service with a higher rank than that which they had held in British regiments.31 However, such transfers were not necessarily motivated by self-interest, not least because Catholics could still encounter prejudice in the British army. For example, the Hon. Robert Edward Clifford, an English officer in a Franco-Irish regiment prior to the French Revolution, was consistently refused a commission following his return from the continent in the early 1790s.32 Likewise, Sir William Butler recalled that an uncle, Theobald O’Dogherty, was commissioned into the 40th Regiment in 1803. O’Dogherty subsequently fought in the Peninsula but was compelled to leave the army after he challenged a senior officer to a duel because of ‘very gross provocation on the score of

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his religion’. Under similar circumstances, Theobald’s brother, also an officer, chose an easier course of action and ‘gave up his faith as well as the obnoxious “O” before his name’.33 The repeal of the Test Acts in 1828 and the advent of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 removed all legal impediments to Catholics holding commissions and lingering prejudice appears to have dissipated thereafter, although the role of Pope Pius IX in Italian politics provoked a blistering attack in the United Service Magazine in November 1860.34 However, despite the easing of sectarian tensions and a small trickle of officer converts to Rome with the rise of the Oxford movement,35 Catholicism’s penetration of the Victorian officer corps was very limited. In 1865, only 4 per cent of army officers were Roman Catholics and, as late as 1902, it was estimated that only 1 per cent of the ex-public schoolboys holding commissions in the regular army had been educated at Catholic schools.36 However, the leading Catholic families of Victorian England did produce some remarkable army officers. Henry Clifford, who won the VC in the Crimean War, progressed to the rank of major-general and was the subject of a glowing tribute in the United Service Magazine of October 1879, a tribute which acknowledged his family’s strong connections with the Roman curia and its historic Jacobitism.37 Not all of these officers made career soldiers, however. Edward Howard, a descendant of the twelfth Duke of Norfolk, served as an officer in the 2nd Life Guards before abandoning military life for the priesthood. Ordained in Rome in 1854 he became a cardinal thirty years later after a distinguished career as a Vatican diplomat. Although a prince of the church, Howard apparently remained very much a blue-blooded guards officer and his old regiment was formally represented at his funeral in England in 1892.38 Another officer from an ancient Catholic family who felt drawn to the priesthood while serving in the army was Ensign Henry Dormer of the 60th Rifles. Commissioned in 1863, Dormer spent the last months of his brief military career at London, West Canada, nurturing his vocation and strengthening Catholic life in his battalion and among the local Catholic population, who apparently ‘looked upon him as a living Saint’.39 However, in October 1866 Dormer died of typhoid before he could leave the army in order to join the Dominicans.40 Significantly, Dormer’s biographer very much presented him as a Catholic counterpart of the more famous evangelical ‘soldier-saints’ of the period, Lady Georgiana Fullerton insisting that Dormer possessed all the masculine, martial and Christian virtues: an officer and a Christian gentleman . . . he possessed the esteem of all who knew him – he enjoyed the goodwill and respect of his brother officers . . . and by the men of his own company he

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was fairly idolized. His strength and agility of physique, which were beyond the ordinary stamp, were only surpassed by the vigour of his mind; the comeliness, grace, and unruffled calm of his personal appearance presenting a fair picture of the beauty and serenity of soul concealed within.41 Regardless of religious persuasion, it is clear that religious and professional values continued to complement one another. In fact, it is a point worthy of note that during the late 1790s and early 1800s, the reformist Duke of York combined in his own person the role of the Commander-in-Chief of the British army and that of the lay Bishop of Osnabruck.42 Undoubtedly, in the former capacity the Duke of York worked as tirelessly for the moral and religious well-being of the British soldier as he did for his physical welfare. Although he never aspired to a public reputation for piety, even the Duke of Wellington cannot be accused of religious indifference. If Wellington once declared that ‘I am not a “Bible Society man” upon principle, and I make no ostentatious display either of charity or of other Christian virtues’,43 he was nevertheless a vice president of the Naval and Military Bible Society.44 Clearly, we should not mistake the great man’s reticence over matters spiritual for religious carelessness. According to George Gleig, Wellington’s bedtime reading later in life included the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer and Holy Living and Holy Dying, the latter being devotional classics written by the seventeenth-century divine, Jeremy Taylor.45 Moreover, although Wellington was by no means an evangelical, he was very supportive of army chaplaincy during the Peninsular War and was even convinced that the protective ‘finger of Providence’ had rested upon him during the battles of Sorauren and Waterloo.46 Wellington’s discreet and rather old-fashioned religiosity was aptly described by Gleig in the following terms: The duke did not approve of the habitual, and therefore commonplace, discussion of sacred subjects, but as often as they were introduced, you might perceive by his change of manner, that he felt himself to be upon holy ground. Of the Lord’s Prayer he used to say, that ‘it contained the sum total of religion and of morals’.47 Among his Peninsular subordinates, Wellington could count several general officers who were well-known for their moral and religious qualities. Foremost among these ‘zealous Christians’, as Oman described them,48 was Sir Rowland Hill, the nephew and namesake of a leading figure in the evangelical movement, the Anglican clergyman Rowland Hill. Remarkable for his

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humanitarian treatment of his men and for the mildness of his language and temper, ‘Daddy Hill’ was the most competent of Wellington’s Peninsular generals, being knighted in 1812 and created a baron two years later.49 MajorGeneral John Gaspard Le Marchant, a pious churchman from the Channel Islands, reflected the same mix of personal piety and professional competence. Despite some turbulent years as an ensign (during which he evinced a penchant for gaming and duelling) Le Marchant matured into a thoughtful and conscientious officer following a gambling scare and his transfer to a dragoon regiment in 1787. In the 1790s, and as a result of his experiences in Flanders, Le Marchant devised a new sword-drill for the cavalry and endeavoured to improve the design of its sabres. At the same time, he showed conspicuous interest in the training of army officers and from 1801 served as the first lieutenant-governor of the Royal Military College. While performing his duties at the College, Le Marchant wrote on the duties of military chaplains and maintained a local poor school at High Wycombe. In 1811, Le Marchant returned to active service, being sent to the Peninsula to command Wellington’s heavy cavalry. In this capacity he greatly distinguished himself at the battles of Llerena and Salamanca in 1812. Prior to his first action in Flanders in 1793, Le Marchant had confided to his wife: ‘The forms of religion I do not respect, but the principle I rever [sic], and as devoutly as any man I seek the protection of the Supreme’.50 These pious (if rather independent) sentiments endured into later life. When asked by his son how he managed to keep so calm under fire in the Peninsula, Le Marchant replied ‘I never go into battle without subjecting myself to a strict self-examination; when having, as I humbly hope, made my peace with God, I leave the result in His hands with perfect confidence that He will determine what is best for me’.51 An avid reader of scripture, one of Le Marchant’s last requests before his death at Salamanca in 1812 was for a Bible with larger print.52 Besides the example of general officers such as Hill and Le Marchant, there was obviously no shortage of religious men among the regimental officers of Wellington’s army. Evidently, the growth of evangelicalism among army officers continued apace, a function of the onward march of evangelicalism at home, of the growth and broadening social profile of the officer corps and also, no doubt, of the perennial hazards of overseas service. In a dispatch from Portugal in 1811, Wellington noted that two officers of the 9th Regiment were in the habit of attending Methodist meetings and one of their fellow officers predicted that ‘the Gentlemen will not be allowed to hold two situations at once – both Preachers & Officers, but the choice will be given them of resigning one or the other’.53 Notwithstanding this ominous prognosis, evangelicalism flourished among Wellington’s regimental officers. In 1813,

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a devotional work was published posthumously by an evangelical officer who had served in the Peninsula, the book being dedicated to Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole, the commander of Wellington’s Fourth Division. Entitled The Soldier’s Manual, the book was a collection of thirty-one daily prayers and meditations which were inspired by Doddridge’s Life of Gardiner and which concluded with a stirring ‘Soldier’s Prayer’: Gird my loins with the truth, put on me the breastplate of righteousness, and the helmet of salvation, and give me full possession of the sword of the Spirit, which is thy word. Thus accoutred, and following the Captain of my salvation, if needful even through sufferings, let me be strengthened to ‘fight manfully under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue his faithful soldier and servant unto my life’s end’.54 Several biographies of evangelical officers of this time were later published by William Innes in The Church in the Army. These biographies included that of Captain John Gordon of the 2nd Regiment, who embraced the gospel after hearing Charles Simeon and John Owen speak at a missionary meeting in Cambridge, where Gordon also heard tell of ‘the good effect the Bible had had upon two or three soldiers, taken prisoners after the battle of Talavera’.55 Relishing his self-appointed role as evangelist to his regiment, Gordon privately admonished his fellow officers and distributed tracts and Bibles among the rank and file. Spared overt criticism by virtue of his rank, education and connections, Gordon’s function as ‘a rallying point for those who are disposed to take up the cross’ was terminated by a fatal attack of fever in Barbados in December 1816.56 As The Church in the Army also revealed, no less zealous an evangelist was a young lieutenant named Mitchell, who offered himself to the Scottish Missionary Society after spending several years championing the gospel among his regiment in India. Mitchell returned to the subcontinent as an SMS missionary in 1822 but died of fever the following year.57 Mitchell was not alone in his character of a Christian officer in India during the early years of the nineteenth century. As Henry Mascall Conran, an evangelical officer of the East India Company’s Bengal Artillery asserted, there was a progressive improvement in the moral and religious tone of military cantonments in British India in the decades prior to the Indian Mutiny. This Conran ascribed to improved communications between Britain and the subcontinent and to the growing influence of the missionary movement. Together, Conran claimed, these factors conspired to ‘christianize social manners amongst officers and European soldiers’ alike.58 Although the growth

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of evangelicalism at home, the advent of steam power and the easing of EIC restrictions on Protestant missionaries undoubtedly encouraged the putting away of native concubines and the growth of evangelical earnestness in India, these were not the only factors at work. Cholera, which seldom failed as a stimulus for religion,59 made its first devastating appearance among the Indian army in 1817 and became a much-dreaded scourge of its camps and cantonments thereafter.60 Alfred Laverack, the wayward son of a Methodist family, owed his own spiritual awakening to a brief but terrifying outbreak of cholera at Calcutta in 1854.61 Moreover, one survivor of the siege of Lucknow confessed that he would rather go through the whole siege again than endure the cholera outbreak which occurred aboard his troopship as it returned from India in 1859.62 It was, therefore, against a background of growing religious seriousness, burgeoning missionary activity and heightened anxiety that evangelical officers in India worked to proselytise among their men. The most famous of these evangelists among the Company’s native regiments was Colonel Stephen Wheler, in whose 34th Native Infantry Regiment early signs of discontent were manifested in March 1857. In the light of the mutiny of the 34th Native Infantry at Barrackpore, Lord Canning, then Governor General of India, concluded that Wheler was ‘entirely unfit to be entrusted with the command of a regiment’ but evangelicals such as Conran hailed him as ‘the pioneer of truth in the native army’ and as ‘the apostle of the Sepoys’.63 Significantly, Wheler’s missionary work among the heathen in India extended to British soldiers as well as to sepoys. In the 1830s, Wheler evangelised among British troops in their cantonments at Agra and Fatehgarh and, in the winter of 1848–9, he was instrumental in effecting a major revival among the 24th Regiment at Agra, this regiment having only recently returned to India.64 European regiments in the Company’s service could also have their officers turn evangelists. While stationed at Hooshearpore in the late 1840s, Conran embarked upon his ‘favourite military project’ of establishing ‘a model company’ of the Bengal Artillery.65 This project induced him to lead religious services, to preach in barracks on the Sabbath, to establish a religious society for ‘the pious portion of the company’ and even to administer Holy Communion.66 However, Crown officers were also susceptible to the burgeoning evangelical subculture of British India. As early as 1816 one Crown officer wrote to a Baptist missionary thanking him for ‘the character of a determined Methodist [which] has proved of very great advantage to me, and kept me, through the grace of God, from sliding back into the ways of sin, and causing the enemies of God to triumph’.67 Moreover, it was to his discussions with a pious lieutenant of the 13th Regiment that Henry Havelock, the most distinguished of all evangelical officers in India, owed his

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own religious conversion, which occurred during his long voyage to Bengal in 1823.68 Following his arrival in Calcutta, Havelock became acquainted with Anglican missionaries such as Bishop Heber and Archdeacon Cowie and also with the Baptist missionaries at Serampore, being re-baptised by them in 1829.69 During the Burmese War of 1824–6, Havelock led prayer meetings for the pious soldiers of the 13th Regiment and resumed this practice when the 13th was stationed at Agra in the 1830s and in Afghanistan during the First Afghan War.70 Furthermore, in October 1832 Havelock petitioned Lord Hill, then the army’s Commander-in-Chief, for Nonconformist soldiers to be exempted from compulsory Anglican services, an exemption which was belatedly granted in a general order of July 1839.71 Besides Havelock, however, there were many other Crown officers in India who exerted a strong and improving religious influence over their men. One of these was Colonel Henry Oglander of the 26th Regiment, who had already requisitioned large numbers of Bibles and Prayer Books for his regiment while it was stationed in Ireland in 1825–6.72 In India, Oglander ‘made his regiment a model of discipline, military conduct, and religious profession’, insisting that ‘the guard on duty at his quarters attended daily worship in his own room’. In fact, his influence while serving as a brigadier at Cawnpore was such that, when Conran visited the cantonment in 1837, he found that ‘some twenty or thirty officers and ladies’ were ‘meeting at each other’s houses for prayer’.73 At the same time, the temperance cause was so strong among the rank and file of the 26th that its annual consumption of alcohol fell from 14,000 gallons in 1836 to 2,516 gallons in 1838.74 If, by mid-century, commanding officers were generally thought to take a sympathetic view of those ‘religious labours’ which promoted greater discipline and efficiency among their men,75 the same concern for discipline and efficiency could be double-edged, rendering evangelical officers somewhat suspect. Henry Havelock’s application for the adjutancy of the 13th Regiment was strongly opposed by some of his fellow officers on the grounds that his religious views meant that he would be unable to discharge his duties impartially and because his ‘character as an officer was lowered by familiar intercourse with the men’.76 Clearly, such suspicions were well-founded, for the religious work of evangelical officers could lead to crucial distinctions of rank and other professional considerations being obscured in the interests of the Gospel. In his autobiography, Conran confessed that he ‘transgressed the rules of the service’ by attending a Methodist love-feast held for the men of the 9th Regiment and that, during the course of his work in military hospitals in India, ‘I ceased to be the officer, and the patient ceased to be the soldier’.77 Similarly, in defending his missionary activities to his superiors

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following the mutiny of his sepoys at Barrackpore, Wheler declared that ‘On matters connected with religion, I feel myself called upon to act in two capacities, to – “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and to “render unto God the things that are God’s”’.78 Doubts as to the wisdom and propriety of evangelical officers were not confined to the Indian subcontinent. In the very different milieu of Halifax, Nova Scotia, garrison life appears to have been particularly susceptible to the evangelical influences of Dr J.T. Twining, an officiating chaplain of long standing. Both of the ‘soldiersaints’, Maximilian Hammond of the Rifle Brigade and Hedley Vicars of the 97th Regiment, were converted under Twining’s ministry while stationed at Halifax, Hammond in 1844 and Vicars seven years later.79 Under Twining’s tutelage, Hammond was one of several awakened officers of the Rifle Brigade who began teaching their men in the garrison’s Sunday school, an example which Vicars later followed. Similarly, both Hammond and Vicars held prayer meetings for their men following their conversions.80 Such activities were evidently not approved of in the Rifle Brigade and a regimental order was eventually issued which prevented Hammond and his associates from teaching at the soldiers’ Sunday school, the order arising out of the conviction ‘that it would cause too much familiarity among officers and men’.81 Although their superiors’ unease was understandable, evangelical solicitude on the part of officers was not necessarily resented by the other ranks. In a military society in which ‘the vast conceptual distance between officers and men’82 could be so great that some company officers knew only their servants and their sergeants by name,83 the condescension and concern shown by Havelock, Hammond and other evangelical officers was quite exceptional, notwithstanding the efforts of many contemporary officers to improve the lot of their men through various improving schemes such as regimental savings banks. Hammond, for example, funded temperance lectures, established reading rooms and donated prizes for constant attenders at evening school.84 Despite his contemporary critics and Ian Beckett’s assertion that Havelock was unpopular with his men because of ‘his long-winded sermonising’,85 Havelock should not be lightly dismissed as ‘a crank and a bible-thumping teetotaller’.86 This verdict is not borne out by other details of Havelock’s career in India. From the time of his arrival in the subcontinent, Havelock made charitable giving a particular virtue, devoting 10 per cent of his income ‘to objects of piety and benevolence’.87 This beneficence was reciprocated for, when Havelock’s bungalow burnt down at Landour in 1836, the men of the 13th Regiment offered to raise a subscription for his family, a remarkable gesture in a regiment with a history of insubordination.88 Hedley Vicars was clearly convinced of the respect and affection of his men in the Crimea, and it is certainly remarkable that it was an Irish Catholic of the 97th Regiment

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who attempted to save his life at Sebastopol.89 Nevertheless, and despite their earnest attempts to do good, the labours of evangelical officers were not always welcome. Rebuffs from soldiers and complaints from hospital surgeons were not uncommon and Roman Catholics could be greatly antagonised by their attentions.90 Even Protestant clergymen could be less than enthusiastic about their work and in January 1847 James Coley wrote: Brigadier Eckford talks to the men in hospital [at Lahore] about ‘the things which belong to their everlasting peace;’ he accom panied me there this afternoon. We are thankful for the cooperation of pious laymen, so long as they are not self-constituted helpers and keep within the bounds of their proper sphere. Modesty in things spiritual is a Christian grace and ornament sometimes not so conspicuous in lay members of the Church as it ought to be.91 The officer corps and the churches, c.1860–1910 The popularity of ‘soldier-saints’ such as Hedley Vicars, Maximilian Hammond and Henry Havelock owed much to the fact that they were officers. Besides a suitably dramatic death on active service, a commission does seem to have been an essential qualification for a successful soldier-saint, an asset which confirmed its owner’s credentials as a Christian gentleman. The importance of this qualification is illustrated by the comparatively little-known case of Sergeant William Marjouram, a stalwart Wesleyan of the Royal Artillery. Although Catherine Marsh, Vicars’ biographer, lent her name to a lengthy biography of Marjouram published in 1861, this godly sergeant never attained the status of Captain Vicars, Captain Hammond, Brigadier-General Havelock or Major-General Gordon. Marjouram was, after all, but a lowly NCO and his death from a prolonged illness at Woolwich in June 1861 hardly compared to the manner in which his superior officers and fellow saints had met their maker.92 If they were popular with civilians and useful for the army’s public image, most of these ‘soldier-saints’ do not appear to have exerted a significant practical influence on the army as such. Although Havelock was influential in the temperance cause in India, as junior regimental officers the labours of Vicars and Hammond were entirely local. Furthermore, Gordon’s path to Christian glory lay not in commanding British soldiers but in leading Chinese and, ultimately, Egyptian troops. Although biographies of ‘soldier-saints’ were presented or addressed to soldiers (Alfred Laverack was given a copy of

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Marsh’s Memorials of Captain Hedley Vicars by a fellow passenger during a railway journey in the late 1850s)93 none of these figures had anything like the direct influence which Lord Frederick Sleigh Roberts VC (the legendary ‘Bobs’) had upon the British army at the end of the nineteenth century. Born into an Anglo-Irish military family at Cawnpore in 1832, Roberts was commissioned into the EIC’s Bengal Artillery at the age of nineteen. Following distinguished and courageous service as a junior officer in the Indian Mutiny, he soon rose to prominence in the reformed, post-Mutiny Indian army. Fully confirming his talents as a field commander during the Second Afghan War, Roberts was appointed Commander-in-Chief in India in 1885. Raised to the peerage in 1892, the newly created Lord Roberts of Kandahar was promoted field marshal and appointed Commander-in-Chief in Ireland in 1895. Brave, charming and charismatic, ‘Bobs’ was without doubt the empire’s most popular soldier by the time he was called upon to salvage British military fortunes in South Africa in the closing weeks of 1899. Significantly, Roberts’ reputation for piety had developed alongside his formidable reputation as a soldier. With reference to his famous Christian concern for the sobriety of his soldiers, one of the verses in Kipling’s Bobs (1898) ran: ‘E’s a little down on drink, Chaplain Bobs; But it keeps us outer ClinkDon’t it, Bobs? So we will not complain Tho’ ‘e’s water on the brain, If he leads us straight againBlue-light Bobs.94 Already the godfather of temperance work in the army, Roberts marked his arrival in South Africa in January 1900 with the publication of a special prayer for the troops under his command, a timely gesture given the disasters of ‘Black Week’ the preceding month. Composed by William Alexander, the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, the prayer ran as follows: Almighty Father, I have often sinned against Thee. O wash me in the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Fill me with Thy Holy Spirit, that I may lead a new life. Spare me to see again those whom I love at home, or fit me for Thy presence in peace. Strengthen us to quit ourselves like men in our right and just cause. Keep us faithful unto death, calm in danger, patient in

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suffering, merciful as well as brave, true to our Queen, our country, and our colours. If it be thy will, enable us to win victory for England, and above all grant us the better victory over temptation and sin, over life and death, that we may be more than conquerors through Him who loved us, and laid down His life for us, Jesus our Saviour, the Captain of the Army of God. Amen. The publication of this prayer, replete as it was with evangelical piety and patriotic rhetoric, naturally met with warm approval from pro-war Protestants, even being hailed as ‘the most notable fact in the history of the war’.95 One Wesleyan pundit maintained that this prayer marked ‘a new departure in the usages of modern warfare, and carries us back in thought and spirit to the camps of Cromwell and his psalm-singing Ironsides, or to the times when Scotland’s Covenanters were busy guarding for us the religious light and liberty which are to-day our goodliest heritage’.96 In addition to recognising the need for prayer, Roberts supported a range of Christian work among his troops in South Africa, showing particular interest in the work of the SCA and opening the first Wesleyan soldiers’ home in Pretoria, the occupied capital of the Transvaal.97 Acutely aware of the manner in which returning soldiers were being welcomed home by civilians in England, in the autumn of 1900 Roberts even recruited the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple, and of the British press in calling upon the general public to refrain from ‘treating’ the men to stimulants in public houses or in the streets, and thus lead them to excesses which must tend to degrade those whom the nation delights to honour, and to lower the ‘Soldier of the Queen’ in the eyes of the world – that world which has watched with undisguised admiration the grand work which they have performed for their Sovereign and their country.98 Not surprisingly, Roberts inspired a fervent admiration among the army’s chaplains in South Africa, an admiration which is vividly illustrated by the impression which he made on one Presbyterian chaplain, Robert McClelland, during a divisional inspection on the veldt: [Lord Roberts] did me the honour to come up to me with his staff and asked me, in the kindliest of tones, with those searching eyes of his: ‘Are you the chaplain?’ ‘Yes, my Lord’ (saluting).

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‘The Presbyterian minister?’ ‘I am, my Lord.’ ‘I am delighted to find you in this good work’; and away went the Christian Hero. But his words of sympathy were not lost; for, with a stirred-up and encouraged heart, I spent the rest of the day in the enteric tents, instead of riding into Kroonstadt with our officers.99 If Roberts’ piety made an indelible impression on many, this impression was only strengthened by the death of his only son at the battle of Colenso in 1899, a loss which bestowed upon Roberts an aura of Christian fortitude. However, it must be emphasised that Roberts’ timely return to England as the new Commander-in-Chief of the British army late in 1900 helped to save his reputation from being tarnished by the later and more controversial aspects of the army’s conduct of the Boer War. If he was never really counted a ‘soldier-saint’, Lord Garnet Wolseley (Roberts’ immediate predecessor as Commander-in-Chief of the British army) was also a deeply religious and highly professional soldier who likewise supported the work of religious agencies in the army. Yet another AngloIrish Protestant, Wolseley claimed a close friendship with Charles Gordon, asserting that he was one of only two men for whom Gordon prayed every day.100 Disposed to invoke the help of Providence while on campaign, in his memoirs Wolseley confessed that ‘All through my life– sinner though I have been – I trusted implicitly in God’s providence, I believed He watched specially over me and intended me for some important work’.101 Like Roberts, Wolseley lent his full support to the soldiers’ home movement and was closely associated with the Irish homes run by Elise Sandes.102 In fact, one of Sandes’ homes in Dublin was named the ‘Wolseley Soldiers’ Home’ in recognition of the assistance which Lord and Lady Wolseley had rendered it, Wolseley opening the institution after his wife had raised more than £2,400 on its behalf.103 Although Roberts and Wolseley were both of this stamp, Low Church officers could pose considerable problems for Anglican chaplains in the postCrimean army, particularly over Ritualist practices in garrison churches. In the 1860s and 1870s, anti-Ritualism found its champion in the army in the form of General Sir James Hope Grant, who, as an evangelical Anglican, felt perfectly within his rights to berate the Chaplain-General and to lobby the Duke of Cambridge, then Commander-in-Chief, over the matter.104 However, Hope Grant was not alone in taking offence on this score. Arthur Male, an acting Wesleyan chaplain during the Second Afghan War, noted that the garrison church at Peshawar had a chaplain who was ‘excessively High’ and whose ‘extreme ritualism greatly irritated the Brigadier in command of the station,

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who being a Scotchman, was, of course, a strong Presbyterian’.105 It certainly seems probable that the presence of significant numbers of Scottish and AngloIrish officers helped to maintain something of a ‘Low Church’ bias within the late-Victorian officer corps and this factor no doubt helped to heighten the potential for conflict with innovative chaplains. Not all religious officers were averse to Ritualism, however. Perhaps the most notable exception was Horatio Kitchener who, like Charles Gordon, began his military career in the Royal Engineers. Unlike most officers (and Anglo-Irish officers in particular) the young Kitchener was a keen Anglo-Catholic, a member of the English Church Union and a close associate of Anglo-Catholic chaplains such as J.C. Edghill.106 Although, for pragmatic reasons, Kitchener later opposed missionary work in the Sudan following its reconquest in 1898, he was supportive of missionary work in the army, being an early member of the Guild of the Holy Standard. This organisation, which was established in 1873 by Edghill and others, had the aim of supporting Anglican communicants and of encouraging them to work with their chaplains in order to advance the religious and social welfare of the army.107 There is, significantly, little to suggest that the British officer corps was seriously affected by the ‘crisis of faith’ which assailed many upper- and middle-class believers in the later decades of the nineteenth century.108 This probably reflected the army’s conformist ethos as much as the anti-intellectual temper of the officers’ mess, factors which no doubt conspired against agnostics voicing doubts as to the inerrancy of the Bible, the truth of miracles or the morality of Hell. Atheism was similarly discouraged. As Byron Farwell has remarked, ‘If there were atheists, they kept their mouths shut. Most officers considered themselves good Christians, but they did not think too deeply or too often about their religion, and when they did, their thoughts were not likely to be profound’.109 This observation is largely borne out by the memoirs of Winston Churchill, who recognised that the army frowned upon religious controversy of whatever kind. According to Churchill, by the 1890s ‘Religious toleration in the British Army had spread until it overlapped the regions of indifference. No one was ever hampered or prejudiced on account of his religion. Everyone had the regulation facilities for its observance’. In fact, the only consensual view on the subject appears to have been that ‘Too much religion of any kind . . . was a bad thing’.110 By this time most young army officers were, like Churchill, alumni of the reformed public schools, institutions which emphasised routine attendance at chapel, sporting accomplishment and the formation of Christian gentlemen.111 The outlook of these schools was largely Anglican and Broad Church and their emphasis on developing character meant that their curricula did not

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usually engage with the views of other religions or with current intellectual challenges to Christianity. Hence, as Churchill remembered, those discussions of religion which did take place in the officers’ mess of the 4th Hussars in India either concerned the social utility of religion (which few doubted, particularly in relation to women and ‘the lower orders’) or else they were ill-informed forays into metaphysical questions such as death, the afterlife and the existence of God. Overall, ‘There was general agreement that if you tried your best to live an honourable life and did your duty and were faithful to friends and not unkind to the weak and poor, it did not matter much what you believed or disbelieved. All would come out right’.112 The experience of Anglican chaplains during the Boer War tends to confirm the impression that the religious outlook of junior officers was, by this time, generally hazy and even downright careless. Paul Bull wrote that: I have often felt a vague impression that my purely spiritual interests made me seem to them a sort of rather substantial ghost, with an uncanny suggestion of the supernatural and the unseen, and Sunday, and not swearing, and all that sort of thing – something on a different plane from guns and horses, and food, and so on.113 Similarly, another chaplain heard from a sergeant of the Mounted Infantry how one Sunday the colonel ordered church parade, and as there was no chaplain with the column the senior lieutenant, who was acting adjutant, took it. When the parade was formed up he walked from his tent with a Prayer Book in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and said, ‘Now, men, we’ve got to have parade service, so just listen.’ He then read the Lord’s Prayer, dismissed the parade, and resumed the smoking of his cigarette.114 By this time, the old style ‘Blue Lights’ certainly seem to have been out of step with the prevailing culture of the officer corps as, indeed, they were with the more liberal theological mood of Britain’s mainstream Protestant churches. Although a Low Church Anglican, an active Irish Unionist and prone to be compared to Cromwell, even Roberts was at variance with this fading tradition, a fact demonstrated by his audience with Pope Leo XIII in 1893.115 Not surprisingly, the decline of their old constituency did not go unremarked by more conservative evangelical officers. In 1882, J.W. Bryans, a retired

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Company officer and the author of a number of evangelical pamphlets aimed at soldiers, deplored the debased nature of contemporary British Protestantism in a pamphlet entitled Active Service. Here, Bryans bewailed the fact that ‘there is quite as much error, false teaching, and frigidity, out of the Church of England as there is in it! Good old fashioned Dissent is fast dying of exhaustion, and will ere long sink at her anchors, having forgot the great and vital principles and duties of her honoured forefathers’. Consequently, Bryans urged his readers to: Proclaim everywhere the total corruption of human nature and the need of a Saviour. Fling away the modern notion that Christ is in every man, and that all possess ‘something good’ within themselves, which they have only to stir up and use in order to get saved. Never flatter your comrades in this foolish fashion . . . Moral life will never gain heaven . . . Proclaim everywhere ‘Ye must be born again.’116 Despite this strident rallying cry, and the survival of a small but enduring evangelical presence in the officer corps, by the end of the nineteenth century older officers of the stamp of Havelock and Vicars cut slightly ridiculous figures. As a young officer, H.F.N. Jourdain heard tell of a major who was ‘given to holding forth especially on religious subjects’. After being introduced to a Wesleyan minister who had come up to Sikkim to visit the Wesleyans of his battalion, this major invited him on a walking expedition into the hills, being delighted to find ‘that their ideas were on the same lines’. Upon his return without the minister, the major would only say that ‘The Lord hath taken him’. It was later ascertained that he had died of his exertions in the mountains. The same major, when pondering whether he would be given command of the other battalion of his regiment, which was then stationed in Malta, was ‘seen outside his hut, with an enormous Bible on his knees and a large pin’. After several stabs with the pin, ‘[He] got up, proceeded to the Mess where the other officers were assembled, and told them that he had got Command of the other Battalion of his Regiment . . . repeating the words, “Lo I go to Melita”’. When asked how he knew, he said ‘he had put a pin into his Bible’, the point of which had alighted on Acts 28: 1, ‘And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita’.117 A similar officer was known to Frank Crozier, whose colonel punished wayward subalterns ‘by making them go to his quarters and there listen to him reciting extracts from the Bible in their disfavour’.118 On one occasion Crozier himself ‘stood in front of the colonel, in the quietude of his den’ and was treated to Deut. 21: 20, ‘This our son is stubborn and

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rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard . . .’119 While ageing regimental officers of this kind caused bemusement among their younger subordinates, upon retirement they could prove a positive nuisance to the Anglo-Catholic clergy, retired officers being conspicuous in the battle against Ritualism in the Church of England at the turn of the twentieth century.120 The other ranks and the churches, c.1800–1860 It was with the soldier’s perceived indifference to all things religious in mind that the Revd James Coley wrote from India in 1845: We hear a great deal said about the duty and advantage of Chaplains ‘administering the consolations of religion’ to soldiers in hospital. This sounds very fine and sentimental; but what does it mean? It is well known that soldiers, with very few exceptions, are the last subjects in the world for these said consolations. Men, who are hardened in iniquity, whose ‘neck is an iron sinew and their brow brass,’ are not the men to understand or to want such consolations: they have need rather to be persuaded by ‘the terrors of the Lord’ to flee from the wrath to come.121 Despite these views, a strong religious subculture did exist in the late Georgian and early Victorian army. As Coley himself conceded, ‘there are a few exceptions, and these few afford one great consolation. One or two of the men have told me that they had their Bibles in their knapsacks with them on the field of battle, and that they did not find it impossible to think of God and to pray to Him even in that hour of excitement and confusion’.122 Less grudgingly, a pious veteran of the French Revolutionary Wars deplored the view ‘that the army is a place in which it is impossible to live a godly life’, insisting that ‘it is possible, and has been done . . . will you say that it is not in the power of the Almighty to enable a soldier to serve him in the army, and to lead a Christian life in it? The idea is blasphemous [and] one of the greatest obstacles, if not the very greatest, to its moral improvement’.123 Notwithstanding the supposed irreligion of the ordinary soldier in the early decades of the nineteenth century, it is clear that there were few convinced infidels in the ranks. Even in the 1790s, when Deist ideas were widely disseminated among the lower orders through Tom Paine’s Age of Reason (1794–5), the evidence points to an insignificant Deist constituency among the army’s rank and file. George Billanie remembered the presence of some Deists at Gibraltar in 1797, men who ‘attempted to shake my belief of the truth of

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the scriptures’. However, and although an unregenerate sinner and ‘greatly disturbed and perplexed in my mind by their arguments’, Billanie remained unconvinced by their views.124 Even James Coley, who was no great admirer of the spiritual and moral state of the British soldier in the 1840s, acknowledged that professed infidelity was a rare phenomenon among the other ranks. During the course of the First Sikh War, Coley encountered only one Deist in the form of a soldier of the 80th Regiment.125 It is clear that many pious soldiers believed that military infidels – like all enemies of religion – were liable to meet with a sanguinary end and such views may well have been shared more widely, thus limiting the appeal of outright irreligion. John Stevenson noted that his own sergeant-major, who had been ‘the greatest enemy to religious men that I ever knew in his rank’, was killed during the landings at Aboukir Bay in 1801 ‘while all those whom he had persecuted came home safe’.126 Similarly, James Anton of the 42nd Regiment remembered the demise of one reprobate at the battle of Toulouse, which was fought on Easter Sunday 1814:127 There was a man of the name of Wighton in the regiment, a grumbling, discontented, disaffected sort of character . . . As he rushed along the field his front-rank man exclaimed, ‘God Almighty preserve us, this is dreadful!’ ‘You be damned,’ Wighton replied, ‘you have been importuning God Almighty this half-dozen of years, and it would be no wonder although He were to knock you down at last for troubling Him so often; as for myself, I do not believe there is one; if there were, He would never have brought us here!’ According to Anton, Wighton was killed the very moment he uttered these words.128 If pious soldiers were quick to attribute the salutary fate of the wicked to the chastening hand of providence,129 it is significant that even comparatively irreligious soldiers shared the same perspectives on the likely fate of the blasphemer and the infidel. Although an inveterate plunderer, Benjamin Harris of the 95th Rifles was greatly impressed by the sight of a fatally wounded Frenchman laden with ‘a quantity of gold and silver crosses’ after the battle of Vimiero in 1808. Concluding that he had recently plundered a convent or a church, Harris thought that ‘He looked the picture of a sacrilegious thief, dying hopelessly, and overtaken by Divine wrath’. Harris confessed that he was so unnerved by the scene that ‘I declined taking anything from him. I felt fearful of incurring the wrath of Heaven for the like offence, so I left him, and passed on’.130

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If fear of the condign hand of providence served to limit the appeal of Deism and outright infidelity, it no doubt did much to assist the continuing popularity of Methodism, particularly as it was sometimes assumed that its adherents enjoyed a degree of supernatural protection as well as the fullness of salvation.131 The sixty years from the death of John Wesley in 1791 to the national census of religion in 1851 witnessed a phenomenal growth in evangelical Nonconformity in England and Wales. As Michael Watts has shown, this growth was driven by enthusiasm for home and overseas mission, by itinerant preaching and camp meetings and also by an undiminished fear of Hell at a popular level. Facilitated by urbanisation, a weak parochial system and by a strong supernaturalism in popular culture, evangelical Nonconformity had a marked appeal among those who had experienced a religious upbringing and among those whose livelihoods placed them in unusual danger of injury or death.132 Clearly, the British army was by no means immune to these developments in wider society. As we have observed in Chapter 1, soldiers were probably more susceptible than most to the evangelical call for personal conversion by virtue of the manifest dangers of their profession. However, in his seminal study of Wellington’s Peninsular army, Charles Oman suggested that other theological and ideological factors were at work in the expansion of army Methodism during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In contrast to the more detached Deity of the eighteenth-century Church of England, Oman argued that: The God of the Old Testament was a much more satisfactory object of worship to the men who had to face the Jacobin, and Calvinism has always proved a good fighting creed. If ever there was a justification for a belief that the enemy were in a condition of complete reprobation, and that to smite them was the duty of every Christian man, it was surely at this time.133 Despite the vivid appeal of Oman’s thesis, there is in fact little evidence to support this view. Oman’s analysis rested on a caricatured view of Anglican theology, on an underestimation of the role and significance of Arminian Methodism and upon an ignorance of the strong Methodist subculture which already existed in the eighteenth-century army. Although one Methodist dragoon claimed to have charged into action at Waterloo with the battle cry ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon’,134 it appears that conservative ideology was not a major driving force of Methodism in the army and that very much the same factors which fuelled the expansion of Methodism in civilian society promoted its growth among soldiers.135

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In his studies of English Dissent, Michael Watts emphasised that, from a sample of 670 conversion narratives dating from the period 1780–1850, fully 90 per cent of their subjects were recipients of a religious upbringing which had predisposed them to evangelical religion.136 Clearly, between 1793 and 1815, the meteoric rise of the Sunday school movement, the rapid spread of Methodism at home and the unprecedented scale of national mobilisation ensured that many soldiers entered the army already predisposed to religious influences. Even though his comrades in the Peninsula were free with disparaging epithets such as ‘Methodist’ and ‘Quaker’, Joseph Donaldson remembered that ‘symptoms of religious feeling’ tended to be regarded sympathetically for, as Donaldson maintained, ‘there is a sacredness attached to even the appearance of religion in the minds of those who have been brought up by religious parents, that however lax their own morality may be, prevents them from turning it into ridicule’.137 Among hundreds of thousands of young men who served in the ranks of the regular army and of the embodied militia at this time, the militiaman William Shaw was not unusual in claiming that his mother ‘trained us up in the fear of the Lord [and] took us in early life to the House of God and that was frequently to the Methodist Chapel’.138 If George Calladine of the 19th Regiment did not become a Methodist later in life, he could still claim that: [N]o apprentice could have wished for a better place; my master and his son and daughter, both grown up, were very steady and religious, being members of the Methodist Society, and they gave all the encouragement in their power for their apprentices to become like themselves . . . I was obliged to attend Sunday school at the Chapel, and, I hope, imbibed some principles there; although I never followed them up . . . they have never been eradicated from my mind.139 Despite Calladine’s case, there are numerous examples of soldiers who did progress from a religious upbringing to evangelical conversion. These included George Billanie of the 92nd, William Surtees of the 56th and the Rifle Brigade, James Field of the Royal Artillery, Thomas Hasker of the 1st Dragoon Guards, John Stevenson of the 3rd Foot Guards and the militiamen, Joseph Mayett and William Shaw. However, for our purposes the examples of John Stevenson and Joseph Mayett must suffice to illustrate this wider phenomenon. John Stevenson was born in Nettleton, Lincolnshire, in 1774. He was taught to read his Bible as a child and was taken regularly to the parish church by his father, where he became ‘accustomed to read the responses in the Prayer Book’. Stevenson attributed his survival during the Dutch campaign

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of 1793–5 to the prayers of his Wesleyan mother, a conclusion which gave her sufficient influence over him to persuade him to ‘become acquainted with the Methodist ministry’.140 Similarly, Joseph Mayett was born in the parish of Quainton, Buckinghamshire, in 1783, being brought up by poor but ‘honist and Religious parents’. Mayett’s father licensed their home as a Methodist meeting house when Mayett was six years old and Mayett’s godmother took a keen interest in his upbringing, giving him a New Testament which he was able to read before the age of seven. Like tens of thousands of his generation,141 the young Mayett attended one of the new Sunday schools and, by the time he came to start work, the religious habits of the Mayett family were sufficiently well known in their neighbourhood for Joseph to be branded ‘a methodist and a tubthumper’ by his workmates, taunts which led him to cultivate a showy habit of swearing.142 Nevertheless, Mayett’s autobiography reveals that his early religious impressions were never entirely expunged during his twelve-year stint in the Buckinghamshire Militia. In fact, he very much retained what he termed a ‘Secrete desire for religion’.143 Following his discharge in 1815, Mayett, like his parents before him, became a member of a local Baptist church. In addition to providing a picture of the religious development of an individual soldier, Mayett’s autobiography provides a much broader insight into how far soldiers serving in Britain were influenced by the popular religious culture of the period, and in particular by the heightened state of religious excitement and millenarian expectation ushered in by the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon.144 In Plymouth in 1806, Mayett and a number of his fellow militiamen were terrified by the words of a local prophet who announced ‘that the world should be destroyed on whit Sunday’.145 Although the apocalypse was averted on this occasion, Mayett was persuaded five years later that a gathering storm presaged the end of the world.146 Not done with popular prophecy, Mayett had dealings with a Southcottian preacher at Mansfield in 1812, a preacher who lent him ‘Some of his books’ and who told Mayett ‘many Straing things’ before they parted company.147 For those soldiers of the regular army who, unlike Mayett, were called upon to serve abroad, army life remained as dangerous as ever – perhaps even more so given British expansion in India and the strategic necessity of maintaining large garrisons in the fever-ridden Caribbean. Clearly, the fear of death continued to take a severe psychological toll. Thomas Morris recalled of a relatively short voyage from Britain to north Germany in 1813: [D]elays in our progress gave us ample time to reflect on our probable destiny. I . . . sat for hours together, meditating on my own folly or temerity, in thus rushing on to certain danger –

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perhaps to death. Of our regiment . . . how many of them were destined never to return? . . . and the question would arise – should I be among the first? Or second? Or should I return in safety?’148 As in the past, disease was more to be feared than the prospect of battle. As Calladine remembered, in 1815 the chances of surviving garrison duty in Ceylon were remote to say the least: ‘I found that a great many of my old comrades who came out [to Trincomalee in 1814] had dropt off’, he wrote, ‘and according to the accounts that I received I calculated that it would be my turn in the course of a twelve-month at farthest’.149 In fact, it has been estimated that, of the 45,000 white officers and men of the British army who died in the Caribbean between 1793 and 1801, no less than 95 per cent died from disease rather than from enemy action.150 Nor were more temperate climates free from the risk of mass mortality of this kind. In 1809, ‘Walcheren Fever’, a particularly virulent form of malaria, carried off thousands of British soldiers in the dykes and polders of the Scheldt estuary. A third of the 40,000strong expedition to the region was struck down by the disease and 4,000 died.151 As Morris’ reflections illustrate, soldiers often had more than enough time to dwell upon the dangers of their predicament. As in the eighteenth century, time still weighed heavily on soldiers’ hands whether in garrison, or in camp or during long sea voyages. As John Stevenson recognised: [W]hat working man has half the opportunity for improving his mind, for reading and attending the means of grace, or for usefulness in the world, possessed by soldiers? Like all other situations in which the whole time is surrendered, as, for instance, in the case of domestic servants, the soldier cannot always have the whole of the Sabbath, but then he may make every day partly like a Sabbath, when others cannot.152 Despite this free time, a lack of funds or sheer isolation often meant that recreational opportunities could be very limited, a fact which can only have enhanced the attraction of soldiers’ religious meetings. The deathly boredom of garrison life in Gibraltar no doubt served as a boon for the strong tradition of army Methodism on the Rock and the same circumstances probably encouraged its emergence at Cape Town from 1806, where the Methodist society was meeting as often as six times a week by the end of the following year.153 Again, among the army of occupation in northern France after Waterloo, Methodism found a context in which it could thrive. Building on

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the inactivity of garrison life and on strong Methodist traditions established during the Peninsular War, both the 1st Foot Guards and the 9th Regiment sustained a strong Methodist subculture in and around Cambrai.154 However, the same situation could obtain in the British Isles, and it is significant that it was a lack of anything better to do which led Joseph Mayett to attend a Baptist meeting in Chelmsford one Sunday in 1805.155 Similarly, when invited to join a Methodist meeting in Colchester in 1812, the young William Shaw reflected, ‘Well . . . I have nothing to do, time hangs heavily, I will go to pass away this idle hour’.156 A striking illustration of the way in which boredom and isolation conspired to favour the spread of evangelical religion lies in the experience of British prisoners of war in France during the Napoleonic Wars. After 1803, the exchange of prisoners between Britain and France largely broke down, a development which doomed many ordinary British prisoners to long years of captivity in French prison depots.157 In comparison to the treatment meted out to other prisoners of war, Napoleon was relatively severe in his attitude towards British captives, ordering those who could not be suborned to be closely guarded and confined in the strongest of his fortresses.158 A mixture of soldiers, seamen and interned civilians, the prisoners in these depots (who numbered over 11,000 by 1811)159 developed a strong religious subculture during their long years in France. Inadequately served by a handful of interned clergy, various religious societies sprang up in the prisons of Givet,160 Valenciennes,161 Arras,162 Verdun and Cambrai.163 Whether Anglican, Methodist, Baptist or Independent in sympathy, it seems likely that these societies owed at least part of their success to the recreation and companionship which they offered to prisoners, an intense routine of prayer, preaching and Bible-reading being the norm among them. In 1809, one prisoner described the Wesleyan society at Arras in the following terms: [T]he number belonging to the society, is now about 140, besides many constant hearers . . . We have also nine band-meetings in a week, and my two brethren and myself, meet once a week, which we find to be very profitable to our souls. We keep a prayer-meeting for the society every day; – have public prayers and a portion of Scripture read every morning; a sermon every other evening, and on Sundays, three or four times. A Love-feast is held every three months, and Quarterly-tickets are delivered to the members of society as at home.164 The circumstances of captivity certainly appear to have been favourable to the growth of religion and one prisoner even described the prison depots as

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‘a kind of paradise’ in this respect.165 Another prisoner who shared these sentiments was a soldier of the 38th Regiment who had been wrestling with conviction and with his own ‘Sinfull Carrear’ for some years past. Wounded at the battle of Salamanca in 1812 and subsequently captured by the French, he ended up in the depot at Givet, a circumstance which, in his own words [G]ladened My heart . . . dureing the time that I stayed in that prison I Can Say that up to that period of my Life I had Never enjoied So mutch Real happiness . . . for I Had to Lament Before of being deprived of those Means that the people of God delight To be found in But hear we where favoured Behond the Comanality of Mankind.166 This soldier’s experience was evidently not unique, and the experiences of others like him were apparently well known in Britain. As we have already seen, Captain John Gordon of the 2nd Regiment was affected by the experiences of two British soldiers taken prisoner at Talavera, experiences which were recounted at a missionary meeting at Cambridge. In fact, in the light of what was known to be happening among British prisoners in France, it was probably no accident that, from 1810 onwards, French prisoners of war in British hulks were themselves targeted for evangelisation by enterprising Methodist missionaries.167 Clearly, the growth of evangelical religion in the army during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was also a function of Nonconformist expansion at home. Joseph Mayett noted the existence of a religious society (scornfully dubbed ‘the soapy set’) in the Buckinghamshire Militia in 1806, a society which consisted of men of Baptist and Methodist principles and which forged close links with various Nonconformist congregations as the regiment moved around the country.168 As in previous generations, concentrations of soldiers also acted as magnets for civilian preachers. In 1814, and while he was stationed at Portsea barracks, Mayett noted that local Independents were sending their preachers into the barrack rooms where they were apparently well received.169 A further illustration of how military deployments could facilitate the spread of evangelical Nonconformity can be seen in the career of John Stevenson, who claimed that Methodism ‘was established in many towns by means of pious soldiers’ and who maintained that he and some fellow guardsmen had formed the first Wesleyan class meeting in Chelmsford.170 As in the previous century, Methodism was particularly strong in the army’s Irish garrisons. The Irish artilleryman, James Field, was converted under Methodist preaching in Dungannon, where he had been posted in 1796.171 Similarly, George Billanie recalled that the first religious

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society in the Gordon Highlanders was founded in 1799 at the suggestion of a Methodist preacher in Athlone.172 Nevertheless, the religious societies of the Napoleonic period remained fragile entities and their fortunes fluctuated with the cooling of early enthusiasm, with the upheavals attendant on active service and with the outbreak of internal disputes. George Billanie remembered that, by the time the Gordon Highlanders left Ireland in 1799, the members of the regiment’s new religious society were already becoming slack in their observances and that during the subsequent campaign in Holland the society failed to meet at all.173 As Joseph Mayett remembered, the unity of the religious society in the Buckinghamshire militia was fractured when the regiment was stationed in Exeter (which was then home to rival Methodist and Baptist meetings) and it collapsed entirely after a series of scandals, discharges and desertions.174 Indeed, a significant theme in many of the memoirs of evangelical soldiers is their failure to persevere once convicted of sin, their final conversion coming only after their return to civilian life. This was true of George Billanie, Joseph Mayett, William Surtees, William Green and also of the anonymous prisoner of war of the 38th Regiment. As their memoirs show, the depths of despair to which the unconverted sinner could sink were often extreme and they could even lead to the kind of excess described by Joseph Donaldson of the 94th Regiment, who claimed to know one Methodist soldier who was so troubled by a besetting sin of anger that he hacked off his own hand in accordance with scriptural injunction.175 In other words, it would appear that military life often helped to facilitate conviction of sin while failing to provide a stable enough environment in which this conviction could progress to genuine conversion of life. With these considerations in mind, George Billanie counselled other soldiers in 1820, ‘Do not take up religion by fits and starts. Those who do so shew that they have not yet understood what it is’.176 The army’s redeployments and numerous overseas campaigns meant that Methodism also followed the army abroad. As early as the Duke of York’s expedition to Holland in 1793–5, Methodist soldiers were holding prayer meetings on campaign.177 During subsequent campaigns in northern Europe, Methodist soldiers developed close links with native Protestants, very much as their predecessors had done in the days of John Haime and Sampson Staniforth. In 1805, and during a fruitless expedition to north Germany, local Lutherans lent rooms in Bremen to John Stevenson for his society meetings, gatherings which some of them also chose to attend.178 Stevenson was shown similar kindness by Dutch Calvinists during the liberation of the Low Countries in 1813–14. Here, Stevenson’s meetings were not only frequented by Dutch civilians but Stevenson attended Dutch Reformed services and was given the use of church vestries in which to preach.179 This kind of ecumenical

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encounter with foreign Protestants led Stevenson to observe: ‘Thus I saw that the people of God were of one soul; though belonging to different nations and speaking different languages, they all love alike’.180 Methodist soldiers also played a prominent role in planting Methodism in Britain’s new overseas possessions. In the Mediterranean, a soldiers’ society was active in Malta by 1815, the soldiers meeting three times a week for public worship in a hired room under the direction of an officer. At the same time, similar societies appear to have been active in the islands of Corfu, Cephalonia and Zante.181 In the southern hemisphere, Methodist soldiers played an important part in the establishment of Methodism in New South Wales and in Tasmania.182 In South Africa, however, the establishment of a Methodist presence was much less dependent on collaboration with sympathetic Anglophone colonists. In the expedition which seized Cape Colony from the Dutch in 1806 were the 93rd Highlanders (who were mainly Presbyterians) and a number of soldiers who had become Methodists in Ireland. After the capture of Cape Town, men of the 24th, 72nd and 93rd Regiments, together with some men of the 21st Light Dragoons, formed their own religious society. Despite the subsequent departure of some men of the 93rd on doctrinal grounds, by September 1807 there was a fully- fledged Wesleyan society in the garrison, a society which was holding love-feasts, class meetings and watch-night services and which only felt the lack of suitable religious literature, specifically Bibles, hymn books and the works of John Wesley.183 By November 1812 (and quite apart from the thriving Presbyterian church maintained by the 93rd) the Wesleyan society was more than 150 strong and was served by no fewer than eight soldier-preachers.184 Army Methodism also flourished in the Iberian Peninsula, notwithstanding (and perhaps even because of) the complete lack of a sympathetic Protestant population. James Field held prayer meetings during Sir John Moore’s illfated campaign in northern Spain in 1808185 and Methodist religious life was revived in Wellington’s army during the winter of 1809–10.186 In May 1810, Sergeant Edward Reynolds of the 74th Regiment wrote from Portugal to The Methodist Magazine reporting how ‘the Lord is with us in a very peculiar manner’. According to Reynolds, there were ‘from ten to twelve religious societies’ among Wellington’s troops and it was gratifying ‘to see a number of soldiers assembled in quarries, fields, groves, on the banks of rivers, or in old buildings, for the purpose of worshipping Jehovah’.187 During the subsequent winter spent behind the Lines of Torres Vedras outside Lisbon, the army’s Methodists continued to be active. A makeshift Methodist ‘chapel’ was established in a wine press near the village of Cartaxo, a chapel which was usually ‘crammed with non-commissioned officers, drummers and soldiers’.188 According to Reynolds, who wrote once more to The Methodist

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Magazine in February 1811, there ‘The wicked are reclaimed, the guilty pardoned, backsliders are restored, the ignorant are instructed, the wavering are established [and] the timid encouraged’.189 However, the experience of these Peninsular societies once again underlined the fragility of soldiers’ societies when exposed to the stresses of campaigning. John Stevenson noted that, among the Methodists of the 3rd Foot Guards, ‘meetings for mutual edification and prayer were discontinued’ during the Talavera campaign of 1809, ‘our religious intercourse with each other being restricted by our circumstances to a few words of enquiry, exhortation, or comfort, when we happened to meet one another’.190 Likewise, Reynolds conceded that, during the Busaco campaign of 1810, religious routines were drastically curtailed (‘we held our meetings as often as we found it prudent and practicable’, he wrote).191 Notwithstanding a certain conviction that God would spare his faithful soldiers, the baneful effects which a major battle could have on a Methodist society was reflected in a letter written by Patrick Burke to The Methodist Magazine in June 1813. In the aftermath of the battle of Vittoria, Burke reported that the battle not only spelt the end of Napoleon’s designs for Spain but also that of the Methodist society in his own regiment. According to Burke, the ‘spiritual state’ of the society had been low prior to Vittoria but its extinction seemed assured by the death in action of its lynchpin, James Graham, who was not only regarded as a ‘good soldier’ by his officers but was ‘reverenced by all well-disposed persons, and feared by others’.192 The success of Methodism within the army did not go unremarked or unopposed by its commanders and regimental officers. Wellington was profoundly conservative by instinct and was always anxious to safeguard the discipline of his troops. Although a Wesley by birth (adopting the name Wellesley only in 1798), Wellington was very far from being a Wesleyan in sympathy and his attitude towards Methodism was comparable to his attitude towards Orange lodges, anti-reform clubs and any novel organisation which seemed to provide an alternative focus for his soldiers’ loyalties.193 Wellington’s views on Methodism were set down in a dispatch written from Cartaxo to the Adjutant-General, Sir Harry Calvert, in February 1811, Wellington reporting that ‘Methodism is spreading very fast in the army’ and noting that there were ‘two, if not three, Methodist meetings’ in Cartaxo alone. Evidently well informed, Wellington remarked that Methodist meetings for the Guards were addressed by a sergeant named ‘Stephens’, a fairly clear reference to John Stevenson of the 3rd Foot Guards. Furthermore, he noted that two officers of the 9th Regiment were conspicuous attenders at other Methodist gatherings. Conceding that ‘The meeting of soldiers in their cantonments to sing psalms, or hear a sermon read by one of their comrades, is, in the abstract, perfectly innocent; and it is a better way of spending their

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time than many others to which they are addicted’, Wellington was nevertheless concerned that this might ‘become otherwise’. In view of the delicacy of the position, Wellington was convinced that the only solution to the problem lay in the appointment of a ‘respectable clergyman’ to the army, one who ‘would moderate the zeal and enthusiasm of these gentlemen, and would prevent their meetings from becoming mischievous, if he did not prevail upon them to discontinue them entirely’.194 Wellington’s circumspect approach does in fact appear to have been adopted by serving chaplains. John Stevenson remembered acting as clerk for the Revd Samuel Briscall at parade services for the First Division and he appears to have misconstrued the policy of containment which this represented for one of official protection, Stevenson describing Briscall as an ‘excellent clergyman’ and claiming that Wellington ‘would not suffer us to be disturbed or interrupted’.195 Significantly, Stevenson encountered another chaplain, Morris James, in Antwerp in 1814, a clergyman who encouraged him to sing at his morning services and who administered Holy Communion to Stevenson and his fellow Methodists. Nevertheless, James did attempt to dissuade Stevenson from preaching, telling him that he did not like Stevenson ‘getting up those little conventicles’.196 Commanding officers who shared Wellington’s views (though not his circumspection) were clearly in a position to make life difficult for Methodist soldiers. In 1797, for example, the Marquis of Huntly banned soldiers of the Gordon Highlanders from attending Methodist society meetings at Gibraltar. However, and as George Billanie recalled, the attempt proved short-lived and ineffectual.197 Nevertheless, the early 1800s were troubled times for Methodism on the Rock. Against a background of recent unrest in the garrison, a garrison chaplain and the lieutenant-colonel of the 2nd Regiment mounted a sustained campaign against its Methodist society, a campaign which involved a temporary ban on soldiers attending Methodist meetings and which resulted in five court martials and two floggings.198 Similarly, the Methodist society at Cape Town suffered some unwelcome attention in 1808, when a soldier-preacher named George Middlemiss of the 72nd Regiment was placed under arrest at a Methodist meeting on Christmas Day.199 However, and despite these incidents, there is no evidence to suggest a widespread or coordinated anti-Methodist campaign in the army at this time. Clearly, and as in civilian society,200 some in the military establishment identified Nonconformity with political subversion and it is probably no accident that fears were at their worst in isolated but strategically important garrisons such as Gibraltar and the Cape. However, and notwithstanding these fears, the most dangerous situation a Methodist soldier appears to have got into was when an Irish militiaman named James Rutledge was accused of being in league with the United Irishmen

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in 1798 because of his habit of withdrawing from camp in order to pray.201 However, and as Wellington apprehended, an all-out campaign against the army’s Methodists was a pointless exercise, given the absence of serious trouble from this quarter. Hence, many unsympathetic regimental officers seem to have resorted to nothing worse than bullying tirades. On Christmas Day 1797, James Field was berated by an officer in Dublin for being a ‘swaddler’, the officer pronouncing that he would soon ‘swaddle’ the bombardier’s knot off Field’s shoulder.202 Although nothing came of this threat, some years later in the Peninsula a volatile officer of the 73rd Regiment exploded when he found a pious soldier of his company in possession of a Bible. As Thomas Morris recalled, the soldier was ordered to burn the offending article and was rebuked with the words, ‘D[am]n you, Sir, I’ll let you know that your firelock is your Bible, and I am your G[od] a[lmighty]!’203 If Wesleyan Methodism maintained its historic links with the army during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Baptists also developed closer links with the army at this time, not least through their missionary work at home and abroad. A leading pioneer of Baptist work among soldiers was the Revd George Smith of Penzance, who is credited with having worked among British soldiers in Spain during the latter stages of the Peninsular War.204 In 1820, Smith published The Christian Soldier. Good News From Calcutta and St. Helena, an account of soldiers’ revivals in these stations as reported to him by a fellow Cornishman who was then acting as a soldier-preacher with the 66th Regiment on St Helena.205 At the same time, Smith lent his support to a scheme for ‘a Friendly Society and Bethel Union for the purpose of promoting Religion and Morality among Soldiers’.206 In 1830, he went on to establish a soldiers’ chapel in Westminster.207 From 1838, Baptist interest in the evangelisation of soldiers at home was exemplified by Baptist support for the SFASRS. In addition to George Smith, William Innes also took a keen interest in Baptist work among soldiers. Earlier in his career, Innes had been the Church of Scotland’s chaplain at Stirling Castle, an experience which endowed him with ‘a love for soldiers, and an interest in their spiritual welfare which was strong in him to the end of his life’.208 In 1835, Innes published The Church in the Army, in which he recounted various ‘TRIUMPHS OF DIVINE GRACE IN THE BRITISH ARMY’. One of the aims of this book was to illustrate that: Many cases, have of late years occurred, in which those who remained indifferent to every thing like religious principle while at home, and in the richest profusion of the means of grace, have been awakened in a foreign land to serious reflection, and led to the only refuge of the guilty.

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Significantly, Innes claimed that this was particularly true of British soldiers in India, where he maintained that there were ‘few regiments . . . in which there is not a greater or less number of devoted Christians, many of whom were first led to embrace the Gospel in that land of heathen darkness’.209 Quite apart from the European regiments formed and maintained by the EIC, British expansion in India saw a manifold increase in the number of Crown regiments in the subcontinent, a number which grew from one in 1756 to more than twenty, ninety years later.210 On the eve of the Indian Mutiny, there were as many as 45,000 European troops serving in India.211 The importance of India in the life and history of the British army in the nineteenth century has been vividly summarised by Correlli Barnett: By 1850 India had become the greatest formative influence on the life, language and legend of the British army, for most British soldiers could expect to serve there, and for a long time. India, with its heat, stinks and noise, its enveloping dust, its glamour and poverty, became the British army’s second home – perhaps its first.212 Despite the importance of India in defining so much of the life and culture of the British army in the nineteenth century, the religious revivals which marked the history of the British army’s presence in India before the Mutiny are virtually unknown. Indeed, Henry Conran mourned the obscurity of India’s Christian soldiers even in his own day, lamenting that: [The] People of England little know the precious lives that have been spent in rearing their Indian empire. These godly soldiers have, in many a dark remote corner of that idolatrous land, erected a monument that, like the beacon amidst the roaring waves, stands conspicuous through all the vices and ungodliness of our countrymen; and, from the jungles of Burmah to the snows of Cabul, the bones lie bleaching of those ‘of whom the world was not worthy.’213 The dynamics of these Indian revivals were essentially similar to the dynamics which produced military revivals elsewhere. First, thousands of soldiers who served in India during this period would have had some exposure to religious influences earlier in life, either through home or through the Sunday school. On the basis of his own experiences in India, Quarter Master Sergeant Alfred Laverack of the 98th Regiment argued that ‘Soldiers are not “heaven’s outlaws” and “hell’s agents”, but the objects of Christian

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love, and many of them the sons of noble-hearted Christian mothers, who in their earliest days taught them to lisp the name of Jesus’.214 Laverack (who was converted while stationed in Calcutta in 1854) was one of their number, hailing from a distinguished family of Yorkshire Wesleyans.215 Second, the state of military chaplaincy in pre-Mutiny India was often deplorable. Unlike the situation elsewhere in the empire, the spiritual care of British soldiers in India was the responsibility of the EIC rather than of the Army Chaplains’ Department. Although the number of EIC chaplains grew from six in 1771 to 135 in 1857, India’s vast size, its unhealthy climate and its numerous and scattered military cantonments meant that the Company could not ensure the presence of a chaplain in every garrison, notwithstanding a tightening of its regulations prior to the Mutiny.216 If there were Company chaplains who worked tirelessly in their cantonments (one veteran of the 11th Dragoons claimed that there was not a single man in the European garrison ‘who would not have laid down his life for the Rev. Mr. Fisher’ of Meerut)217 the inadequacies of the Company’s chaplaincy system proved controversial up until the Mutiny itself. In the 1840s, John MacMullen wrote that: While the 13th [Regiment] remained at Sukkur, there was no Christian minister of any denomination there to soothe the soldier in his last hour; to teach him to die as one not without hope, and refrain from the horrid blasphemies which so often mingled with his parting cries of agony . . . Sukkur, it was long objected, was an unhealthy station, and not a fitting residence for a clergyman, although he would there have a congregation of 1,200 nominal Christians.218 Third, conditions of service in India rendered soldiers highly susceptible to evangelical religion. Owing to the unbearable heat of the Indian plains, soldiers commonly found themselves indoors from dawn till dusk. The ruinous potential of this enforced idleness was compounded by the relative value of a soldier’s pay in the subcontinent. Although Linda Colley has endeavoured to compare the lot of British soldiers in India to that of African slaves,219 they were in fact part of a privileged European elite, with even a private’s pay being sufficient to employ native servants to wash his clothes and clean his kit.220 The condition of the British soldier in India certainly caused concern for the moralist and the evangelist, for the devil was indeed active in making work for idle hands. In the cantonments of India licit recreations were few, liquor was cheap and climate and disease conspired to do the rest. EIC statistics for the period 1825–44 show that, in the presidency of Bengal, as many as 12.5 per cent of its European soldiers could die each year, with a further

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3.5 per cent being discharged due to ill health.221 Given the extent and potentially deadly effects of alcohol abuse and sexual promiscuity, these levels of sickness had a strong moral significance. As Henry Conran observed, dissipation in India ‘soon terminates in death’222 and the awful truth of this axiom was brought home to John MacMullen of the 13th Regiment in the 1840s: Death, madness, premature debility, and complete disorganisation of the human system, all follow in the wake of the drunkard . . . During the ten months the 13th lay at Sukkur, upwards of fifty men died . . . Twenty-five, if not more, of these, lost their lives through excessive drinking. Some died from [sunstroke] caught when drunk, others from apoplexy, produced by liquor, and a part from acute dysentery, resulting from the same cause. And this is generally the case in every corps in India.223 In view of earlier religious influences, the absence of chaplains and the dangers posed by their own living conditions, it is hardly surprising that evangelical religion (with its lay ethos, its promise of personal salvation and its strict but potentially life-saving morality) should have appealed to many British soldiers in India. John MacMullen was deeply convinced of the important role which religion had to play in improving the lot of the soldier in the subcontinent, particularly with regard to his drinking habits: In India, where the hydra-headed evil is most prevalent, and local stimulants to drunkenness more numerous and powerful than probably in any other part of the British world, the propensity to intemperance can only be counteracted by the influence of religion, morality, or ambition. The British army presents a wide field for the labour of the Christian philanthropist. Charity, saith the adage, begins at home; and missionaries would be fully as well employed in converting the soldier, his own countryman, as in endeavouring to convert the Hindoos.224 In actual fact, from the earliest years of the nineteenth century, British missionaries to India had been doing precisely that. Work among soldiers bridged both the home and foreign missionary fields for not only were soldiers counted among the most godless sections of British society but their presence and behaviour among non-Christian peoples was seen as having a vital bearing on the success (or failure) of overseas missions.225 As Linda Colley has pointed out, by 1830 soldiers comprised around ‘90 per cent of all British males resident in India’.226 In the light of such realities, the moral and religious condition

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of British soldiers was a source of great concern for overseas missionaries and their supporters throughout the nineteenth century. As Bishop Bickersteth of Ripon put it in 1866: The British soldier goes into every quarter of the earth; there is hardly a country on the face of the globe to which he has not to travel, and wherever he goes it is as a representative of the British army, and in some measure as a representative of England’s Christianity. What must be the conclusion drawn by nations among whom he is stationed that have not the light of God’s truth if the witness presented by his life is unfavourable to Christianity? If the example which he exhibits is one of profligacy and dissipation, can those who witness it draw any other inference than one which is unfavourable to our national Christianity?227 With these considerations in view, from the early years of the century evangelical Company chaplains had worked hard to effect the moral and spiritual regeneration of European garrisons. While chaplain at Chunar (1807–1810) and Cawnpore (1810–12), Daniel Corrie laboured among military invalids and among soldiers of the 53rd Regiment, the 8th Light Dragoons and the Bengal Artillery, making converts of officers and men alike and establishing religious societies for their support.228 The same strategy was also adopted, albeit with less success, by Henry Martyn at Dinapore between 1806 and 1809.229 Despite these Anglican efforts, the principal instigators of religious revivals among British soldiers in pre-Mutiny India appear to have been missionaries of the Baptist Missionary Society. The BMS was particularly strong in northern India and its base at Serampore lay close to Calcutta, the location of the key garrison at Fort William and the seat of British rule in the subcontinent. Baptist influence over the army in India was already well established by 1813, when the renewal of the Company’s charter allowed Protestant missionaries greater freedom in their work. As early as 1801, and by virtue of his appointment as teacher of Bengali at Fort William College, William Carey was in contact with army officers as a matter of routine.230 Indeed, even before his appointment sympathetic officers were slipping into Danish Serampore in order to spend the Sabbath with Carey and his associates. If links with British officers were cultivated from an early stage, the same was also true of Baptist connections with the rank and file. By 1808, the Baptist missionary, John Chamberlain, was preaching to British soldiers at Berhampore, a hundred miles north of Calcutta, and, by the end of 1809, he had baptised thirty-six men of its European garrison.231 Five years later, Berhampore was home to

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a number of Christian soldiers from a different unit, the 14th Regiment, which had its own church numbering more than thirty members. These soldiers had acquired their own place of worship and, while it was undergoing repairs, ‘they met every night in the open air, in front of the lines, the soldiers holding candles in their hands, and during the time of prayer sticking them in the sand at their feet’. At this time, the principal influence upon these soldiers was a civilian named Gardener, who was reputed to be ‘a zealous preacher to the soldiers’.232 Nevertheless, Calcutta remained the principal focus of Baptist influence upon the military – not least because of its proximity to Serampore. If the example of William Carey’s nephew, Eustace Carey, was at all typical of Baptist missionary strategy in Calcutta at this time, preaching to the soldiers at Fort William appears to have been regarded not only as a necessary concomitant of wider missionary work but also as a useful exercise for newlyarrived missionaries who were not yet fluent in ‘the Bengalee’.233 This early work among soldiers in and around Calcutta appears to have met with considerable success. In January 1815, a soldiers’ church was established in the 24th Regiment at Fort William. Significantly, this regiment had provided members for the Wesleyan soldiers’ society at the Cape some years earlier and it is possible that in this instance the Baptist missionaries were building on an existing foundation.234 Thereafter, Eustace Carey and John Lawson preached at Fort William twice a day, while the baptised and awakened soldiers of the 24th gathered four times each Sunday for worship in the chapel before adjourning for an evening service in their own barracks, a service which was also part of their daily routine during the week. Carey and Lawson estimated that, within the space of a few months, more than 200 soldiers of the 24th Regiment were meeting for this purpose, their worship being led by ‘a soldier pastor’ named Gibson.235 By the end of 1816, further churches had been created in the 59th and 72nd regiments, the 24th having moved up country to Dinapore, where its religious soldiers were instrumental in forming yet another soldiers’ church in the 66th Regiment.236 So important did the Baptist missionaries at Serampore deem the work among soldiers to be that they helped to purchase the discharge of William Symes of the Bengal Artillery, a soldier who had shown great promise while preaching at his regiment’s depot at Dum-Dum. Indeed, Symes’ discharge was secured at the instigation of ‘some influential parties amongst the warrant and non-commissioned officers’, who believed that Symes could perform a useful task in being ‘set apart for preaching to the soldiers’.237 Henry Conran, who was converted at Dum-Dum in the late 1830s,238 described the nature and significance of Symes’ work in the following terms:

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Here it was that Symes commenced his career as an evangelist to the artillery. Many, doubtless, were thus prepared for the early deaths awaiting them in that uncongenial clime, where in the sickly season, fever, dysentery, and cholera would sometimes sweep them off in numbers daily. [At Dum-Dum, Symes] gathered a church of the ‘dispersion,’ which as men were drafted into the upper provinces [they] carried a germ of piety throughout the land, and a harvest of souls was almost perennially reaped in the successive arrivals and departures from the station, so that the whole artillery regiment may be said to have come under Symes’ influence and heard the word of the Lord Jesus.239 Such was his success at Dum-Dum that, when elements of the Bengal Artillery were posted to Cawnpore in the 1840s, its awakened soldiers requested that Symes should accompany them. For a time at least, Symes’ ministry among the civil and military population of Cawnpore appears to have prospered, with several officers submitting to public baptism in the Ganges.240 One of the most obvious corollaries of Baptist influence over the army in India was the rapid growth of Baptist temperance work, an enterprise which inspired The Soldier’s Magazine and Military Chronicle which commenced publication in 1828.241 Eight years later, Henry Havelock, who was by then adjutant of the 13th Regiment, formed a pioneering regimental temperance association at Karnal. Its work at this station was assisted by the establishment of a regimental coffee room, the first to be set up in any Indian cantonment.242 Within a few months, Havelock’s association numbered 274 members and its success led him to encourage other adjutants to create similar organisations across India.243 In the space of two years, around thirty were in existence.244 Havelock’s zeal for the temperance cause remained undimmed for the rest of his life and he even ascribed the capture of the supposedly impregnable Afghan fortress at Ghuznee in 1839 to the fact that the besiegers had run out of alcohol.245 Havelock’s desire to curtail the malign influence of drink was forcefully demonstrated following the recapture of Cawnpore in July 1857, when he ordered the confiscation of all alcohol in the city. His rationale was that ‘If it remained in Cawnpore it would require half my force to keep it from being drunk by the other half, and I should scarcely have a sober soldier in the camp’.246 The chaplain to Havelock’s column during the ensuing Lucknow campaign was the Revd John Gelson Gregson, a Baptist missionary from Benares who assumed Havelock’s mantle and went on to found the STAA in 1862.247 Despite the degree of Baptist influence upon the army in pre-Mutiny India, soldiers’ churches established under Baptist patronage were frequently pan-

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denominational rather than specifically Baptist in outlook. This phenomenon was at odds with developments in England during the 1830s and 1840s where, as W.R. Ward has argued, the ‘popular undenominational evangelicalism’ of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries was giving way to a new denominational consciousness.248 However, this pan-denominational ethos had clear advantages in the very different context of India, where the prevalence of more profound differences helped to maintain a stronger sense of evangelical solidarity, particularly among Nonconformists who lacked the support of the EIC. Significantly, the chapel erected by Symes and his Baptist congregation at Cawnpore in the 1840s was made available ‘for any orthodox ministrations’ and John Gelson Gregson extolled the pan-denominational principle throughout his life.249 This spirit was not just the preserve of Baptists, however, for when a Wesleyan chapel was opened by a Wesleyan sergeant in newly annexed Sind in 1845, the congregation lacked a Wesleyan minister and, even in 1856, had only one Wesleyan soldier.250 In terms of their mobility, their leadership and their fragility, soldiers’ churches in pre-Mutiny India were comparable to those Methodist societies which emerged in the Peninsula and elsewhere. At the time of the Indian Mutiny, Conran emphasised the positive aspects of the itinerant nature of these churches, asserting that ‘Many a poor Christian . . . “panting like the hart for the water brooks”, is refreshed by the meeting of a regiment with its migratory church, as it marches about the country from one station to another’.251 However, given their lack of supervision, soldiers’ churches were highly vulnerable to internal disputes. Part of Colonel Wheler’s advice to the church of the 24th Regiment in 1848 reminded them that ‘Union . . . is strength; therefore I exhort you to be careful in love, and eschew everything likely to injure you in this respect’.252 The wisdom of such advice is reflected in the fact that Daniel Corrie could detect fractious tendencies at work even among his own society at Chunar in 1810: Here, at Chunar we have the most unaccountable doings among the invalids . . . Some of them make a show of constant attendance on public worship; and one or two used to read the service of the church when I could not attend. Now, the others are tired of attending to these; and they bid fair to be all preachers and no hearers. You will conclude it is the least worthy that are most forward; and, if they were not playing with awful weapons, I could laugh heartily at their folly.253 A major battle could also have grave consequences. Certainly, Wheler’s friends in the 24th Regiment could not have benefited from its experiences

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at the battle of Chillianwallah in January 1849, where the regiment lost nearly half its officers and men.254 Furthermore, because of the high mortality rates which were characteristic of garrison life in India, church members were routinely carried off by debility and disease.255 Finally, restrictions on soldiers’ marriage meant that these churches were lacking in that family base which allowed congregations to endure and prosper in civilian life.256 Although former members of these churches could eventually make their way home (in 1832 the Baptist church at Cranfield received a new member ‘by a dismission from the Baptist Church of the 17th Regiment . . . at Fort William in Calcutta’ dated 1822)257 the most durable legacy of these soldiers’ churches in India were the chapels which they built in their cantonments. As Conran wrote in the 1850s, ‘In every military station of European troops . . . a soldiers’ chapel, raised by their own hands, is found; and here daily worship (so essential to those destitute of all retirement) is held by that little band of godly men’.258 In fact, this practice was dictated as much by EIC policy towards Dissenters as it was by the uncongenial environment of the barrack room. As Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta reminded Company chaplains, Anglican churches and chapels maintained by the Company were ‘never to be used for any Divine Services or Prayers by lay, irregular, or unordained persons’.259 In the early years of the nineteenth century, such was the antipathy harboured by many officers and chaplains towards Dissenters that Baptist missionaries were often forbidden from preaching in cantonments and Baptist soldiers could even be banned from meeting for worship.260 At Berhampore, the redoubtable Baptist missionary, John Chamberlain, clashed openly with the Company chaplain, a quarrel which resulted in a local ban on ‘Anabaptist Societies’. At Agra some years later, another of Chamberlain’s quarrels (this time with the garrison’s commanding officer) led to his arrest and deportation to Calcutta.261 In 1815, Chamberlain complained that even evangelical chaplains were unsympathetic to Baptist activities, alleging that Daniel Corrie (whom he had recently encountered in Delhi) opposed Baptist missionaries on the grounds that they proselytised among Anglican soldiers and that they were ‘democrats, demagogues & enemies to the state!!’262 This hostility towards Dissenters lingered for many years. In the 1840s, William Symes was initially refused permission to build a chapel at Cawnpore because ‘the general commanding the station . . . with all the prejudices of the old school, declared that as long as he lived no conventicle should disgrace the cantonment!’263 Similarly, in 1854, a bid was made by the commanding officer at Dum-Dum to reclaim the land upon which its soldiers’ chapel was built, an attempt which was only thwarted by an appeal to higher authority.264 Nor was hostility to these chapels confined to the ecclesiastical and military authorities. John Pearman of the 3rd Light Dragoons (who prided

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himself on having done his duty to God ‘without any show of religion’)265 remembered how a newly erected chapel at Ambala was blown up by persons unknown in the late 1840s. Whoever the saboteurs were, their animosity may well have been stirred by perceptions similar to Pearman’s own, Pearman observing that: ‘these men called “Blue Lights” were some of the worst men in the regiment. They had made away with their all for drink, and would then turn “Blue Lights”, a term for men of this stamp. The natives said the “Blue Lights” were Mud Wallah Caste, drinking religion’.266 As the incident at Ambala serves to illustrate, it should not be assumed that evangelical religion appealed to all of the army’s rank and file or that conversion was an inevitable corollary of the soldier’s experience of service in the tropics. Despite the success that Wesleyan missionaries were then enjoying among British troops in Ceylon,267 George Calladine recalled how he and other members of his company’s choir remained wholly unmoved by a chaplain’s incessant exhortations at their weekly rehearsals in 1818.268 Despite the broad appeal and currency of evangelical Protestantism, the largest religious subculture in the British army throughout the nineteenth century was not evangelical Protestantism but Roman Catholicism. Although Scottish Catholics were present in significant numbers in some Highland regiments, the strength of Roman Catholicism in the army during this period was principally a function of heavy recruitment in Ireland. The qualities of Irish Catholic soldiers at this time have been much debated. Correlli Barnett has argued that ‘Although the Irish were hardy and brave, they were also ignorant, mad for drink, violent, and without self-discipline’.269 Furthermore, and despite the manifest loyalty of the vast majority, fears as to their political reliability were prone to resurface throughout the nineteenth century. Quite apart from the uncomfortable legacy of the ‘Wild Geese’, suspicions of radical disaffection among the largely Catholic Irish militia in the 1790s (and the performance of some of its units during the 1798 rebellion) helped to ensure the eventual transfer of many of its regiments to the mainland.270 The existence of a so-called ‘Irish Legion’ in Napoleon’s Grande Armée (a unit which recruited with some success among British prisoners of war) stood as a further reminder of the potential unreliability of Irish Catholics, notwithstanding the fact that it drew its inspiration from the distinctly secular Society of United Irishmen.271 Given the agitated state of Ireland in the 1820s, fears of the political unreliability of Irish Catholic soldiers once again assumed worrying proportions. In 1830, the men of the overwhelmingly Catholic 87th Regiment caused considerable alarm to the authorities in Dublin and in London by brawling with local Orangemen in Armagh and for refusing to march to a Catholic chapel in Newry without the accompaniment of their fifes and drums.272 In

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the 1840s, O’Connell’s campaign for the repeal of the Union rekindled government anxiety as to the ultimate loyalties of Irish Catholic soldiers in Ireland.273 Even in India, the mid-nineteenth century saw apprehension being voiced as to the political influence wielded by radical Irish priests. In October 1849 it was noted that one malignant clergyman had addressed soldiers of the 70th Regiment with the intention of fomenting ‘feelings of disaffection towards the government’. Ironically, the Irish clergy who had passed through the government-sponsored seminary at Maynooth were viewed with particular suspicion and one senior officer described some of the Catholic chaplains in the subcontinent as ‘downright rebels [who] do their utmost to foment discontent amongst our Romanist troops’.274 However, the greatest scare of the nineteenth century came with the rise of Fenianism in the mid-1860s, when a systematic campaign of infiltration and recruitment by Fenian activists may have seen several thousand Irish Catholic soldiers join the Brotherhood.275 Whole regiments could fall under suspicion as hotbeds of Fenianism and it seems possible that the 73rd Regiment was virtually banished to the Far East in 1867 for this very reason.276 Even after the Fenian threat receded, fears of disloyalty lingered on. In the 1880s (and in pursuance of existing practice) Queen’s Regulations were amended in order to permit officers to withdraw their men from religious services in which ‘seditious or inflammatory language’ was used and commanding officers were empowered to prevent their men from attending places of worship where such sentiments were likely to be aired.277 Clearly, this measure arose out of renewed fears that Catholic pulpits were being used as platforms for radical Nationalism and fears of sedition from this quarter formed the background for Kipling’s story, The Mutiny of the Mavericks (1891), where such qualms were shown to be groundless in the context of the Indian subcontinent.278 Nevertheless, and as late as July 1914, the 1st Irish Guards committed a very public breach of discipline by cheering John Redmond and John Dillon of the Irish Parliamentary Party after emerging from crisis talks at Buckingham Palace on the Home Rule question.279 Besides the political corollaries of large-scale recruitment among Ireland’s Catholic population, the lifting of recruiting restrictions in Ireland in the 1770s saw an army which had hitherto been forbidden to recruit Roman Catholics rapidly become what was probably the most Catholic institution of the British state. As late as 1868, with its Irish component in sharp decline, Catholics still made up nearly 30 per cent of the army, a proportion which had probably approached 40 per cent in the 1830s.280 Besides their strong presence in Crown regiments, Irish Catholics were also numerous in the European regiments of the East India Company. The Company had a remarkable history of tolerance towards Roman Catholics under its jurisdiction and it freely recruited among

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Irish Catholics from the 1770s.281 Between 1825 and 1850, about half of all European recruits for the EIC’s army were of Irish birth or extraction, the vast majority being Roman Catholics.282 In fact, such were the historic ties between Catholic Ireland and the Company’s European infantry that, after these regiments were transferred into the Queen’s service in the wake of the Indian Mutiny, most of them acquired a southern Irish base as a consequence of Cardwell’s Localization Act.283 The impact which a large injection of Catholic Irishmen had upon the religious life of the British army in the early nineteenth century is difficult to gauge, particularly given the paucity of memoirs left by Irish Catholic soldiers of this period. However, what must be borne in mind is that early nineteenth-century, pre-Famine Irish Catholicism was often very different from the Ultramontane, highly disciplined and highly clericalised Catholicism which triumphed in Ireland under Archbishop Cullen in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Prior to the advent of the Famine and before the arrival of Cullen, regular Massgoing was a minority pursuit in many parts of rural Ireland and particularly so in the west. As Sheridan Gilley has put it, in much of pre-Famine Ireland ‘the practice of the faith was centred not on the scattered priesthood and weekly Mass attendance at a distant chapel, but on family prayer and the local shrine or holy well and the pattern or pilgrimage, in a rural landscape which had not yet lost its sacred character’.284 In view of the contemporary character of much of Irish Catholicism, it is likely that the itinerant nature of life in the regular army and the embodied militia subverted familiar patterns of religious observance for many rural Irish recruits. Nevertheless, in 1793 the freedom to attend Mass was granted to Catholics serving in Ireland.285 This was extended to the army as a whole in May 1806, when the Duke of York gave permission for Catholic soldiers to attend Mass in orders which had to be repeated and clarified over subsequent years. By 1811, Horse Guards had accepted Mass attendance as the alternative form of compulsory worship for Catholic soldiers on the Sabbath, although its orders in this regard could still be flouted by local commanding officers.286 In view of this situation, it seems likely that the experience of regular Mass attendance was, for many Irish Catholics, a consequence of their joining the army. As an Irish sergeant of the 43rd Regiment recalled, while his battalion was stationed at Plymouth in the later years of the Napoleonic Wars, he was tasked with marching its Catholics to Mass on Sundays.287 The presence of large numbers of Catholic soldiers in garrisons across southern England certainly helped to strengthen Catholic congregations in this part of the British Isles. In the years of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Catholicism in Sheerness, Woolwich and Portsmouth flourished as a result of the military presence in these towns.288

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In its largely Irish and often displaced form, the vitality of Catholicism in the army during the early-nineteenth century is not readily apparent. Clearly, given Britain’s long history of anti-Catholicism and the activity of the evangelical ‘Second Reformation’ movement in Ireland, the large proportion of Irish Catholics in the army hardly served as a recommendation in the eyes of many Protestant commentators. Protestant observers were, in fact, disposed to take a disparaging view of the religious commitment of Irish Catholic soldiers, a view which correlated with disdainful (if fanciful) stories of their behaviour in general. In the 1830s, William Grattan, a former officer of the 88th Regiment, was incensed by the charge that men of the Connaught Rangers had sold their cartridges for alcohol in the Peninsula, asserting that: ‘It became . . . a sort of fashion among some idle wits in the army to coin little stories which they imagined to be characteristic of heedless young Irishmen’.289 It was in this waggish vein that Sir Arthur Wellesley wrote from the Peninsula in 1809: [A]ny man may go to mass who chooses, and nobody makes any inquiry about it. The consequence is, that nobody goes to mass, and although we have whole regiments of Irishmen, and of course Roman Catholics, I have not seen one soldier perform any one act of religious worship in these Catholic countries, excepting making the sign of the cross to induce the people of the country to give them wine.290 Similarly, as Chaplain-General, the evangelical John Owen dismissed a claim for payment to a French emigré priest for his ministry to Irish troops at Plymouth in 1812. Although this was partly based on the claimant’s nationality, Owen also declared that ‘The Irish soldiers . . . often make their Religion a pretext for Idleness on the Sunday. Many who claim the right of going to Mass prefer the Alehouse’.291 In the light of such questionable evidence, J.E. Cookson has concluded that nationality rather than religion provided the primary source of identity for the Irish Catholic regular during the Napoleonic Wars: ‘Sent away from Ireland, unprovided with Catholic chaplains, probably unoffended, for the most part, by army Christianity with its emphasis on martial virtues, the Irish troops seem likely to have found less comradeship and esprit de corps in religion than in their Irishness’.292 However, this verdict clearly fails to take into account the peculiar characteristics of contemporary Irish Catholicism. Furthermore, there is strong evidence to show that religion was of great importance for Irish Catholic soldiers in the early decades of the nineteenth century, not least because they were often reminded of its significance by local circumstances and by the

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attitudes of those in authority. Cookson himself has acknowledged that ‘Catholic consciousness in the [Irish] militia went from strength to strength’ during the early 1800s, a product of the sectarian climate in Ireland itself and of the widespread practice of promoting Protestants in preference to Catholics.293 However, even in the regular army, and in a manner reminiscent of the treatment of Methodists, Catholics could be subject to persecution or verbal abuse on account of their religion. In 1795, a trooper of the 14th Light Dragoons was flogged in Dublin for pressing his right to go to Mass.294 Likewise, and notwithstanding the Duke of York’s order of 1806, Charles O’Neil of the 28th Regiment received 300 lashes at Gibraltar in 1811 for refusing to turn out for an Anglican church parade, insisting that he be allowed to hear Mass instead.295 Significantly, when the irascible Thomas Picton assumed command of the Third Division in Portugal in 1810, he made no attempt to disguise his contempt for the Connaught Rangers. As Grattan recalled: The general addressed the brigade in language, not of that bearing which an officer of his rank should do, but turning to the 88th he said, ‘You are not known in the army by the name of “Connaught Rangers”, but by the name of Connaught foot-pads!’ He also made some remarks on their country and their religion.296 Given such incidents, it is not surprising that the Catholic identity of most Irish soldiers was often expressed in strongly sectarian terms. We have already noted how the overtly sectarian stand of the 87th Regiment caused particular alarm in 1830, but an Irish veteran of the 43rd Regiment also admitted that, although he was by no means enthusiastic in his Mass attendance during the Napoleonic Wars, ‘few were louder than myself if challenged on the score of my religion’.297 Besides overt sectarianism, Catholicism also found expression in the celebration of St Patrick’s Day. Although St Patrick’s Day had been observed at Dublin Castle and had been celebrated in the army during the eighteenth century, at a popular level the feast was more closely associated with Irish Catholics than with Irish Protestants.298 In eighteenth-century Ireland, the religious significance of the day was reflected in the wearing of crosses and of shamrock. During the Napoleonic Wars, the shamrock was sported by the Connaught Rangers on St Patrick’s Day,299 but the manner in which Irish Catholic soldiers celebrated the occasion tended to eclipse any manifestation of popular piety. On 18 March 1814, Lieutenant Charles Crowe of the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment wrote from Catalonia:

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Our men, in true Irish spirit have commemorated St. Patrick to excess and committed many misdemeanours. The natives attended our morning’s muster with so many complaints, that the triangle was pitched and a drum’s head court-martial summoned. Two or three offenders were tied up and received their deserts on the spot. Scarcely a man was sober until the exercise of marching brought them to their senses.300 John MacMullen, an Irish Protestant, also provided what was very much an outsider’s view of how St Patrick’s Day was celebrated by the 13th Regiment in India in the 1840s: It might be the witching hour of twelve when I was awaked from a sound sleep I had fallen into despite the attacks of mosquito and sand-fly, by the loud laughing and chattering of some fifty fellows, and the shrill screamings of a fife, on which some biped was assassinating ‘Patrick’s Day’. This was rather an unpleasant mode of serenading, and rendered still more so by the saint’s nocturnal votaries entering our quarters en masse, and turning many of the cots upside down to the no small annoyance of their occupants. When they considered they had done sufficient mischief, they made their exeunt in the same noisy way as their entrance, and we proceeded to fasten the doors to prevent a repetition of the visit.301 As the day wore on, and heavy drinking and faction fights commenced at the regimental canteen, the festivities assumed a character which reminded MacMullen ‘somewhat forcibly of home’: Instead of the combatants shouting for Whitefeet or Blackfeet, Shanavast or Corovat, as would have been the case in the gem of the sea, the animosity on this occasion was among the several detachments joined from time to time, who had got distinguishing appellations; and thus one fellow dared a Cabul man to appear, while others severally challenged Fresh Mutton, Barefooted, Moon Rakers, Half Gallon, or Sand Bank Men to stand forth and do battle with them. One or two, however, of a draft which joined after that I had come with, and who, from being late arrivals, were not as yet properly imbued with esprit-de-corps, were heard to shout for the ‘Repale of the Union and Father Mathew.’ Strange ebullition of national feeling, thousands of miles from home, in a frontier station of British empire in the east!’302

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In whatever way their religious allegiance was expressed, the presence of large numbers of Irish Catholics in the British army during the Peninsular War certainly proved useful in easing the army’s relations with the Spanish and Portuguese. Naturally, these relations were subject to considerable strain, not least given the tensions inherent in coalition warfare and the propensity of British troops to plunder their allies. Moreover, and as a more objective observer noted, the English in particular did not travel well. According to Joseph Moyle Sherer of the 34th Regiment: The English are admired not only in Portugal, but over all Europe, as a free, an enlightened, and a brave people, but they cannot make themselves beloved; they are not content with being great, they must be thought so, and told so. They will not bend with good humour to the customs of over nations, nor will they condescend to soothe (flatter they never do) the harmless self-love of friendly foreigners. No: wherever they march or travel, they bear with them a haughty air of conscious superiority, and expect that their customs, habits, and opinions should supersede, or at least suspend, those of all the countries through which they pass. Among liberal-minded and well-educated Englishmen, there will ever be many bright exceptions to this general picture; and they, perhaps, will be the first to confess, that this portrait of my travelling countrymen has not been too highly coloured.303 Catholic Irish soldiers were no less susceptible to plundering and could be equally condescending in their attitudes. Joseph Donaldson even remembered how one such soldier grabbed the hat of a Portuguese civilian on which to kneel during a religious procession in a Lisbon street.304 However, in view of the fact that Spanish and Portuguese resistance often assumed the character of a Catholic, anti-French crusade and that (for the Spanish at least) the British Peninsular army was that of an old and heretical enemy, the value of the historic Hispano-Irish rapport should not be under-estimated. During the Peninsular War, the Irish religious communities in Portugal and Spain rallied against the French, ministered to Catholic Irish soldiers and proved extremely useful in providing intelligence and liaison facilities for Sir John Moore and the Duke of Wellington.305 In particular, Dr Curtis of the Irish College at Salamanca earned both distinction and respect among Wellington’s officers as ‘a man of much talent & information’.306 Despite these developments, British Protestants were well aware of the mistrust with which they were generally regarded by both the Spanish and the Portuguese. As John Green recalled of Lisbon in 1811:

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While at this place I saw the procession of the Host; the people in all directions took off their hats, but others that were more pious went down on their knees. On one occasion I neglected to take off my cap, which was noticed by one of the peasants, who accosted me with “Ah! bruta! Ah! bruta!” meaning, in English, that I was a brute.307 In fact, Joseph Donaldson recalled of the Portuguese peasantry that ‘so contaminated did they consider us by heresy, that they would not drink out of the same vessel’.308 As for the Spanish, the Revd James Wilmot Ormsby remarked as early as 1809 that their mistrust of the British extended even to officers and gentlemen: So inveterate are they in their religious prejudices, that, in the event of our co-operating with their armies, much inconvenience must arise. It is not the opinion of partial bigotry, but the universal conviction, that the English are not Christians; and when any officer announces himself an Irishman, there is an immediate exclamation of pride and joy, ‘Es Catolico, es Irlandes;’ and he is thenceforward treated with the warmest cordiality of friendship by every member of the family. This distinction has not led to any open acts of animosity; but it unquestionably contributes to the coldness and the distance of their manners, and has a secret and pernicious influence which it will be impossible for us to controul.309 The veracity of Ormsby’s remarks is reflected in the experiences of Private William Wheeler of the 51st Regiment, who wrote from Spain in 1811, ‘It is astonishing how the term “heretic” sticks to the English. No good office can wipe out the foul stain, if you wish to come on terms of friendship you must pass for an Irishman. You then are considered as one of themselves, a good Christian’.310 Spanish attitudes to Protestant soldiers even extended to earnest efforts to convert them. In Spain in October 1812, Lieutenant William Swabey of the Royal Horse Artillery confessed in his diary that he was ‘Tired and disgusted with the priest of my house, who is always attempting to draw me into disputes about religion’.311 This echoed the experience of a soldier of the 71st Regiment who recalled that, while billeted upon a family in Montevideo in 1806, he was repeatedly urged to convert to Catholicism, to which he could only reply ‘“Muchos caminos al cielo” – “Many roads to Heaven”’.312

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In contrast to the cold or condescending treatment which Protestants were liable to receive, Catholic soldiers could be the subjects of remarkable solicitude throughout Spain and the Spanish empire. As a Catholic, Captain Peter Jennings of the 40th Regiment received Holy Communion and numerous material favours at the hands of a local Franciscan during the British occupation of Montevideo in 1807.313 Similarly, and as our veteran of the 71st recalled, a friend named Donald McDonald had been ‘quite at home all the time we had been in South America. He was a good Catholic, and much caressed by the Spaniards. He attended mass regularly, bowed to all processions, and was in their eyes everything a good Catholic ought to be’. After their surrender during General Whitelocke’s disastrous attack on Buenos Aires in July 1807, McDonald was almost persuaded to remain in South America under the protection of a local priest.314 During the Peninsular War, similar solicitude often characterised Irish relations with the local population. Grattan recalled that a senior cleric in Lisbon had a particular fondness for the Connaught Rangers and even ‘called the 88th his own regiment, because when that corps landed in Lisbon it was quartered in the convent of which [he] was the head’.315 Occasionally, however, this rapport could have more awkward consequences, a minor crisis in inter-allied relations being provoked when an Irish Catholic officer of the 40th Regiment eloped with the daughter of a Portuguese general whom he had met while attending Mass.316 In a Catholic soldiers’ prayer book by Fr Thomas Unsworth (a Crimean chaplain) which was published in 1858, a printed notice on the inside cover warned: To him who would take this book for other purposes than those of prayer, it is said, it is not intended for you. It is not to be pledged for MONEY! or for DRINK!! nor is it to be sold at your Death!!! but given to your Wife, your Child, or your Comrade, in the same spirit in which it is given to you.317 At first sight this notice may say little of the piety of the constituency to which it was addressed and may well seem to confirm the Protestant stereotype of a drunken and dissolute Papist soldiery. However, this impression would be misleading, not least because Protestant soldiers could be equally careless with the Bibles which were issued to them. In fact, in pre-Mutiny India the vitality of soldiers’ Catholicism could be the source of some concern to EIC chaplains. As we have noted, the EIC had a tolerant attitude towards Roman Catholicism, a creed which had a historic claim to be treated as an indigenous Indian religion. During the eighteenth century, Catholic missions received material help from the EIC and by the early nineteenth century, Catholic missionaries were

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being paid for officiating as chaplains to Catholic soldiers in India.318 During this period, numerous memorials were presented by Catholic soldiers in the subcontinent to senior Catholic clergymen requesting the provision of Englishspeaking chaplains.319 Indeed, the initiative shown by Catholic soldiers at Dinapore in 1808 in requesting the services of an Italian Franciscan came as something of a shock to the Company chaplain, Henry Martyn. In July 1808 he wrote to Daniel Corrie: The Italian Padre came to Dinapore again on Saturday, but did not call upon me: the men sent him a letter, to which he replied in French, that he lamented he could not speak their language, but should remember them in his prayers, and spoke of them as brethren in Christ. When he came into the barracks, the Catholics crowded about him by hundreds, and in a tone of triumph pointed out his dress (that of a Franciscan friar) to the Protestants, contrasting it with that of a Clergyman of the Church of England, booted and spurred, and ready for a hunt. The Catholics in this regiment amount to a full thousand – the Protestants are scarcely discernible.320 Humiliated by this experience, Martyn declared that ‘There are four casts of people in India: the first, Heathen; the second, Mahometans; the third, Papists; the fourth, Infidels. Now I trust that you and I are sent to fight this four-faced Devil, and by the help of the Lord Jesus, whom we serve, we will’.321 Catholic priests were not only to be found ministering to soldiers in their cantonments, however, and they appear to have been active among Catholic soldiers on campaign. The Revd James Coley noted that a Catholic priest had been active among the sick and wounded at Ferozepore during the First Sikh War and added that ‘A Priest of that Church was killed, I believe, in the battle of Moodkee’ in 1845.322 During the Second Sikh War of 1848–9, Henry Conran struck up an unlikely friendship with a French missionary who accompanied Sir Hugh Gough’s army during the Chillianwallah campaign. The priest, Conran recalled, ‘seemed as much out of his element as myself . . . I believe he was a man of God . . . With him I enjoyed true fellowship, for we opened our hearts freely to each other. During the daily march we walked together, and discussed all the disputed doctrines of the two churches’.323 Despite the efforts commonly made by Catholic soldiers in India to obtain the services of a priest, formal arrangements did exist for Catholic parade services to be held in the absence of a Mass. In the eighteenth century, English Catholics were often reduced to meeting for congregational prayers in the absence of a priest, and civilian practice was adapted for the army in the form

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of a prayer book compiled by William Poynter (sometime Vicar Apostolic of the London District) during the Napoleonic Wars.324 In the 1850s, Thomas Unsworth’s updated Catholic Soldier’s and Sailor’s Prayer Book provided a full order of service ‘for those who cannot be present at Mass on Sundays and Holidays’. Its rubrics directed that soldiers (and sailors) in this situation: [B]e assembled in some convenient place, with the permission of their officers. Let some Catholic be appointed to read these prayers distinctly and devoutly, and let all others who are present join in answering in a moderate tone of voice. During the prayers, let all be on their knees. After the prayers, a lesson may be read out of some approved book of instruction, during which all may sit or stand.325 That congregational prayers were held by Catholics in the British army is shown by the memoirs of John MacMullen, who remembered that the 13th Regiment had parade services every Sunday while at Sukkur in the 1840s, a Catholic officer reading prayers for his co-religionists. Apparently, this practice was not uncontroversial for a certain Catholic soldier of the 13th: demurred against listening to a layman reading prayers, and told the colonel his conscience would not permit his attending chapel parade. He was very near getting a court-martial for his contumacy, however orthodox; but the colonel at last considered it sufficient punishment to have him placed half way between the squares formed by the Catholic and Protestant parties on Sundays, and there to remain until they were dismissed. As he was thus a subject of derision to his comrades, and saw there was no chance of escaping the parade, he was soon glad to be allowed to remain with his company, and forego his conscientious scruples.326 As with their Nonconformist counterparts, it would appear that Catholic NCOs played a vital role in sustaining Catholicism in the British army during the first half of the nineteenth century. In Sicily in 1809, a Sergeant Mulcahy of the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment procured the ministrations of two Englishspeaking Jesuits for Catholic soldiers at Milazzo.327 Furthermore, Bishop Thomas Grant of Southwark (who was to assume control of all Catholic army chaplains outside Ireland in 1863) was born in France in 1816, the son of a Catholic sergeant of the 71st Regiment.328 The bishop’s father, Sergeant Bernard Grant, had been brought up on a farm near Newry and had joined the army after his family had been burnt out of their home by Protestant

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incendiaries. A devout soldier, Grant was well versed in his catechism, which he taught to other soldiers along with some Marian devotions.329 Following the death of his wife, Grant placed the care of his sons in the hands of a priest in Chester and eventually contributed £12 per annum to Thomas Grant’s maintenance while he studied for the priesthood. A clear example of a steady and pious soldier who made a success of his military career, Grant retired from the army as quartermaster of the 82nd Regiment and with the rank of captain.330 However, Grant’s achievements pale in comparison with those of Sergeant Luke O’Connor of the 23rd Regiment, who earned a commission (and the army’s first Victoria Cross) for carrying the Queen’s Colour of the 23rd while badly wounded during the battle of the Alma. With his Crimean exploits behind him, O’Connor’s career went from strength to strength and he retired from the army with a knighthood and the rank of major-general. On his death in 1915, O’Connor left much of his estate to Roman Catholic charities, including £200 to the Catholic Soldiers’ Association.331 Catholic NCOs of the ilk of Mulcahy, Grant and O’Connor seem to have been fairly common in the mid-Victorian army. In 1858, and during the course of his evangelical work at Campbellpore, the Wesleyan Sergeant, Alfred Laverack, was banned from distributing ‘controversial tracts’ in the garrison hospital when a Catholic sergeant discovered that he had been circulating anti-Catholic literature and took up the matter with the authorities.332 Rather ironically in the light of his own activities, Laverack was greatly perturbed by what he believed to be the leakage of soldiers of Nonconformist backgrounds to Roman Catholicism, attributing this phenomenon to the sectarian wiles of Catholic NCOs. In a letter of September 1863, Laverack elaborated on what he clearly believed to be a widespread abuse: In most regiments there is a very large percentage of non-commissioned officers of the Romish faith and as soon as a batch of raw recruits join a regiment or depôt, a Romish sergeant will go and ask each man what is his ‘profession’. Are you a ‘Catholic’ or an ‘Episcopalian’? At this the recruit seems puzzled outright, never having heard such names before. But do you go to church or chapel? says the sergeant in a confidential tone. Oh! I go to chapel is the reply, and the old soldier books him at once as a ROMANIST, whether he has been a Methodist, Baptist or Independent, and as such he appears in the various rolls of the regiment.333 Laverack also observed how difficult it was for the recruit to rectify his mistake, given the religious attitudes of the other ranks. The correction could only be made with the permission of a superior officer but:

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[H]is comrades tell him there is very little difference, and it does not matter which place he goes to, and some will mutter (in his hearing) something very unpleasant about ‘changing his religion’. Being somewhat ignorant, and not of decided religious principles, he will rather continue to attend the Romish chapel than go before his captain, who would instantly rectify it, and be pointed at as having ‘changed his religion’. And thus sheep are stolen from the Protestant fold.334 The mid-nineteenth century saw Catholic soldiers in the British army benefit from an increasing provision of chaplains at a time when major institutional and devotional developments were taking place in the Catholic church in England and Ireland. The Crimean War saw the dispatch of twenty-one acting Catholic chaplains and a slightly larger contingent of nursing nuns to the army in the East, this help being solicited from Bishop Grant by the War Office.335 In the Crimea, the presence of Catholic nuns in military hospitals stirred Protestant fears of proselytism and it was symptomatic of the newfound confidence of army Catholicism that Thomas Unsworth declared to the Irish Sisters of Mercy at Balaklava that ‘nothing could be more edifying than to see Lord Killeen at the head of his gallant Hussars going punctually to assist at Mass on Sundays’.336 Under the supervision of their own chaplains, soldiers’ Catholicism in the Crimea appears to have been qualitatively very different from that which had been evident in the Peninsula forty years earlier, evincing clear signs of close clerical control and of an Ultramontane temper. In August 1855, for example, the Feast of the Assumption was celebrated in style in the military hospital at Scutari. According to Fr John Bagshawe, its Catholic chaplain: On the eve of the Assumption [the convalescents] assisted the nuns in decorating the chapel with boughs and flowers which they gathered themselves, and joined with fervour in the recital of the Rosary, and the chaunting of the Litany of Our Lady. They also contributed with great generosity, of their own accord, gifts in the shape of candle-sticks and other ornaments, as well as money to get a ciborium and thurible from London.337 This development was not confined to military hospitals in the East. From the siege lines at Sebastopol in the winter of 1854–5, Captain Henry Clifford wrote to his family informing them how he served at a daily Mass held for the Catholics of the Light Division by Fr Michael Canty, who Clifford described as a zealous and popular confessor.338 During the Crimean War,

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a comparable religiosity also began to manifest itself among Catholic soldiers in Britain. In a pastoral letter of 1855, Bishop Grant remarked how ‘at Sheerness, our brave soldiers come to receive the Sacraments in a wooden chapel’ and how at Deal the priest divided his time ‘between care of the soldiers expected to be summoned to the East, and sailors who, after they leave our ports, write to describe the want of Catholic books’.339 The Indian Mutiny furthered the consolidation of Catholic chaplaincy work in the army, with sixteen Catholic chaplains being commissioned in 1859.340 This process was accompanied by further signs that Catholicism in the army was experiencing a shift towards what Michael Mullett has described as ‘a sacramental Catholicism, directed by the clergy and emphasising “the regularity of religious observance”’.341 In a pastoral letter of 1858, Bishop Grant alluded to the recent creation and growth of soldiers’ confraternities and to the burgeoning importance of the rosary as a devotion among Catholic soldiers at home. Grant also noted that recent missions preached at Aldershot, Chatham and on Guernsey by the Jesuits, the Redemptorists and the Fathers of Charity had led to a salutary increase in eucharistic devotion among the Catholics of these garrisons.342 The greater cohesiveness and changing devotional temper of Catholicism in the army reflected broader organisational and devotional developments in English and Irish Catholicism, developments to which future soldiers would have been exposed as civilians and which would also have influenced them while stationed in the British Isles.343 The similarity between the experiences of Irish Catholic soldiers and Irish Catholic civilians at this time can be seen in the manner in which soldiers in India proved susceptible to growing clerical influence and control. In a letter dispatched to Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman in January 1858, Fr John Kyne (one of seven ‘missionaries’ dispatched to the army in India by Bishop Grant on the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny)344 gave a glowing account of the enthusiastic reception which he had received from Catholic soldiers outside Lucknow. Kyne reported that he had been presented with a horse by one soldier of the 84th Regiment and that: The majority of the Catholics of the Camp are now on the right side and this is saying a great deal. They are exceedingly fervent and are more like Religious than soldiers. The daily Mass is well attended – The Communicants are sometimes as many as 20 a day & upwards of 50 on Sundays. There is a crowd every evening at the Rosary and Sermon. Another month like the last would complete the work . . . The General ordered a shelter of some kind to be raised for the men as my tent was much too small. In one week we improvised a church capable of accommodating 300.

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It is really a good decent building though made of reeds . . . internally the decorations are such as would fairly bear comparison with many London Churches. The soldiers take a lively interest in it – every piece of linen or embroidery or ornament looted!! from Lucknow or Delhi, which they have in their possession is cheerfully & personally brought to embellish the Altar – so that we have now a decent place for preserving the B[lessed] Sacrament.345 Nor was this enthusiasm simply ephemeral for, like the Catholic Irish throughout the empire, Irish soldiers in India also developed an impressive infrastructure of Catholic schools, hospitals, orphanages and other charitable institutions. If considerable energy was expended on Kyne’s temporary church at Lucknow, it has been estimated that as many as sixty Catholic churches were built with the help of Catholic soldiers in India during the years of British rule.346 Indeed, and writing from the perspective of the mid-1880s, the achievements of previous generations of Catholic soldiers in developing the Catholic infrastructure of the empire was noted in a substantial manual of clerical advice entitled The Catholic Soldier’s Guide During His Stay Abroad, whose author observed that: Irish soldiers are proverbially generous . . . A future historian of the Catholic Church in Great Britain and the Colonies will relate with astonishment the great works accomplished by the generous contributions of the soldiers. He will speak of the churches built by them; of the orphanages established and kept up by their untiring zeal and generosity; of Catholic schools aided by them and so many other works, that a future generation will wonder how the comparatively small number of Catholic soldiers could do all this. The successors are less heavily taxed than their predecessors, and are bound in honour to maintain what they have established.347 Religion in the ranks, 1860–1914 The twenty-five years which followed the outbreak of the Crimean War brought decisive changes in the nature and dynamics of the army’s religious life. The expansion and diversification of the Army Chaplains’ Department meant a greater measure of clerical control while the army’s evangelical subculture (which had been largely pan-denominational and autonomous hitherto) fell prey to a growing denominational consciousness and became

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increasingly focused on the new soldiers’ homes. At the same time, the inexorable Anglicisation of the army saw a chronic decline in its Catholic and Presbyterian constituencies. However, and although increasingly Anglicised, the rank and file of the late Victorian army was far from being a representative cross-section of English society. One of the most glaring differences between the army and civilian society was that the army failed to reflect the contemporary strength of English (and Welsh) Nonconformity, the Nonconformist churches being ‘grossly under-represented’ among officers and other ranks alike.348 The parliamentary Census of Religious Worship of 1851 suggested that just under half of the adult population of England and Wales were regular churchgoers.349 It also indicated that the Nonconformist churches attracted nearly half of all churchgoers, a proportion which slightly increased during the latter half of the nineteenth century.350 Among Nonconformist churchgoers, church members were in a small minority but in 1880 their numbers still comprised around 10 per cent of the adult population of England and Wales.351 Although the Nonconformist churches embraced a broad social spectrum, outside mining districts their active following among the labouring poor tended to be small, with most plebeian Nonconformists being found in the ranks of the more ‘respectable’ working classes. Furthermore, Nonconformity was historically weak in the great urban sprawls of London, Liverpool and Manchester.352 Consequently, an important function of the army’s recruitment among the unskilled urban poor (and of the particular importance of London and Liverpool as recruiting districts)353 was that the number of professed Nonconformists among the rank and file remained relatively small. However, other factors also militated against its greater representation in the army. First, the influence of the anti-militarist Peace Society was far stronger in Nonconformist circles than it was in the Anglican or Roman Catholic churches.354 Second, and much more importantly, soldiering seemingly defied those notions of respectability which so dominated the Nonconformist mindset. If, as Michael Watts has observed, a life of ‘hard work, self-improvement, thrift and sobriety’ was calculated to distinguish respectable working-class men and women from ‘the drunkards, paupers, prostitutes, and criminals at the bottom of society’, he may well have chosen to include soldiers in this latter category.355 Of the late Victorian army’s Nonconformist soldiers, Wesleyan Methodists made up the largest single group. This situation partly reflected the relative size of this denomination but it was also representative of the historic links between Wesleyan Methodism and the army and the social and political conservatism of the connexion’s outlook. It was, of course, largely through Wesleyan agitation that the three recognised denominational categories in

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the British army were increased to four in 1862. In 1863, 3,549 privates and NCOs identified themselves under this fourth category of ‘Other Protestants’, a mere 1.7 per cent of the total. By 1868, the new dispensation was clearly more established and 5,669 (or 3.1 per cent) of soldiers and NCOs identified themselves under this heading. In 1881, the proportion of ‘Other Protestants’ within the ranks peaked at 4.1 per cent. However, the same year also saw the War Office grant capitation allowances to Wesleyan ministers, thus establishing ‘Wesleyan’ as a new denominational category. Consequently, the vast majority of ‘Other Protestants’ chose to identify themselves as Wesleyans in 1882, 3.6 per cent of soldiers identifying themselves under this new heading while only 0.7 per cent retained the older designation.356 However, and despite the granting of recognition to Baptists and Congregationalists in 1903,357 Wesleyans and other Nonconformists never amounted to more than a tiny proportion of the army. As late as 1913, their combined numbers amounted to only 6.7 per cent of the rank and file while 7 per cent were Presbyterians and 14.7 per cent were Roman Catholics.358 Very few of those soldiers who identified themselves as Nonconformists were in fact church members, the ratio of adherents to church members being much higher in the army than it was in contemporary civilian life. In 1909, Methodist sources deemed the ratio of Methodist church members to Methodist churchgoers as in the order of 1:3.359 However, Owen Spencer Watkins noted that only 500 out of 6,422 ‘Declared Wesleyans’ in 1882 were actually class members, a ratio of 1:12. This situation had improved only slightly by 1905, with only 1,166 out of 14,467 professed Wesleyans being recognised church members, a ratio of 1:11.360 The army’s lack of Nonconformist recruits was clearly symptomatic of the fact that it never really resolved the problem of its public image. Indeed, it was indicative of continuing concern in this regard that the War Office created an interdenominational Advisory Committee on the Spiritual and Moral Welfare of the Army in 1906, its task being to advise the newly created Army Council on problems such as gambling, drinking and sexual vice.361 The principal achievement of this Committee was to devise a scheme whereby recruits from churchgoing backgrounds could be guided through their years with the colours by military chaplains acting in liaison with their ministers at home. Although warmly endorsed by Haldane, the ‘MacKay Scheme’ (as it came to be known) was not fully operational until May 1914 and the committee which devised it was suspended a few months later on the outbreak of the First World War.362 Despite initial problems, the increased denominationalism of army life from the 1860s probably had the effect of reducing sectarian tensions among the rank and file as recognition of the army’s religious minorities (and the

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registering of soldiers’ denominations which this entailed) gradually helped to curb mutual fears of sheep-stealing. Although soldiers could change their denomination upon application to their officers, it appears that they were expected to remain with the denomination which they had attested upon enlistment. As Acland-Troyte put it, ‘When a recruit enlists he is asked what he belongs to; and having made his choice, he has to stick to it’.363 Moreover, the army was not particularly sensitive towards marginal or unrecognised denominations. As Horace Wyndham remembered, when ordered to ascertain the religious affiliations of a batch of recruits, one NCO simply gave the order, ‘Squad! ‘shun! When I say “Fall in”, Church of England men fall in on the right, Roman Catholics on the left, all fancy religions in rear!’364 Conversely, the army’s promotion of denominationalism appears to have done significant damage to its long-established culture of pan-evangelical collaboration. Writing in the 1890s, the Baptist minister and veteran temperance worker, John Gelson Gregson, deplored the pernicious spirit of denominationalism which had taken root among evangelical Protestants in the army: The number of Christian men in a regiment is so small that everything of a denominational tinge should be cast aside for the sake of giving a true and distinct colour to the Christian life in the regiment. The Christian soldier’s loyalty to Christ should far exceed his attachment to some creed or denomination. He should heartily welcome every Christian comrade as a fellow worker and brother in Christ . . . The moment denominational classes and societies are introduced, men become self-seekers and menpleasers, too often making religion a hypocritical sham for the gratification of selfish ends.365 It was certainly ironic that, by the later decades of the nineteenth century, the army was foisting upon its recruits a firm denominational attachment which was often lacking among that group from which the majority of them were now being drawn, namely the lower ranks of the English urban poor. Partly because of the introduction of short service enlistments in the 1870s, the religious attitudes of the rank and file at the end of the nineteenth century increasingly reflected those which prevailed in this section of civilian society. Despite clerical laments over proletarian godlessness, this was not a milieu that had remained uninfluenced by the churches. While the army’s enduring Catholic constituency reflected a strong presence of immigrant Irish in the urban slums of mainland Britain (increasingly so as recruitment in Ireland itself declined),366 even working-class Protestants were not unaffected by organised religion. By the end of the nineteenth century, decades of vigorous

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and diverse home missionary work by Britain’s Protestant churches had given them an important educational, recreational and charitable role in workingclass life. Consequently, and although the churches’ ‘salvation industry’367 had generally failed to inculcate habits of regular churchgoing, it had succeeded in forging a semi-autonomous, working-class religious culture. This placed a heavy emphasis on good neighbourliness, on the observation of the rites of passage, on the importance of Sunday-school attendance and on the religious responsibilities of motherhood. Dubbed ‘diffusive Christianity’ by the turn of the twentieth century,368 the religion of the urban working classes was characterised by a focus on the ethical dimensions of Christianity, by occasional churchgoing, by a routine of private prayer, a penchant for hymn-singing and even by a certain sabbatarianism.369 Given these important aspects of contemporary working-class culture, most recruits joined the late-Victorian army having already been exposed (for good or ill) to a formative range of religious influences. Edwin Mole, for example, had fond memories of the church of St John’s, Hammersmith, which had been a memorable venue for war games played by Mole and his fellow choirboys at the time of the Crimean War.370 In contrast to Mole’s happy memories of church and childhood, Frank Richards of the Royal Welch Fusiliers had played truant from Sunday school in the 1890s and had washed his hands of organised religion after his experiences of working in a colliery at Blaina, where many of his fellow employees had curried favour with the management by becoming chapel-goers.371 Owen Spencer Watkins, an acting Wesleyan chaplain, was very much aware of the significance of earlier religious influences for the men to whom he ministered. In South Africa in 1900, he was startled by one of his ex-Sunday school pupils whom he found grinning at him ‘from the ranks of a Lancashire Regiment’.372 Similarly, of the aftermath of Kitchener’s victory at Omdurman two years ealrier, Watkins had written ‘many a lad that night who had not prayed for long thanked his mother’s God for the sparing mercy of that day’.373 One issue which told against the religious character of the British soldier at this time was the persecution which earnest Christians were thought to endure in the typical barrack room. In Anglican circles, such harassment was thought to inhibit more devout soldiers from receiving Holy Communion at parade services374 but the archetypal example of this behaviour was the scenario of the pious soldier being pelted by missiles as he knelt to pray at his bedside before lights out. Although not necessarily a new problem,375 one speaker informed the Church Congress of 1875 that ‘A man is afraid to kneel down in a barrack room and say his prayers, when there are thirty or forty men in the room’.376 According to Paul Bull, this exercise represented the sternest trial of the Christian soldier. The devotions of one recruit of his

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acquaintance had been met with ‘a dead silence, then a roar of laughter, followed by a shower of boots and brushes and pots and pans’.377 However, others had even been ‘ducked in the horse-troughs and tossed in blankets, and subjected to the far more bitter trial of perpetual mocking until they have shown that they are in deadly earnest’.378 As Sarah Williams has shown, there was nothing unusual about the evening ritual of bedside prayers at home among working-class children at this time.379 However, what was probably resented by soldiers in the context of the barrack room was the public assumption of religious superiority which this practice implied. As Paul Bull said of the barrack room: To confess Christ openly, not to swear, not to drink, not to talk filth, is an act of rebellion against the spirit of the room with its long tradition. It is a silent rebuke to your comrades. You jut out prominently above their level, and make them feel that their lives are wrong; and men don’t like to have this fact perpetually forced on their consciences . . . if you are determined to separate yourself from the corporate spirit and to profess religion, your comrades expect you to justify this act of separation by a life of absolute consistency . . . soldiers, conscious of their own failure, expect a very high standard of any comrade who dares to challenge the low level of corporate life’.380 Such feelings were not, in fact, unique to soldiers and had their parallels in civilian working-class life, where churchgoers who were seen to be lacking in basic Christian virtues were commonly held in contempt.381 Interestingly, J.L. Findlay, an army chaplain with prior experience of a Birmingham slum parish, noted with something akin to approval that it was accepted among ordinary soldiers that the parading of religion was ‘not good manners’. In fact, Findlay was in the habit of warning recruits that it was ‘just common sense not to let the whole barrack-room observe that you are what in Scotland we call unco guid’.382 Hence, a certain amount of wisdom and discretion was required of the pious soldier and, although Acland-Troyte felt obliged to say his prayers by his bedside after lights out, he nevertheless maintained that ‘Soldiers are wonderfully good in one respect’, namely that if a soldier did not ‘bother his comrades’ by his religion, ‘they would not bother him’.383 Despite the unwelcome nature of demonstrative piety in the barrack room, there is some interesting evidence to suggest that the late-nineteenth-century British soldier was, if anything, rather more susceptible to religion than was his working-class civilian counterpart. As early as the 1860s, one vastly experienced scripture reader at Shorncliffe camp had written:

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I am now getting into my 37th year of service as a Scripture Reader, 24 years of which I spent in Ireland, and about eight visiting the purlieus of St. Giles and Southwark, London. When I recall some of the scenes through which I passed during that time – the bickerings, the insinuations, and animosities of which I was the object – I must consider my present office of Army Scripture Reader, a sinecure. Instead then of the army making men rude, making them intolerant of things which may not chime with their peculiar views, soldiers are far in advance of their class, and, in point of manners and liberality of sentiment, far in advance of what they themselves would be, had they not been soldiers.384 One important way in which soldiers’ religiosity was demonstrated was through attendance at voluntary Sunday evening services, services which became common in the army from the mid-1860s. Lacking the compulsion attendant on church parade, these voluntary services appear to have been quite popular. With respect to the army in the 1870s, Acland-Troyte wrote that ‘men continually go to an evening service, and I have often heard them say they like to go to church once on a Sunday’, a remark which would indicate that parade services hardly seemed to qualify as a proper act of worship.385 Similarly, Arthur Male claimed to be impressed by the scale of soldiers’ attendance at Sunday evening services during the Second Afghan War.386 With his experience of work in urban parishes, J.L. Findlay was undoubtedly well qualified to comment on the relative state of religion in the army and in civilian life at the turn of the twentieth century. Significantly, Findlay’s appraisal of army religion was distinctly positive and he cited the undue anxiety of a senior chaplain at the modest levels of attendance at Sunday evening services at Pretoria in 1905: ‘I used to comfort him’, Findlay recalled, ‘by reminding him that there were always more than 60, and how many vicars of our big industrial towns would be thankful for 60 men in their congregations of the same age as our soldiers’.387 Although penury forced Charles Bradlaugh, the notorious freethinker and future radical MP, to spend three years in the army in the 1850s,388 the barrack rooms of the late Victorian army seem to have harboured very few of Bradlaugh’s ilk. If J.L. Findlay overstated the case by claiming that ‘Freethinkers’ were ‘non-existent’,389 atheism or agnosticism certainly appear to have been minority positions, being confined to a handful of soldiers who possessed a superior education. In a character sketch of the occupants of a typical barrack room in the 1880s, Miss Herdman, a redoubtable ‘soldier’s friend’ and founder of the Soldiers’ Scripture Union,390 described the typical atheist as:

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[T]he champion freethinker, who entertains his less educated comrades by elaborate speeches on ‘metaphysics’, ‘science’, ‘geology’ etc., etc . . . He has a select circle of admirers, who listen and applaud, and who believe, or try to believe, that there is no God, and that man and the insect all sprang from the same protoplasm.391 Similarly, an SCA worker met only one agnostic in South Africa, the soldier in question being a corporal who assailed him ‘with the opinions of German critics and such like’.392 Although there were no doubt anti-clericals in the ranks (Frank Richards being a prime example) J.L. Findlay was convinced that tub-thumping secularists were few and far between and that there was ‘no antagonism’ towards the church as such. In fact, Findlay claimed that ‘if a crisis should arise the men would rally to its banner as one man’.393 Likewise, and although obscenities peppered their conversation, Findlay was struck by how soldiers discountenanced the common blasphemer: There was a certain word which to the soldier of those days was an everyday adjective. It was frequently heard in the barrackroom and no person seemed to be annoyed. However, should anyone use a blasphemous term half a dozen comrades would immediately tell the offender to shut up . . . and as likely as not in telling him off the adjective referred to above would be used. ‘Stop your – blasphemy.’394 It was indicative of changing civilian perceptions of the religious condition of the army that the introduction of short service (in the form of Cardwell’s Army Enlistment Act of 1870) was viewed as a boost rather than as a catastrophe for the prospects of home missionary work. Conceived with the purpose of creating a large pool of reservists, the Act allowed recruits to serve with the colours for a limited period before passing into civilian life and the army reserve. Given that an infantry recruit could return to civilian life in as little as six years, short service was widely regarded as offering some important advantages for the work of home mission, the army’s new regulations and institutions providing plenty of scope for influencing short service recruits for the good and, through them, the civilian population at large. Whereas soldiers had enlisted for much longer periods hitherto (between twenty-one and twenty-four years until 1847 and between ten or twelve years thereafter), enlistment after 1870 was seen by more informed observers as being a great opportunity for the spiritual and moral improve-

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ment of a young man rather than as the final stage on his road to perdition. Speaking at the Church Congress of 1875, J.C. Edghill declared that: The Short Service Act must cause a more rapid interchange between the civil and military members of the Church. Men come into the army for six years from our towns and villages, and then return to them again, carrying with them the good or the evil which has been sown or developed among us . . . If the work of the Church prosper in the army, you will reap the benefit of it far more than we who have to sow the seed.395 Similarly, a quarter of a century later, at the Church Congress of 1900, Colonel R.H. Jelf told the clergymen in his audience: We have no longer, remember, a long-service Army – a body of men who have adopted the profession of a soldier for their lives. Our Army now is a floating population. We receive them as lads from town and country at their most impressionable age . . . Professionally, and, as I hold, morally, we are responsible for them during their few years of service, and we return them to you in the full vigour of manhood at the rate of 25,000 a year, full of influence for weal or woe on the civil population . . . If these soldiers can be impressed during their short service with the blessings that the Church affords them, depend upon it it will be a powerful engine towards leaving that impress on the civil population into which they merge, and will act as a powerful antidote to the cry for disestablishment and other oppositions to the Church.396 Although overly optimistic, these Anglican observers were not alone in investing considerable confidence in the improving potential of service in the late-Victorian army. In the opinion of Arthur Male, who was writing in the light of his experiences as an acting Wesleyan chaplain in Afghanistan and Egypt: No man need be a worse man morally for going into the army. Many a man has become a better man. Indeed, speaking from large experience and personal observation, I have always regarded the army as a great school for training and discipline; where the man who, in civil life, lacking the restraints and helps which belong to army discipline, would, through sheer weakness of

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character, rapidly degenerate into a worthless fellow, receives the very aid that he needs, to give him some moral backbone, and is thus made into a very decent man . . .397 Significantly, these were views which were fully shared by the Anglo-Catholic chaplain Paul Bull. In his opinion, if the army did not turn a recruit into a living saint it at least taught him ‘cleanliness, self-respect and good manners’ and provided him with a disciplinary code which acted as a powerful antidote to wayward self-will. In fact, and as Bull rather gushingly argued, the discipline of the army served to render the soldier almost Christ-like. In a far cry from the doubts as to the moral quality of a soldier’s life which many in the churches continued to entertain, Bull declared that military life was A life from which self-will is banished, in which a man freely chooses to do what he ought to do, [it] is a noble life, redeemed from pettiness, full of dignity. It uplifts man to co-operate with the will of God, and makes him for the time absolutely sublime, clothed with powers almost divine.398 Conclusion In view of the significant Methodist subculture in Wellington’s Peninsular army and of the existence of Methodist societies in garrisons as far apart as Colchester and Cape Town, there is abundant evidence to show that evangelical religion was a vital force in the British army during the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The growth of evangelicalism in Great Britain at this time and the common aspects and dangers of a soldier’s life ensured that, among officers and men alike, a strong evangelical subculture remained a conspicuous feature of army life. In addition, and for very similar reasons, evangelical religion flourished in the army’s Indian cantonments in the fifty years prior to the Indian Mutiny, a phenomenon which was largely inspired and sustained by Baptist missionaries, pious officers and by the precarious circumstances into which soldiers were routinely thrust. Although largely autonomous, unstable and leaving few traces of their existence in their wake, it is clear that evangelical societies and churches could and did prosper in the British army prior to the massive civilian interest in army missionary work which was triggered by the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. If traditional assumptions as to the religious condition of the army prior to the 1860s are thrown into question by the strength of this evangelical Protestant subculture, then the existence of its Roman Catholic counterpart also serves to cast further doubt upon them. Although poorly

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recorded, lacking clerical supervision and hardly recommending itself to Protestant observers, this vigorous Catholic subculture was shared by a very considerable proportion of the British army. Clearly, religious life in the British army was not a new and tender plant which took root during the latter decades of the nineteenth century as a result of more chaplains, new soldiers’ homes and hosts of civilian evangelists. Instead, the evidence would suggest that its very existence was obscured and its dynamics fundamentally altered by the advent of greater clerical and governmental control and by the encroachment of new civilian agencies during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Other evidence, particularly that relating to the late-Victorian rank and file, would also confirm that the religious transformation of the army from the 1860s was largely imagined. Evidently, and despite the efforts of the army’s own ‘salvation industry’, most of its soldiers continued to share the religious outlook and attitudes of their civilian peers in the urban slums of England. However, if the religious outlook and behaviour of British soldiers in the nineteenth century broadly reflected that of the social and ethnic groups from which they were drawn, we must also bear in mind that religion in the army possessed a number of distinctive characteristics. The next chapter will examine these characteristics and show how and in what ways the religious experience of the soldier was distinct from that of his civilian counterpart.

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Chapter 5

RELIGION AND THE BRITISH M I L I TA RY E X P E R I E N C E , 1793–1914

Church parades and compulsion difference between the religious experience of the civilian and the soldier in the nineteenth century was that churchgoing was compulsory for the latter, attendance at public worship on the Sabbath being required under the Articles of War and under Queen’s Regulations. In garrison towns and permanent camps, this act of worship formed part of a formal and elaborate church parade, as the members of a unit’s respective denominations were mustered, inspected and marched to church by their officers and NCOs. As an onerous weekly ritual, church parade always had the potential to be controversial, particularly as it could be interpreted (as it was sometimes intended) as a display of military force. According to Henry Press Wright, in one manufacturing district in the 1840s church parade was ‘literally hated by the troops; they had to march nearly a mile, through streets crowded with a noisy rabble, and then, after divine service, to return under the same escort. Nor was this any extreme case; the same thing was going on in every large garrison town’.1 Given these circumstances, and the fact that men of minority denominations could often find themselves in an alien place of worship, soldiers’ behaviour during parade services in the early nineteenth century could be less than edifying. In 1811, for example, the following garrison orders were issued at Bristol:

P

ERHAPS

THE

MOST

STRIKING

[S]oldiers are again directed to avoid spitting on the pavement of the Cathedral during Divine Service; the Royal North Gloucester[s] are reported the only regiment who pay attention to the previous orders on the subject.2

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In post-Mutiny India, where the ritual of church parade reflected the bitter lessons of 1857, its features seemed especially incongruous. Because the Mutiny had broken out at Meerut on the Sabbath, soldiers serving in India were henceforth compelled to carry their rifles on church parade, the pews of garrison chapels being fitted with brackets into which they were inserted prior to the service. Although Frank Richards acknowledged the prudence of this policy, he also found it highly ironic: ‘we marched to Church armed to the teeth’, he reflected, ‘I don’t know what the One Above thought of it: I expect He did many a grin when He looked down over Northern India on His armed worshippers’.3 If church parades and parade services were unwelcome to the long-service regulars of the early nineteenth century, the advent of short service in the 1870s and even the introduction of greater choice in matters of religion hardly served to help the situation. Certainly, one of the most commonly cited illustrations of the impiety of the late-Victorian soldier was his abiding resentment of church parade, an occasion whose attendant rigmarole served to render Sunday ‘the most hated’ day of the week.4 J.E.A. Acland-Troyte remarked that soldiers ‘will always get off if they can’5 while Frank Richards put the matter more forcefully: ‘Ninety-five per cent of the [Royal Welch Fusiliers] heartily detested Church Parade and would do anything in reason to get out of it’.6 Indeed, the ploys which soldiers adopted were both numerous and ingenious. In 1875, Captain G.E. Wyndham Malet informed the Church Congress at Stoke-on-Trent that a recruit at Aldershot (who probably ‘had a vague notion of getting off church parade’) professed that he had not made up his mind what denomination he belonged to when he enlisted. Consequently, the recruiting officer ordered that he should ‘go with the Roman Catholics to the 7.45 service, to the Church of England service at 9.15; and with the Presbyterians at 11’. The recruit in question soon found that he was ‘an attached member of the Church of England, probably because it was the shortest service of the three’.7 Similarly, a well-known stratagem among more experienced soldiers involved declaring a new affiliation to an unlikely denomination. This was particularly common after arriving at a new station and after the times of different services had been noted.8 In one instance, a hitherto Anglican soldier professed to being a Particular Baptist, a decision which backfired as he was duly marched six miles to their nearest chapel the following Sunday.9 However, when serving abroad, this ploy offered better prospects of success. At Stoke-on-Trent in 1875, Wyndham Malet spoke of a garrison in India which had seen a large number of ‘perversions to the Church of Rome’, a highly suspicious phenomenon given that there was no Roman Catholic chaplain at the station. Consequently, the commanding officer ordered that the neophytes be given extra drill on Sunday

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morning in lieu of attending Mass ‘and the exodus to Rome received a sudden check’.10 Clearly, much of the problem stemmed from imposing regular church attendance on men who were generally unused to it and who had enjoyed their religious freedom while civilians. Furthermore, church attendance was probably widely associated with childhood and with Sunday school and it was also no doubt irksome that officers could easily evade the chore of church parade.11 As Horace Wyndham put it: In these matters [soldiers] can be led but not driven. They strongly dislike ‘having religion rammed into them,’ as they forcibly put it, and loathe with heart and soul the Church parade on Sunday mornings. It is not the service that is considered so obnoxious, but the compulsory attendance thereat.12 Ironically, a certain sabbatarianism may also have come into play, for church parades meant that soldiers were compelled to spend part of their Sundays cleaning their uniforms and equipment in readiness for the inevitable inspections. As Sir William Robertson put it, ‘It was only natural that the men should resent being hustled about and made to do unnecessary work on the one day of the week observed by everybody else in the country as a day of rest’.13 In this respect, the lot of the cavalryman and of the gunner may well have been worse than that of the infantryman for stable duty was no respecter of the Sabbath. Robertson was certainly impressed by the fierce aversion of his fellow dragoons to church parade in the 1870s and Evelyn Wood remembered that, at Aldershot in the 1860s, it was an eminently practical consideration which induced one gunner to attempt to change his religion: When I went to Aldershot in 1867, Sunday was a show day in stables [and a] young soldier going up to his Commanding Officer, said, ‘Please, sir, I want to change my religion.’ ‘What’s up? What do you want to be?’ ‘I want to be a Roman Catholic.’ ‘Priest been at you?’ ‘No, sir; no priest.’ ‘Woman?’ ‘No, sir’. ‘Well, I shall not allow you to change your religion.’ ‘Please, sir, any man may be any religion he likes in the Army.’ ‘Yes, but I have got you noted as being a Church of England man, and I don’t mean to allow you to change without giving me some reason.’ The man then admitted his real object. ‘Well, you see, sir, a Roman Catholic always goes to Church at eight o’clock, and I think if I was a Roman, it would give me a better chance with my ‘arness.’14

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Although Richards remembered how two soldiers with genuine chest complaints were placed in the guard house for the unusual offence of ‘coughing in Church’,15 it was apparently rare for soldiers to translate their objections to church parade into disruptive behaviour during the course of parade services. As Horace Wyndham conceded, their behaviour on such occasions was ‘strictly decorous. They seem to regard participation in the choral portions of the service as a solemn duty, and in the hymns, especially, do they testify to the possession of powerful lungs’.16 Acland-Troyte also noted that a becoming reverence was generally in evidence, ‘While service is going on men almost always behave quietly and properly but seldom kneel. They join pretty well in the singing and responses, and listen to the sermon quite sufficiently to discuss it afterwards, which seems a common practice’.17 As a Wesleyan chaplain, Arthur Male was convinced that even a parade service could rouse the enthusiasm of the men, the winning formula being a brief sermon and plenty of rousing hymns.18 This view was also held by Edwin Mole, who was very impressed by the singing at a parade service on a troopship bound for India in the mid-1870s: ‘When the hymns were struck up, I do believe every single man joined in them, and the volume of sound must have floated far over the waters, perhaps to the shore itself’.19 On campaign, of course, the formalities of parade services were much less in evidence and Paul Bull discerned a much greater enthusiasm for them on the South African veldt because they ‘did not involve hours of “soldiering” and dressing up’.20 In times of crisis – such as the two-month blockade of a British column at Eshowe during the Zulu War of 1879 – the parade service could assume a new importance and unprecedented relevance. Staff Sergeant Beatson of the 99th Regiment recalled that, at Eshowe: Every Sunday we had a ‘Church Parade’ at six a.m., when prayers were read and a suitable sermon preached to us by our Chaplain. We usually had for one of the hymns, that memorable one composed by the late P.P. Bliss, viz. ‘Hold the Fort;’ this, as may readily be imagined, was sung by all with great gusto.21 Moreover, on the Sunday following the disaster at Isandlwana: [O]ur Chaplain somewhat cheered and encouraged us by a sermon based upon the following text in Psalm xlvi., verse 7, viz. ‘The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge,’ bidding us unitedly to leave all into the hands of God, and patiently await the issue, trusting in Him who would assuredly prove our help and our refuge, and bring about our deliverance.22

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Piety and promotion A perennial claim among those who championed the cause of religion in the army was that religion made for better soldiers. This claim appears to have been vindicated in the case of the citizen armies of the Union and the Confederacy during the American Civil War of 1861–523 and it also had ample justification in relation to the professional soldiers of the British army during the course of the nineteenth century. If vices such as drunkenness and promiscuity were highly detrimental to the soldier’s discipline and efficiency, the most celebrated example of the benefits of piety and temperance was the case of Havelock’s ‘saints’ of the 13th Regiment, of whom Sir Robert Sale, their commanding officer, was alleged to have declared ‘I know nothing about Baptists, but I know I wish the whole regiment were Baptists, for their names are never in the defaulters’ roll’.24 Similarly, many religious soldiers appear to have been quietly convinced of their professional superiority. In 1851, a soldier of the 44th Regiment informed a chaplain that: No small circumstance in favour of our God-fearing men, is that they are acknowledged to be better duty men, can more safely be trusted, perform their duties more cheerfully, are never found murmuring; and it has been remarked by some of the sergeants of the regiment, not religious men, that they wish all the rest of the men were like them.25 As a soldier’s piety improved his discipline and efficiency, it was also conducive to an easier relationship with authority and to better prospects of promotion. As George Billanie remembered of his days in the Gordon Highlanders, ‘on the whole, I passed comparatively easy and quietly through the army, and without doubt, the remaining restraints of early religious instruction was one particular means of preserving me from many evils and dangers; and in this respect proved an invaluable blessing to me’.26 A particular bonus for honest and reliable soldiers throughout the nineteenth century was that they were liable to be chosen as officers’ servants, a position which carried with it extra pay, some exemption from ordinary duties and other desirable perquisites.27 In addition to being natural candidates for good conduct medals and the supplementary pay which went with them from 1836,28 religious soldiers were also strong candidates for promotion. Literate, Biblereading soldiers were clearly at an advantage throughout the Napoleonic period when more than half of the army’s rank and file were illiterate and when literacy was an essential requirement for promotion to sergeant.29 However, such prospects did not diminish as the century wore on and as standards of

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education improved. In 1861, a new system of army certificates was introduced at the recommendation of the new Council of Military Education. Initially comprising three different classes, a second-class certificate (which required not only a good standard of literacy but also a proficiency in mathematics) was required for promotion to sergeant.30 Although this system of certificates was to evolve over the course of subsequent years, the possession of these certificates remained an indispensable requirement for promotion through the non-commissioned ranks and it was clearly intended that steady and sober men who placed a premium on education and on self-improvement should gain promotion by these means. It was with this in view that many soldiers’ homes stressed the educational aspects of their work and provided night schools for soldiers wishing to get on. If their numbers are impossible to determine, there was clearly a very significant presence of religious men among the non-commissioned officers of the army throughout the nineteenth century, their steady habits and lifestyles helping to propel them upwards through the ranks. James Field was both a Wesleyan class leader and a sergeant31 and the co-existence of pious habits with upward mobility was also evidenced in the case of Alfred Laverack, of whom it was rumoured following his conversion in 1854 that he only ‘wanted promotion’. This promotion duly occurred the following year.32 There were, no doubt, important moral incentives which spurred religious soldiers to seek promotion. First, non-commissioned officers were more likely to be allowed to marry ‘on the strength’, thus allowing them a greater opportunity to enjoy the moral advantages of the married state and, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the more respectable surroundings of married quarters.33 Second, by the late-Victorian period, when even unmarried sergeants often enjoyed their own rooms, promotion offered the pious soldier a chance to escape from the degrading and sometimes hostile milieu of the common barrack room.34 The regiment The strategic imperatives of empire meant that, for most of this period, the British army was scattered in small detachments across a vast area of the world. The pattern of this deployment (and the general lack of higher organisation of the army into brigades, divisions and corps) accentuated the importance of the regiment as an operational unit, as a focus of personal loyalty and as a vehicle for military reform.35 As Byron Farwell has put it: The core, the heart, the very essence of the British army was the regimental system as it existed in the cavalry and infantry. For

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officers, the regiment was a private, exclusive club, a fitting home for gentlemen. For officers and other ranks alike it was a clan, a hierarchical extended family, offering a meaningful place in life. Whatever the rest of the world might think, a man could here earn and learn self-respect, could take pride in himself, his regiment and its traditions.36 Naturally, the culture and traditions of its constituent regiments served as a vital integrative force in the British army throughout this period, regimental tradition and esprit de corps being imparted to all recruits, regardless of their social, religious or ethnic backgrounds. In this respect, the peculiarities of regimental identity served as an important binding agent and elevating force in an army composed of diverse and often unpromising human material. A vital factor which favoured the consolidation and development of the army’s regimental character in the nineteenth century was the relative stability of its regimental list in the century after Waterloo. Although some regiments (and second battalions of regiments) were disbanded after the coming of peace in 1815, the army was not subject to the scale of disbandments that the army experienced in the wake of many eighteenth-century wars.37 Indeed, in the late 1850s and early 1860s, the dynamic was one of expansion rather than contraction as new battalions were added to existing infantry regiments and the European regiments of the EIC were taken into the Queen’s service. If the development of regimental schools, libraries and savings banks could flourish in such a context, then so too could a sense of regimental identity and tradition. Of course, the regimental traditions which became so much a feature of regimental life in the nineteenth century were often highly contrived and were as much a tribute to the inventiveness of officers and men as they were to the exploits of their forbears. One major of the 18th Hussars, for example, who had joined the regiment in the 1870s, was noted by a fellow officer for his industry in ‘hunting up old traditions, and recovering for us little forgotten distinctions, which had been allowed to lapse’.38 If regiments had their distinctive uniform, colours, mascots and social cachet, certain regiments were also distinguished by their strong religious identity, this being particularly true of the army’s Scottish and Irish regiments. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the concept of ‘national regiments’ gained ground as a raft of new regiments was raised in Scotland and in Ireland. With their national identities maintained and even cultivated in order to encourage recruiting,39 by the time the War Office began to pay Presbyterian and Catholic officiating chaplains in the 1830s, it had already developed a firm view of which regiments were Scottish, and therefore Presbyterian, and which were Irish, and therefore Roman Catholic.40 Although this view did

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not necessarily reflect the actual ethnic and religious balance of these regiments (at least one Highland regiment was predominantly Irish in 1820)41 the identification of Scottish regiments as primarily Presbyterian and of Irish regiments as primarily Catholic was not only administratively convenient but it invariably struck deep roots in the cultures of these regiments. During the early nineteenth century, regimental Presbyterian churches were formed in several Scottish regiments, office bearers being appointed from their officers and other ranks. In fact, and in emulation of civilian practice, the regimental church of the 72nd (Highland) Regiment even manufactured its own tokens, which were used to regulate admission to communion.42 Despite this display of zeal and efficiency, the best example of this phenomenon is the case of the 93rd (Highland) Regiment. Raised in 1800, most of the regiment was recruited in Sutherland, the balance being made up by other Highlanders. Spared the ravages of campaigning in Europe, the regiment spent the years 1806–14 in the comparatively healthy surroundings of Cape Town.43 There, the regiment formed its own church and kirk session in 1808, the latter consisting of six soldiers and a sympathetic Presbyterian missionary. Following its return home in 1814, the church purchased its own set of communion plate.44 A major factor in the success of Presbyterianism in the 93rd was the regiment’s ethnic and cultural homogeneity. In 1811, the regiment consisted of over a thousand Highlanders, with fewer than forty Englishmen or Irishmen in its ranks. By 1855, the 93rd was still 90 per cent Presbyterian and claimed the distinction of being ‘the most Scotch of all the Highland regiments’.45 Such was the preponderance of native Highlanders within its ranks in the Crimea that the 93rd was warned by Sir Colin Campbell prior to the battle of the Alma that the names of any shirkers in the coming battle would be posted on the doors of their parish churches.46 The earnest religiosity of the 93rd was reflected by its large number of communicants (more than 700 in Canada during the 1840s)47 and by its high standards of discipline. During the first nineteen years of the regiment’s history, one of its companies maintained an untarnished disciplinary record. Furthermore, when the regiment left England in 1857, it was not confined to barracks (as was usually the case with regiments prior to embarkation) but still ‘when the time to leave the barracks came, there was not a single man absent nor a prisoner in the guard-room’.48 Although the fate of its regimental church is obscure (seemingly falling into abeyance with the advent of commissioned Presbyterian chaplains in 1859)49 the moral and religious reputation of the 93rd certainly contributed to the Victorian idealisation of the Highlander as ‘nature’s gentleman soldier, “a lion in the field, a lamb in the house”, brave, stern, frugal, obedient [and] frighteningly respectable’.50 With

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the advent of the Crimean War, the regiment attracted enormous public attention, comprising the celebrated ‘thin red streak topped with a line of steel’ at the battle of Balaclava.51 As the Church of Scotland minister, Dr John Cumming, observed to a London audience in 1856: I know something of my own countrymen, the 93rd Highlanders, and I know it as a fact, that more than half the sergeants in that regiment were teachers in Sunday-schools, or conducted prayermeetings among the men [in the Crimea]; and I venture to say, with the profoundest admiration of the gallantry of Englishmen, there is not a braver or a nobler corps in the British army than this same 93rd Highlanders.52 However, the entrenched Presbyterian culture of the 93rd could lead to problems of its own. In 1837, for example, men of the regiment left a Presbyterian service in Newry in protest at the Unitarian theology of its minister. Furthermore, at Quebec in October 1848, evangelical Presbyterians of the 93rd made a scene by refusing to follow their officers into a church whose minister had remained loyal to the established Church of Scotland.53 Following this episode, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Spark took a senior NCO to task for this slight to the Church of Scotland and was, in turn, boldly advised to let the matter rest.54 In view of such attitudes it is hardly surprising that one promising NCO, William McBean, was passed over for promotion on four occasions on account of his being ‘a d-d Free Kirker’.55 In addition to the strong fusion of ethnic and religious identities in many Scottish and Irish regiments, a universal practice throughout the army was the consecration of new regimental colours and standards, a ceremony which the Military Register described as ‘of all military ceremonies . . . the most important in every point of view’.56 Although the legions of pre-Christian Rome observed a sophisticated cult centred around their various standards,57 the notion of sacred standards survived and prospered following the empire’s conversion to Christianity. If the blessing of standards was a common feature of medieval warfare in the British Isles, it was a practice which also survived the Reformation, being commonly observed in the Civil War era.58 However, and although widely observed in British regiments after the Restoration, it seems to have derived a new importance in the British army during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a product of an age characterised by a ‘more conservative and militaristic nationalism [and by] a new emphasis on ceremonial display and religious seriousness’.59 Despite its renewed popularity, it was not until 1830 that a standard form of consecration was devised for colours and standards. The army’s Principal Chaplain, William Dakins,

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was acutely aware that there was no official form for the service and that ‘In some instances Colours were presented on the field, laid on a table in a marquee and consecrated by an appropriate prayer’ and that, on other occasions, ‘the Colours were taken to Church and deposited during Divine Service on the Altar’.60 Dakins’ form of consecration was made up of prayers culled from the Book of Common Prayer and two later Chaplain-Generals, George Gleig and Piers Claughton, were to issue revised forms of service in 1870 and 1876 after guidance for the service was first published in Queen’s Regulations.61 Inevitably, the explicitly religious nature of ceremonies connected with the regimental colours proved a sensitive issue in denominational terms, not least among the army’s Irish regiments, whose rank and file tended to be Catholic although they were largely officered by Protestants. In 1886, a precedent was set when the new colours of the 1st Royal Irish Regiment were consecrated by a Catholic priest62 but in 1897 the army’s Adjutant-General, Sir Evelyn Wood, was dragged into a controversy surrounding the impending consecration of the new colours of another Irish battalion. As Wood remembered, his attention had been drawn ‘to the hardship of battalions which were practically all Catholics in having their colours consecrated by Protestant clergy’. Lord Roberts, the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, ‘felt the incongruity, and asked, in the case of a West of Ireland Regiment, that the ceremony should be performed by a Roman Catholic priest. This was not thought desirable, and afterwards, indeed, the request was cancelled as the officers, who were nearly all Protestants, objected’. In an impressive feat of diplomacy, Wood resolved the matter by obtaining from the Chaplain-General a form of prayer for the consecration of colours which was acceptable to all denominations and which was even endorsed by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Wood’s Catholic connections and the pre-Reformation provenance of the prayers in question being key factors in his success.63 By 1912, the army’s religious diversity was recognised in the fact that there were three forms of prayer for the consecration of colours, ‘Form A’ being ‘for general use’ while Forms B and C were for Catholic and Presbyterian regiments respectively.64 Although, until the battle of Laing’s Nek in 1881,65 colours and standards had an obvious tactical significance as rallying points on the battlefield, their importance was not due solely to this function nor even to their status as the ultimate symbols of regimental identity. Clearly, their sacred character must also be taken into account, not least because it was an aspect to which soldiers and churchmen of the time could profitably appeal. When the new colours of the 72nd (Highland) Regiment were consecrated by the Archbishop of York and presented to the regiment by the Duke of Wellington at Windsor Castle in January 1842, the Duke addressed the 72nd in the following terms:

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You will, I am sure, always recollect the circumstances under which these colours are now given into your charge; having been consecrated by one of the highest dignitaries of the Church, in the presence of Her Majesty, who now looks down upon you, and of her royal visitor [the King of Prussia]: and I have given them into your charge, confident that at all times, under all circumstances, whether at home or abroad, and in all privations, you will rally round them, and protect them to the utmost of your power.66 Similarly, at the height of the Crimean War, and in his popular pamphlet Brave Words for Brave Soldiers and Sailors, Charles Kingsley appealed to the colours as consecrated symbols of Christ’s presence with the British soldier: [God is] the God of the soldier, the God of duty, the God of justice, the God of vengeance, the God to whom your colours were solemnly offered, and His blessing on them prayed for, when they were given to your regiment . . . I know that you would follow these colours into the mouth of the pit; that you would die twice over sooner than let them be taken. Good! but remember too, that those colours are a sign to you that Christ is with you, ready to give you courage, coolness, and right judgement, in the charge and in the death-grapple, just as much as He is with those ministering angels who will nurse and tend your wounds in the hospital at Scutari.67 The sacred nature of the colours helps to account for why so much effort was expended in preserving them from the hands of the enemy, particularly when facing heathen foes in the colonial wars of this period. This phenomenon is best illustrated by the chequered history of the colours of the 24th Regiment. The regiment lost its Queen’s colour while fighting the Sikhs as a single battalion regiment at the battle of Chillianwallah in 1849. Thirty years later, it lost the Queen’s colour of its first battalion and the Queen’s and regimental colours of its second battalion while fighting the Zulus at Isandlwana. After Chillianwallah, the Queen’s colour of the decimated 24th was accidentally buried with a private soldier who had wrapped its fabric around his body at the height of the battle.68 At Isandlwana, a celebrated but futile attempt was made to save the Queen’s colour of the first battalion by lieutenants Melvill and Coghill.69 Recognition of the sacred character of consecrated colours and standards was more directly reflected in the growing practice of depositing them in

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churches and cathedrals upon their retirement or, after 1881, when regiments were ordered overseas.70 Whereas the fate of retired colours in the eighteenth century was highly uncertain (one specimen was even discovered in the window of a London beer shop in the 1830s)71 by the mid-nineteenth century it was common practice to deposit them in churches connected with the regiment. Although there is evidence that this custom could prove a source of friction between High and evangelical Anglicans in England during the 1840s,72 it was observed even in Presbyterian Scotland, the 93rd Regiment hanging its retired colours in Glasgow Cathedral after the regiment was presented with a new stand of colours in May 1857.73 Naturally, and in conjunction with the localisation of the army’s infantry regiments, this tradition nurtured the regimental chapels which came into being in churches and cathedrals across the British Isles during the nineteenth century. However, and despite the extent of this practice, an official form of service for ‘the Laying-up of Colours and Standards in Churches’ was not devised until 1871, when George Gleig turned his fertile mind to this matter.74 Although the disposal of retired colours and standards was essentially left to the discretion of commanding officers for most of the nineteenth century (a loophole which allowed one colonel of the 19th Regiment to be buried with his regiment’s old colours)75 in 1898 the War Office formalised prevailing practice by directing that they should be deposited in churches or in other suitable public buildings.76 Gender and religion To a considerable extent, the army’s abiding reputation for moral and spiritual degeneracy was due to the fact that its rank and file was principally composed of single men who lived in barracks and who were therefore beyond the religious and civilising influences of a home environment. To understand the significance of this situation, it is vital to appreciate the central place of the home and of family life in nineteenth-century Christian thought, or what Frances Knight has preferred to describe as the ‘Victorians’ excessive adulation of domesticity’.77 Because the home was the realm in which the steadying and edifying influences of Christian womanhood came into their own, soldiers were believed to be inherently susceptible to wicked and corrupting influences because they lived beyond its protective confines. In 1845, George Gleig claimed that the grief commonly shown by rustic parents on the enlistment of their sons was due to the fact that their prodigals were exchanging the godly and wholesome environment of their cottage homes for one of utter depravity. As Gleig put it, ‘the virtuous peasant mourns . . . that his son has become a member of a society wherein, as far as it is possible to do so in this

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country, men live, or strive to live, without God in this world’.78 For John Gelson Gregson, the salutary influence of Christian family life on the ordinary soldier was reflected in the case of Robert Jones, who lived with his wife in married quarters at Agra in the early 1870s: ‘In the quarters of Robert Jones we have a model soldier’s home’, he wrote: The rooms were neatly furnished, and everything about them clean and orderly; on a little table a few books, and The Book which made him what he was; on the walls a few pictures and illustrated texts gave a home-like appearance. When Jones returned from guard, or tired from parade, he was sure of a kind welcome home and thoughtful attention to his wants. Whatever might vex him in the service, he was sure to have something to cheer him inside the walls of his own happy home.79 The dominance of this domestic ideology among the British churches during the nineteenth century may well have fostered an even greater suspicion than had existed hitherto of the army among pious civilians. For this constituency, perhaps the greatest recommendation of the post-Crimean soldiers’ homes was their role in bringing the exalted virtues of domestic life to the common soldier. Nevertheless, and despite the proliferation of soldiers’ homes throughout the empire, the regular soldier continued to live at a profound moral disadvantage. Reiterating the maxim that ‘Christianity is above all things the religion of the home’,80 Paul Bull maintained that it was positively ‘cruel’ for civilians to pass judgement on regular soldiers in the light of the blighted conditions in which they were compelled to live their lives: There is a deep pathos in barrack-room life, which claims the tenderest sympathy from those who live in the shelter of a home, with all the joy of family life around them. For the barrack-room is indeed a burning, fiery furnace of temptation for these lads. Removed from every tender influence of mother and sister and sweetheart, living a hard life which lacks the softening touch of pity, robbed of that wonderful witness to innocence which shines like a halo of glory around the head of little children, and of that education in gentleness which the presence of patient old age can give, banished from home, and surrounded by a whole population eager to minister to their vices and to live upon their ruin, it is no wonder that many a lad finds it hard to resist the temptations which are spread out before him with all the subtle cunning of the age-long experience of Satan.81

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Significantly, observers of the British army in the latter half of the nineteenth century were commonly struck by the idealised vision of pious femininity which was held by many soldiers. Alfred Laverack noted that the tracts which he distributed to soldiers bound for India in 1857 were often ‘sent back to England, enclosed to a dear sister or mother’.82 Likewise, Sarah Robinson found in the course of her barrack-room visiting that soldiers frequently identified religion with maternal influences.83 Consequently, the most popular items she distributed on such visits were ‘beautiful little illuminated cards for enclosure in letters’, letters which were generally intended for mother.84 One officer en route for Egypt in 1885 was struck by the popularity of a song which was frequently heard during concerts on board his troopship. Sung by a young bugler, the refrain ran: It’s only a leaf in my Bible, I picked from my poor mother’s grave. As this observer noted, the bugler ‘used to sing this song very frequently, as the men seemed fond of it, but I always noticed there was a certain quietness when it was over, though not from want of appreciation’.85 With reference to the huge popularity of songs about home and mother during the Boer War, Paul Bull could only conclude that: Soldiers are idealists. They see things not as they are, but as they ought to be . . . The real home may be a dirty, little, overcrowded attic in a slum, but we sing of the cottage and garden gate and dear old faces . . . The real mother is sometimes far below the ideal, a very ill-tempered, cross old party who nags at her soldier lad remorselessly when he comes home on furlough. But it doesn’t matter . . . We will see her as she ought to be, as she longs to be in her best moments, and we will sing up to our ideal.86 The manifest popularity of Queen Victoria among her soldiers was obviously closely entwined with these highly sentimentalised visions of motherhood.87 The queen’s vaunted interest in the welfare of her soldiers ensured that ‘by her prayers and sympathy [she was] enshrined in the most sacred tabernacle of her soldiers’ hearts – “sons of the widow”, as they loved to call themselves’.88 Indeed, Bull even averred that this ‘devotion to the Queen’ was ‘the ruling passion of a soldier’s heart’ and that there was ‘no limit to what he would do or suffer for her dear sake’.89 If this idealisation of the feminine evidently appealed to soldiers, it is also clear that it posed certain problems, religion being unavoidably associated

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with virtuous members of the opposite sex. Anglican chaplains were, for example, troubled by how readily Protestant soldiers who married Catholic Irishwomen converted to Catholicism at the behest of their wives. As a letter to the Church Times complained in 1898, ‘One of the battalions of the depot I am serving is now in Ireland, and I hear that large numbers of the men are going over to Rome. They are falling in love with the Irish girls and marrying secretly, but conditionally on their perversion’.90 A more ubiquitous problem was the way in which the identification of religion with virtuous femininity acted as a constraint on soldiers’ religious behaviour. The masculinisation of religion under campaigning conditions has, however, been identified as an important factor in explaining the religious revivals experienced by both the Union and the Confederate armies during the American Civil War. For many American soldiers during the Civil War, evangelical Christianity ceased to be a docile pre-war religion of the hearth and home and became a manly religion redefined for the soldier by the religious military press of the period and characterised by inspiring campfire prayer meetings and dramatic riverside baptisms.91 From the 1850s, countervailing influences may also have been brought to bear on the British soldier, particularly as the language and culture of ‘Christian manliness’ was quickly adopted beyond the Broad Church circles from which it originated.92 Even during peacetime, soldiers were constantly exposed to a diet of Christian heroes in publications such as the evangelical The Christian Sentinel. Furthermore, they were ministered to by a body of army scripture readers who were largely time-expired soldiers. The tensions involved in current gender roles are apparent in a description of one scripture reader, ex-Sergeant-Major Moss, who worked in Aldershot at the time of the Boer War.93 According to W.E. Sellers, Moss embodied both the masculine and the feminine virtues, being: A man of medium height, thick set, strength in every line of his face and figure, eyes that look kindly upon you and pierce you through and through. A strong man in every respect, and a kindly man withal. A man among men, and yet a man of almost womanly tenderness where sympathy is required . . . in every part of the British Empire there are soldier lads who look upon this ex-sergeant-major of the Army Service Corps as their spiritual father, and there is no name oftener on their lips in South Africa than his.94 By the turn of the twentieth century, the growth of the cult of ‘Christian manliness’ in the British churches was such that most army chaplains were

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acutely aware of the importance of being seen as a man’s man and, preferably, as a sportsman.95 Some took great delight in describing the uncompromisingly male religious culture which prevailed among soldiers on campaign. The Wesleyan chaplain, Owen Spencer Watkins, remembered a communion service in the Sudan in 1898, where there were ‘some twenty men kneeling on the ground in the dimly lighted hut, their uniforms torn and soiled, their gaunt faces tanned with the sun . . . At the close of the service little was said, but silently each man came forward, gripped my hand, and went out into the darkness’.96 Likewise, the Anglo-Catholic chaplain, Paul Bull, revelled in a similar recollection of rough-hewn piety when he described the voluntary evening services at which he presided on the South African veldt: Those who have grown accustomed to our English methods of worship cannot imagine how inspiring these camp-fire services were. In the centre the huge fire blazed and crackled away, fed from time to time by the churchwardens with fresh logs of wood. All round the fire officers and men sat in a large circle; and behind them others stood, rank after rank, as far as the flickering flame could light up the scene . . . Our church was entirely ‘Free,’ no rubrics, no prayer books, no choirs, nothing to fetter or disturb our devotions.97 The experience of battle If campaigning could endue religion with some novel and appealing attributes, one of the most abiding features of soldiers’ religion was its importance at times of extreme danger. Although influenced by secular philosophers as a young officer in India in the 1890s, Winston Churchill confessed that his faith was revived over subsequent years ‘by frequent contact with danger’. Significantly, he found that the impulse to pray in such circumstances wholly subverted any religious doubts he may have entertained, a situation which does not appear to have troubled him: I found that whatever I might think and argue, I did not hesitate to ask for special protection when about to come under the fire of the enemy: nor to feel sincerely grateful when I got home safe to tea . . . This practice seemed perfectly natural, and just as strong and real as the reasoning process which contradicted it so sharply. Moreover the practice was comforting and the reasoning led nowhere. I therefore acted in accordance with my feelings without troubling to square such conduct with the conclusions of thought.98

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The fact that an educated and even sceptical officer should seek comfort in prayer at times of danger says much for the perennial role of religion as a source of emotional comfort and consolation for the British soldier, the piety of most having a natural tendency to increase in proportion to the proximity of the dangers which they faced. During the siege of Lucknow, a private of the 32nd Regiment was struck by how few of his comrades shunned the voluntary services held by an Anglican chaplain within the besieged perimeter.99 In similar circumstances, Staff Sergeant Beatson found that the influence of isolation, disease and the ever-present threat of a Zulu attack had a salutary effect on his comrades during the blockade of Eshowe in 1879, ‘such was the frame of mind of several of my comrades’, he wrote ‘that they were only too pleased to see and read a portion of Holy Writ’.100 Although John Keegan noted a lack of reference to prayer among British recollections of the battle of Waterloo,101 prayer undoubtedly remained a common recourse for soldiers going into battle. Fittingly enough, it was George Gleig who left the most vivid testimony concerning the prospect of battle and its religious implications for British soldiers of the Napoleonic period. Reflecting on his own experiences as a subaltern in the latter stages of the Peninsular War, Gleig wrote: It would be difficult to convey, to the mind of an ordinary reader, anything like a correct notion of the state of feeling which takes possession of a man waiting for the commencement of a battle . . . there is a strange commingling of levity and seriousness within himself; a levity which prompts him to laugh, he scarce knows why; and a seriousness which urges him, from time to time, to lift up a mental prayer to the Throne of God . . . On the whole, it is a situation of higher excitement, and darker and deeper feeling, than any other in human life; nor can he be said to have felt all which man is capable of feeling, who has not felt it.102 Although quite common, such heightened religious awareness was at best an intermittent experience which rarely proved to be the catalyst for conversion of life. Normally, the feelings and sentiments evoked by the prospect and experience of battle were as transient as its passing dangers, and more than one soldier had cause to rue the supplications, pledges of amendment and prayers which were made to the Almighty on such occasions. As one Peninsular veteran said of his first taste of battle: [A]s soon as the enemy appeared in Sight I began with myself In this way ham I prepared to dye for this day many will be hurried

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out of time into Eternity and I perhaps may be one of them. My sins Stood in Aray before Me and put me in far greater dread than the French That stood armed with their Weapons of War. I then began to pray that the Lord would Spare me and if he would I thought I would strive to be different for the futer . . . The scene of Slaughter that day Was dreadfully Terrifick one might think enough to Soften the most obdurate heart but alas such is the Depravity of the human heart that . . . when we had Caused our Enemy to retreat and the Action had Subsided I considered myself safe and went on in my mad Carrear of Sin.103 Significantly, the senior Anglican chaplain in the Crimea, Henry Press Wright, observed that prolonged exposure to danger in the siege lines of Sebastopol served to inure soldiers to the prospect of death and thus rendered them less susceptible to the appeal of religion. In a revealing letter to the SPG in 1855, he remarked: I know some well disposed Christians at home are lovers of touching announcements of miraculous conversions and have the most unreasonable expectations as to the influence of spiritual instruction upon soldiers in the field – they imagine that men with their lives in their hands, knowing that any moment may carry them as in a whirlwind to their last account, must of necessity flock with thirsting souls to drink in the waters of life. They reason from their wishes and not from experience. They forget that soldiers before the enemy are but men and many of them so hardened that with all their peril they are dead to the loving entreaties of the voice of mercy – dangers may assail them, famine, pestilence, exposure, the sword and the battery – one and all may threaten and invite their sin-stained souls to seek the cleansing influences of a Redeemer’s love but they heed not the warning.104 As Winston Churchill recognised, the inclination to pray which many (possibly most) British soldiers felt before or during battle registered a conviction that all human affairs were ultimately guided by the hand of God. Indeed, the hand of providence was held accountable for life or death even by soldiers who were not themselves notably religious. For George Calladine of the 19th Regiment, it was providence alone which sustained him through dysentery, yellow fever and shipwreck during his five years in Ceylon.105 Similarly, a Private Macaulay of the Scots Guards, who survived both the Egyptian and the Sudanese campaigns of the 1880s, passed into the army reserve ‘giving

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God thanks for my safe deliverance, and having seen enough of the glories and horrors of war’.106 However, for many soldiers this providentialism could amount to an extreme form of fatalism. As one veteran of the 71st described an incident at Montevideo in 1807: While we lay before the town, the shells of the enemy were falling . . . A young officer ran backwards and forwards, as if he would hide himself [but] an old soldier said to him, with all the gravity of a Turk, ‘You need not hide, Sir; if there is any thing there for you, it will find you out.’ The young man looked confused, stood to his duty, and I never saw him appear uneasy again: so soon was he converted to the warrior’s doctrine.107 Likewise, at the battle of Gujerat in 1849, an officer of the 3rd Light Dragoons was tempted to duck as shot and shell poured into the ranks of his regiment. Irritated by this behaviour, its colonel, a veteran of the Peninsula and of Waterloo, admonished him with the words, ‘Captain, it is no use ducking. If there is one for you, I think you will get it’.108 If soldiers found some reassurance in this essentially secular and deterministic view of fate, their religious advisers were not slow to present it in more orthodox terms. George Gleig made divine preservation the principal theme of his Soldier’s Help to the Knowledge of Divine Truth, a book of sermons published in 1835: I have laboured to convince my military readers [he wrote] that to them, more than to all other classes of persons, a deep yet a cheerful sense of religion is necessary. For the soldier’s life hangs continually by a single hair. In peace he is liable to service in all climates, – in war, the sword of the enemy is for ever at his throat; what must that man’s feelings be, if the monitor that is within tell him, that from God he is and must be an alien. So also with reference to the retired veteran, my object has been to draw him into a sober and serious consideration of all that God has done for him, throughout a life of constant trials and dangers and difficulties.109 In a similar vein, in March 1860 the editor of the evangelical Christian Sentinel addressed himself to the soldier in hospital, describing the proverb ‘Every bullet has its billet’ as ‘A good and truthful old saying, bringing to mind that every circumstance affecting us is controlled by an Almighty and ever-watchful Providence’. This point was pursued with a pointed question, ‘Well Friend,

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what has stretched you on your cot? A wound? Aye, that bullet found its billet in you. It did not come accidentally. It was fired at a venture, but a gracious God directed it to your body. Why? To make you think, – to make you consider’.110 Clearly, pious soldiers needed no reminding of this fact. George Billanie wrote of the battle of Alkmaar, a battle during which he survived an enemy fusillade while trying to climb a sand-hill, ‘I no doubt had many hair-breadth escapes during the action, of which I was insensible; but [this] appeared to me as a wonderful mercy of Providence, and I looked upon it, as laying me under an additional obligation to devote my whole life to the service of God’.111 Likewise, upon his arrival in Cork following his discharge after being evacuated from Corunna in 1809, James Field remembered that: I came off the coach at three o’clock in the morning, went to the chapel in Patrick street, laid down my knapsack and sword, kneeled on the flags outside the iron gate, and heartily praised the God of all grace for all His mercies to me: for protecting me in storms and dangers by sea, and in all the battles and sieges, without having ever lost a drop of blood, or been taken prisoner; and for having brought me out of the army with a character honourable to religion, and creditable to myself.112 Although Roman Catholics were equally free with this discourse (Captain Peter Jennings acknowledging ‘the favour and protecting providence of the Almighty’ throughout his military career)113 they were also liable to ascribe any safe deliverance to the intercession of the saints. Of the battle of Inkerman in 1854, a Sergeant O’Connor of the 77th Regiment wrote to a brother in Galway, ‘These, my dear brother, were awful moments. I knew not the moment I should fall, probably never to rise; but God protected me, and the guardianship of his Holy Mother shielded me in these trying dangers’.114 This belief in divine intervention was common currency among officers and chaplains as well. Colonel Blake of the 33rd Regiment was in tears when he recounted to Henry Press Wright ‘God’s merciful care of him’ during the battle of the Alma.115 Significantly, Wright himself was impressed by the deaths in rapid succession of three officers in the months following the battle, ‘What a lesson it is to the survivor – four gathered together in the tent at [the] Alma, and I spared! Surely it says to me, “Prepare to meet thy God”’.116 The providential care of the Almighty could express itself in singular ways, and one phenomenon which appears to have arisen towards the end of the nineteenth century was a widespread belief in the protective efficacy of sacred literature. Generally absent in earlier years, it seems likely that this belief was

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stimulated by changes in British uniform styles, the introduction of exterior pockets on soldiers’ tunics encouraging them to carry small Bibles, Testaments and prayer books in their breast pockets. Although one officer claimed to have been saved by a prayer book which had been left in a greatcoat pocket and slung in a roll over his shoulder at the battle of the Alma,117 by the latenineteenth century these stories had become quite common. In her memoirs published in 1888, Miss Herdman observed that in many barrack rooms: Tales are told of marvellous escapes from death on a battlefield. A pocket New Testament received the bullet intended for its owner’s heart. The verse pierced by the shot proved to be the means of the soldier’s conversion. It is not blind fate that rules, but the Lord reigneth, and He covereth the head in the day of battle [Ps. 140: 7].118 However, soldiers’ reactions to such wonders were not always so exalted, and Bibles which had proved their worth as preservatives seem to have been saleable commodities. In April 1900, an article in Cassell’s Saturday Journal noted how one Bible which had stopped a Mahdist bullet at Omdurman had since been sold to a soldier en route for South Africa, the purchaser also taking a pristine copy of the Good Book with him in order ‘to make doubly sure’.119 In South Africa itself, tales of miraculous Bibles were commonplace and one Presbyterian chaplain recalled being shown battle-scarred Bibles by convalescents in military hospitals at Cape Town: ‘Many of them showed me curios from the battlefield, which they were taking home; and once or twice I saw bullet-pierced Bibles which had saved the lives of their owners, and were thus thrice sacred, and kept religiously by them under their pillows’.120 Significantly, the protective power of the sacred may even have extended to individuals, Henry Conran declaring at the time of the Indian Mutiny that many soldiers felt happier at a dangerous post when in the company of a pious comrade.121 There were, of course, a number of heterodox beliefs associated with life and death in battle. Among Highlanders, the notion of being ‘fey’ (or doomed) survived and even flourished. William Forbes-Mitchell of the 93rd remembered the case of a newly arrived soldier named Hope who was killed at Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny. Just before the regiment’s assault on a rebel redoubt, Hope commenced swearing in such a wild manner that an officer rebuked him and was about to order him to the rear. However, ‘PipeMajor John McLeod, who was close to the captain, said: “Don’t mind the puir lad, sir; he’s not drunk, he is fey! It’s not himself that’s speaking; he will never see the sun set”’. A few minutes later, Hope was disembowelled

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by an enemy bullet whereupon McLeod turned and said to the officer in question, ‘“I told you so, sir. The lad was fey! I am never deceived in a fey man! It was not himself who spoke when swearing in yon terrible manner”’.122 In 1880, during the Second Afghan War, a soldier of the 92nd had a presentiment of death in a dream in which he had seen a bullet strike him in the forehead. Despite his sergeant’s reassurances, the soldier in question was shot through the forehead in the closing stages of the battle of Kandahar.123 Again, some years later in the Sudan, John Gordon of the 1st Gordon Highlanders noted three other cases of presentiment. Prior to the battle of Tamai in 1884, ‘Two of our men, John Miller and John Cains, strong, brave, for some reason or other could not eat a morsel; they remarked that they could not understand why they had no appetite. Both these men were buried that day just after sunset, and all the soldiers believed it to be fulfilment of a presentiment’.124 Significantly, in 1885 and just before the battle of Kirbekan, Gordon overheard Colonel Coveny of the 1st Black Watch express his misgivings about the coming engagement: I heard Colonel Coveny while he was dressing that morning, talking with another officer, say ‘I feel well enough, but I don’t seem to have any fighting spirit;’ he intimated that he thought something was going to happen to him, [that] he was haunted by ‘a vague presentiment of impending doom.’ True to form, Coveny was mortally wounded later that day.125 Premonitions of death were not the preserve of Highlanders, however, and they in fact appear to have been relatively commonplace occurrences. Edward Costello of the 95th Rifles recalled that a soldier named Brooks had a recurrent dream of a headless soldier during the siege of Badajoz in 1812. Eventually, Brooks was decapitated by a cannon ball, his dream having ‘singularly augured the conclusion of his own career’.126 Moreover, a belief in ghosts also appears to have been widespread, a belief which was probably fuelled by the fact that ghosts were commonly regarded as harbingers of misfortune.127 Several stories were cited by Napoleonic veterans concerning the terror which such apparitions could inspire among their fellow soldiers. Joseph Mayett recalled one incident at Purfleet in 1805, when a young militiaman was called upon to stand sentry one stormy night at a place which was reputed to be haunted: [H]e offered a shilling to any one who would Stand two hours for him but it being so wet nobody would go for him [T]he Corporal was aswearing because he Could not get the Releif out

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for the poor man would not go out of the guard Room but stood Crying and begging and praying for some one to go for him. I had ended my game at cards so I got up and swore if he would give me a Shilling I would Stand for him if the Devil Came which he gave me so I took my arms and off I went.128 On campaign, however, and given the dangers which soldiers routinely faced, such apparitions could be even more unsettling and Costello recounted in great detail the distress experienced by an Irishman named Crawley who had seen the ghost of a Portuguese rifleman. In Costello’s words, Crawley was ‘like a distracted man’ and called for salt water, this being ‘according to a vulgar superstition in Ireland . . . absolutely necessary to be drunk by those who may have seen a phantom before seeing a light, as a neglect of the precaution was sure to be followed by an evil influence’.129 According to George Gleig, such was the strength and currency of ‘superstitious terror’ of this kind that it even occasioned desertions to the French in the Pyrenees, soldiers preferring this desperate course of action to enduring sentry duty in rocky ground littered with unburied corpses. Knowing that they could not return without being relieved, ‘they went over to the enemy rather than endure the misery of a diseased imagination’.130 This fear of ghosts seems to have played upon the minds of soldiers until well into the nineteenth century. Rumours of a ghostly convict at a post named ‘Devil’s Corner’ did much to unsettle sentries of the 32nd Regiment at Portsmouth in 1842, Robert Waterfield noting that some deserted their posts and that others were discovered there ‘senseless . . . through fear’.131 Besides providence and premonitions, a concurrent belief in luck was also widespread among soldiers. Naturally, given the sovereignty of providence in their view of the world, religious soldiers were apt to disdain such discourse. George Billanie, for example, was deeply troubled by the conversation of his comrades in Holland in 1799: ‘We began now to say that we were a lucky regiment; various expressions were used by the soldiers, when speaking of our good luck (as it was called,) some of them very foolish, which I do not mention’. Along with such talk it was also cheerfully asserted by the men of his regiment ‘that there were too many old women in Scotland, praying for their children and friends, to allow us to be exposed to great danger’.132 Similarly, James Coley was shocked by the small attendance at a thanksgiving service which was held following the victory at Ferozeshah in 1845: The attendance was surprisingly small – shamefully small. Perhaps many of these, who were absent, think that such Service is humbug, or waste of time, or that our cause is not good, or that the

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Almighty has nothing to do with such affairs, that it is all luck etc. What will they think in the day of judgement? What reason will they then render for their absence from this Service?133 Nevertheless, and despite such disapproval, talk of luck was prone to surface even among otherwise pious and god-fearing men. Although a devout Anglican who was to write movingly on the subject of God’s providential care of him, Colonel Charles Windham wrote of the death of a fellow officer at Sebastopol: ‘July 7th [1855] – Major Harrison, of the 63rd, was killed by a round shot in marching with the relief to the trenches, or rather in riding down, for he was mounted. Hard luck this, considering that the day was so thick that it must have been a chance shot. Such is fate’.134 While Irish Catholics may have always been disposed to wear religious medals and to carry devotional artefacts as their forebears had done in the Irish Confederate armies of the seventeenth century,135 there is very little evidence to indicate that their Protestant comrades showed much interest in religious or in secular talismans before the latter years of the nineteenth century. Although tunic buttons and horses’ teeth were reputedly used as good-luck charms by infantrymen and cavalrymen in the years prior to the First World War,136 an article in Cassell’s Saturday Journal of April 1900 made no mention of this practice in its survey of soldiers’ talismans. Entitled ‘Charms Carried by British Soldiers. To Bring “Luck” While at the Front’, the article stressed that ‘Numbers of men, even among the Volunteers, do not depart for the front without a charm of some kind’. A small number of these lucky charms appear to have been artefacts which had already proved their worth and which had been given (or even sold) to soldiers departing for South Africa. Among these was an officer’s wallet ‘which an ancestor bore through the Peninsular War’ and ‘a bent and battered penny, which had actually been struck twice by a bullet’ and which had been sold to a soldier of the Manchester Regiment by a time-expired soldier for five shillings. Others, particularly those carried by Irish soldiers, appear to have had a more traditional derivation – among these being a piece of turf ‘cut from a fairy circle’ and a piece of oak connected with the life of St Patrick. However, by far the most common type of charm were ‘the charms in which jewellers deal’ and which had been given ‘as tokens of love, friendship, or patriotic ardour’. Indeed, in one instance, a lady had gone into a ‘provincial jeweller’s shop and completely emptied it of “lucky” trinkets, purchasing every one in stock and paying for the whole lot before leaving. Subsequently she distributed them among those who volunteered for service in South Africa’.137 The clear demand for talismans during the Boer War was clearly of relatively recent origin. Edward Lovett, a noted folklorist in late-nineteenth- and

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early-twentieth-century London, believed that the use of personal charms (or mascots as they were increasingly known) was popularised during the later decades of the nineteenth century, largely as a result of a popular comic opera, La Mascotte.138 If mass-produced charms were common in the late Victorian era, evidence of Protestant soldiers in the British army making use of talismans of any kind before this period is very slight, a fact which has also been noted by James McPherson in relation to Protestant soldiers of the American Civil War.139 Nevertheless, an allusion to the use of charms occurred in the Christian Sentinel of October 1860, the magazine equating this practice with belief in sorcery, witchcraft and curses and condemning it as ‘a humiliating, as well as disgraceful, exhibition of the darkness of the natural mind, and the depravity of the natural heart’. However, in the context of this condemnation, no specific reference was made to soldiers using or believing in such charms.140 Rather ironically, a rare example of the use of a talisman at around this time comes from the ranks of the godly 93rd Regiment. In his memoirs, William Forbes-Mitchell remembered having been given a charmed ring by a captured rebel, one Mahomed Ali Khân, whom he had befriended during the Indian Mutiny: I accepted the ring, which he placed on my finger with a blessing and a prayer for my preservation, and he told me to look on it and remember Mahomed Khân when I was in front of the fortifications of Lucknow, and no evil would befall me . . . on the 11th of March, in the assault on the Begum’s Kothee, I remembered Mahomed Ali Khân and looked on the ring. I am thankful to say that I went through the rest of the campaign without a scratch, and the thoughts of my kindness to this unfortunate man certainly did not inspire me with any desire to shirk danger. I still have the ring, the only piece of Mutiny plunder I ever possessed, and shall hand it down to my children together with the history of Mahomed Ali Khân.141 Comradeship Despite the vaunted camaraderie of regimental life, soldiers devoted a good deal of time to the cultivation of their own clubs and societies, a fact which was reflected in the growing strength of Freemasonry and other fraternal organisations in the army during the nineteenth century.142 The evangelical religious societies which abounded in the army between the 1740s and the midVictorian era were no doubt partly symptomatic of this wider tendency among soldiers to seek out a more intense and supportive form of comradeship.

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Although these societies waned with the changing religious dynamics of the army following the Crimean War, pious soldiers continued to join other religious organisations in the late-Victorian period. Besides temperance organisations such as the International Order of the Good Templars (an evangelical, quasi-Masonic organisation which was active in England from the 1870s),143 evangelical soldiers gravitated towards the Soldiers’ Scripture Union and the SCA. Likewise, Salvationists were drawn to the Naval and Military League, Anglicans to the Guild of the Holy Standard and to the Church of England Men’s Society and, finally, Roman Catholics to the Confraternity for Catholic Soldiers. Indeed, in a biography of Private J.H. Cox, a reservist who was killed near Ypres in October 1914, it was noted that Cox, who had been converted in one of Miss Sandes’ homes in 1902, had been a supporter of the RATA and a broad range of Protestant organisations for soldiers. Not only had Cox sought out soldiers’ homes and YMCA rooms while serving with the colours, but he had also been a Good Templar, a member of the Guild of the Holy Standard and a stalwart of the SCA.144 The importance of these organisations and their activities also reflected the fact that inactivity and boredom continued to render soldiers susceptible to religion. Certainly, hospitalisation, confinement in military prisons and long sea voyages were regarded by many chaplains as great opportunities for religion, religion providing the individual soldier with matter for reflection and (in the case of services and meetings) with much-needed recreation.145 Significantly, even active service could provide opportunities of this kind for, as Paul Bull once observed, ‘War is not all blue murder. It is largely brown monotony’.146 If religion fortified the soldier for action, provided a closer form of comradeship and relieved him of his boredom, then it also served to give him some dignity in death, especially while on campaign. Although a common style for the public interment of great generals had already evolved by the early-nineteenth century,147 it was the lot of very few soldiers of the Napoleonic period to be interred to the accompaniment of muffled drums and reversed muskets. In fact, during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the casual treatment of the dead following a major battle was the cause of great distress to pious soldiers, the scale of mortality and a lack of chaplains often meaning that the dead were interred without any semblance of a Christian burial. James Field found this to be one of the most disturbing aspects of soldiering. In a letter written in the wake of the terrible retreat to Corunna, Field noted that corpses were ‘thrown into a sort of grave, dug in the most convenient place, with oaths, imprecations, and mockeries for their burial-service’.148 This testimony was borne out by George Gleig, who confirmed that:

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[A]s to reading the burial service over the dead, that, during the wars of the French Revolution, was a thing unheard of. Into huge pits dug to receive them the slain in battle were cast, as manure is cast into a trench . . . Even the officers, though interred apart, had no prayers read beside their graves, for this, among other reasons, that the chaplains of the army were so very few in number, and of these few, not one, so far as I know, cared to make more than a convenience of the service.149 However, the early-nineteenth century did see some ‘subtle changes in attitudes towards death itself’,150 the desire for a decent burial among all social classes stemming from factors as diverse as a greater religious emphasis on the resurrection of the body, the emotional and aesthetic imperatives of the Romantic movement and the threat of dissection for those buried on the parish under the terms of the Dissection Act of 1832.151 As Theodore Hoppen has pointed out, high mortality rates, particularly among children, did not drive the mid-Victorian generation into a ‘casual callousness’ regarding death and what was true of civilian life at this time was true of military life as well. In an army of long-service soldiers, who served their terms of enlistment in the quasi-familial environment of their regiments, the indignities which used to be inflicted on their dead comrades seem to have become increasingly intolerable to British soldiers of the time. As early as 1845, James Coley noted the premium which soldiers had come to place on a Christian burial, acidly observing that: I have always been struck by the great importance which soldiers attach to the rite of burial – an importance almost superstitious. It is the more remarkable on account of the less importance which they generally attach to other ordinances and to the essential parts of religion; and also because heathen soldiers, from whom the majority of so-called Christian soldiers differ so little, used to pride themselves upon looking forward with magnanimity to the abandonment and exposure of their bodies after death.152 Despite Coley’s vitriol, the respect shown by soldiers to their dead comrades impressed Henry Press Wright in the Crimea, who observed of a roadside burial service which he conducted at Balaclava: The British soldier is a very feeling man, and on such an occasion he feels very deeply as he stands by the grave of a lost comrade; the chaplain, and the words so often heard in good old

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England, call to his mind scenes far away, and the thought comes across him, ‘What a sad thing! How his poor father and mother will grieve when they hear that he died in this out-of-the-way place!’ I well recollect there was a solemn thoughtful look on many who gathered about me.153 Undoubtedly, the common failure to give the dead a Christian burial was a controversial feature of the early stages of the Crimean War, Wright feeling obliged to describe the interment of an officer of the 77th Regiment at some length in his memoirs of the Crimea in order to refute a newspaper allegation that his body had been ‘thrown into a ditch like that of a dog’.154 The horror of such an ending was emphasised to Arthur Male in Afghanistan a quarter of a century later, Male being told ‘in plain, blunt words’ by one old soldier, ‘We like to know that we’ve got a parson with us in the field . . . we don’t like [it] when we get knocked over, to be buried away in a hole, like a dog, without a prayer’.155 In view of the horrific fate which commonly befell the bodies of British soldiers killed during the Zulu War (their corpses being repeatedly stabbed, disembowelled and mutilated in order to make Zulu war medicines)156 Evelyn Wood was prepared to go to extreme lengths in order to ensure the burial of two officers during the battle of Hlobane in March 1879. On this occasion, Wood sent his bugler to retrieve a Book of Common Prayer from the saddle of a dead horse so that he could read the burial service over their graves, regardless of enemy fire.157 In fact, two months later a major expedition was launched into Zululand in order to bury the remains of those who had died at the battle of Isandlwana the previous January, J.W. Colenso, the former Bishop of Natal, having threatened to perform the duty himself if the army shirked its responsibility.158 Conversely, the apparent willingness of fellow Christians to co-operate in the burial of their dead during the Transvaal War of 1880–1 and the Boer War of 1899–1902 served to ameliorate the bitterness of these conflicts. Paul Bull wrote of a burial service which he conducted outside Pretoria in 1900: ‘around the grave, sharing one another’s hymn books in perfect harmony of prayer, Boers and Britons mingled in profoundest reverence to pray . . . And the beauty of that moment was made more intense by the solemn hope it suggested of an abiding peace’.159 Overseas service and other religions With the exception of the 1798 rebellion in Ireland, all of the British army’s campaigns between 1793 and 1914 were fought overseas. Consequently, the defence of the British empire meant many years of foreign service for hundreds

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of thousands of British soldiers. This encounter with the wider world had a profound impact on the army, affecting its tactics, its organisation and even its vocabulary. However, this encounter also had a religious dimension as British soldiers in general (and perhaps religious soldiers in particular) reacted to new environments and to the different beliefs of Christian and non-Christian peoples. Although the reactions aroused by wayside calvaries among British soldiers on the Western Front during the First World War are well known, their predecessors were not oblivious to the religious significance of the landscapes which they encountered. A notable precursor of the myth of the providential immunity of these calvaries was the story which arose around the crucifix which stood in the chapel of Hougoumont, a chateau which was the scene of exceptionally fierce fighting during the battle of Waterloo. As Edward Cotton, a veteran of the 7th Hussars put it, ‘Many of the wounded who were in the buildings perished in the flames; those in the chapel escaped, as the flames did not extend far beyond the entrance; and it is a remarkable fact, that they ceased at the feet of the wooden image of our Saviour’.160 Similarly, if some British soldiers in Palestine in 1917–18 were acutely conscious of the sacred history of the landscape in which they campaigned, the same was true of encounters with Egypt and the Holy Land in the 1800s. For George Billanie, who served in Egypt in 1801, his regiment’s arrival in Aboukir Bay provoked more theological consternation than fear of the enemy. Because the British fleet had arrived amid squalls of rain ‘some who were of a deistical turn began to insinuate that the Bible had not given a correct account of Egypt; and the apparent contradiction made some of us rather at a loss to reconcile it’. However, such objections melted away during six months of campaigning, by which time: All agreed that the scripture account of Egypt was as true as general expressions could describe it; so that this, like many other infidel objections, was founded on an apparent, not a real contradiction. The universal remark upon the country was, that they believed a remnant of the plagues of Moses still existed in it.161 In fact, Billanie came to be fascinated by the Egyptian landscape, a fascination which even compensated for the hardships of the campaign. Of some ruins near Aboukir he remarked: I saw in these ruins the fulfilments of Jehovah’s threatenings, and an evidence of the truth of the Scriptures . . . These reflections gave an unusual degree of interest to our operations. We were

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now upon Scripture ground: we had come from a distant island of the sea, to the land of the proud Pharaohs, to carry on our military operations, where Nebuchadnezzar, and Alexander the Great, had carried on theirs. The event was singular and striking: and our situation novel and interesting.162 This perspective was shared by Methodist soldiers in Egypt eighty years later, one Wesleyan Bible Class among soldiers in Cairo in 1883 devoting its meetings to discovering ‘all the Scriptures contain in relation to Egypt’, an exercise which its founder, the Wesleyan acting chaplain Joseph Webster, deemed ‘both instructive and profitable’.163 The most famous product of this kind of reflection was, however, the popularisation of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, a site identified as the tomb of Christ by Charles Gordon during his visit to the city in 1883. Possessed of a personal theology and cosmology which would have made most orthodox churchmen blanche,164 Gordon brought his personal and highly mystical understanding of scripture to bear on the question of the site of Christ’s tomb, concluding from the skull-like shape of a hillock (and his oracular reading of Lev. 1: 11) that the actual site of the Holy Sepulchre lay to the north rather than to the west of Temple Mount.165 However, other arid landscapes could also have a biblical resonance. In 1816, the Baptist soldiers of the 66th Regiment in northern India noted how scripture now seemed more real to them: We receive [communion] in the open air, with the heavens for a canopy, and surrounded on all sides with a waste, howling wilderness. Thus administered, it has a peculiarly solemn tendency . . . Yes; Jesus is to us as the Prophet expresses it – ‘A hidingplace from the wind, and a covert from the tempest: as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land’.166 Similarly, Paul Bull claimed that the hardships of campaigning on the South African veldt rendered the imagery and message of the Bible far more meaningful to those who experienced them: Few people can realise how the whole Bible burns with a new vivid light in time of war and in tropical lands . . . in the land of dust storms and burning sun, the ‘rock’ with its covert from the storm, and its shadows in the heat, and its protection from the fiery darts of the enemy, meant to us what it meant to the Israelites

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of old, and what it can never quite mean to those who dwell in the shelter of a house and in the profound security of peace. So, too, the Cross of Christ with its blood and wounds, the dying of the Son of God for us . . . burnt its lessons deep into our hearts.167 The Christian, and often more narrowly Protestant, identity of most British soldiers also affected their response to foreign peoples. The longest campaign in which the British army was engaged over this period was the Peninsular War of 1808–14, an adverse reaction to the Catholicism of the Spanish and Portuguese being a common and conspicuous motif in British memoirs of the Peninsular War. Of course, and as Joseph Moyle Sherer noted, such a reaction was partly dictated by the fact that the English in particular did not travel well. If local food was despised and even dismissed as unchristian,168 the brutality of the Spanish war effort proved profoundly shocking to Christian sensitivities.169 In the eyes of Protestant Britons, much of the negative character of the Spanish and Portuguese could be attributed to their inherently cruel, ignorant and superstitious religion. Lieutenant William Swabey, for example, had no qualms about protesting to the gatekeeper of a Spanish convent about ‘the cruelty of immuring unfortunate youth in these diabolical cells’.170 Similarly, James Field’s reaction upon seeing the coastline of Spain in 1808 was one of deep aversion, ‘[I] thought with longing of the islands favoured with the glorious Gospel as I looked on a benighted land, where neither preaching or believing is tolerated except as man directs’.171 Clearly, the reciprocal hostility of the Spanish hardly helped matters. William Green remembered being told by a Spanish cleric, ‘You are an heretic; all heretics will go to hell when they die’, language which Green thought ‘very insulting, especially as we were there for the purpose of driving the enemy out’.172 However, this adverse reaction towards Iberian Catholicism was at odds with official prescription, the army’s commanders following the established wisdom of respecting the religious sensibilities of Britain’s Catholic allies. In Portugal, this extended to the Duke of Wellington banning the flaunting of Masonic regalia, Freemasonry being proscribed under Portuguese law.173 More widely felt were Wellington’s prescriptions regarding native religious practices. Prior to the disembarkation of the first British troops in Portugal in 1808, the future Duke of Wellington reassured his Portuguese allies that the British were fighting for Portugal’s king, independence and ‘holy religion’. Moreover, in a general order for his troops a code of behaviour was laid down which was to be followed throughout the course of the Peninsular War:

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It is almost essential to the success of the army that the religious prejudices and opinions of the people of the country should be respected, and with this view the Lieutenant-General desires the following rules may be observed: 1st. No officer or soldier of the army is to go to any place of religious worship, during the performance of Divine service in such places, excepting with the permission of the officer commanding his regiment, and the General officer commanding the brigade to which he belongs. 2nd. When an officer or soldier shall visit a church, or any other place of religious worship, from motives of curiosity, at periods when Divine service is not performed, he is to remain uncovered while in the church. 3rd. When the Host passes in the streets, officers and soldiers, not on duty, are to halt and front it; the officers to pull off their hats, and the soldiers to put their hands to their caps. When it shall pass a guard, the guard will turn out and present arms; when a sentry, the sentry must present arms.174 According to William Grattan, this order was ‘strictly enforced’ by Wellington who, while commanding in the Peninsula, personally observed the spirit and the letter of his injunctions by attending a Te Deum in Salamanca Cathedral in 1812 and by hanging or flogging soldiers who plundered churches.175 Although Spanish and Portuguese churches were often appropriated as billets (sometimes with bizarre and even devastating consequences)176 such was the insistence placed on respecting local practices that Grattan even remembered calling out the guard for a drunken Portuguese priest who was visiting the sick with the Blessed Sacrament, the clergyman nearly falling from his horse on top of the men ‘arrayed to pay him due honour’.177 One Peninsular chaplain, James Wilmot Ormsby, rationalised these strictures in the following terms: To avoid giving offence to such sore superstition as is here prevalent, I generally salute even the most ridiculous [statue], and should advise every Englishman, who resides in Lisbon, to do the same. Compliance with the customs of the countries we visit, is to a certain degree commendable; that is, when it can be done with a safe conscience; and in this instance I feel innocent of idolatry, a crime of which there are not wanting those with whom I may, by this acknowledgement, incur the imputation.178

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Ormsby was correct in perceiving a certain hostility towards pragmatic gestures of this kind. In fact, the militant anti-Catholicism of contemporary evangelicals and the growth of evangelicalism among the officer corps meant that a confrontation over gestures such as these was more or less inevitable, particularly as they became established norms for British garrisons in Malta and the Ionian Islands. Although these courtesies were paid to Catholic and Orthodox ceremonies alike, the inevitable duly occurred in Catholic Malta in the spring of 1824, when Lieutenant George Dawson and Captain Thomas Atchison of the Royal Artillery were court-martialled and dismissed the service for refusing to fire a salute or to toll the bell of the Castle St Angelo during a procession on the feast of St Lorenzo.179 Significantly, there was at this time a strong and well-organised Wesleyan society among the men of the Royal Artillery stationed on Malta, Dawson himself being noted as a society functionary by a visiting Wesleyan minister in December 1823.180 If Atchison (who does not appear to have been a Methodist) denied any conspiracy with Dawson, he certainly shared Dawson’s reservations about marks of respect due to popish practices, claiming that he had earlier aired his feelings to a senior officer whose orders he had disobeyed on the occasion in question.181 Although both Atchison and Dawson appealed to Protestant sensitivities and, more importantly, to the Judge Advocate in London, the military authorities on Malta stood firm and the earlier verdicts against them were upheld at a retrial in July 1824.182 The case of Atchison and Dawson clearly represented a sharp conflict between imperial policy and military discipline on the one hand and Protestantism and conscience on the other. In the event, Protestantism and conscience were the clear losers, the conduct of both officers being deemed ‘highly subversive of military discipline, and holding forth a most dangerous example to the British army’.183 Although Atchison continued to plead his case in the public arena for the next few years184 (even winning the support of Daniel O’Connell for his stand on the grounds of religious liberty)185 military conventions held firm. In 1837, and notwithstanding his evangelical connections and personal antipathy towards Catholicism, the Commanderin-Chief, Lord Rowland Hill, issued a general order to commanding officers in the Mediterranean, Mauritius and Canada. In it, the custom of paying ‘military honours to religious processions in Catholic countries’ was upheld and a firm endorsement was given to ‘that respectful consideration with which the British army has ever been enjoined to regard the religious feelings, habits, and even prejudices of every foreign country in which it has been required to serve’.186 Of course, in Asia and Africa it was Christianity itself which helped to set British soldiers apart from most of the indigenous population. Indeed, and

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as Linda Colley has shown with regard to British deserters and turncoats in late-eighteenth-century Mysore, conversion to another religion (in this case, Islam) was very much the ultimate step of the military renegade.187 However, such apostates were in a small minority for, as V.G. Kiernan has observed of European colonial attitudes in the nineteenth century, ‘In general Christianity was closely woven into the fabric of European ascendancy. It was the creed of the white man, of the conqueror, and doctrines of Election led easily towards a philosophy of chosen nations or a chosen race’.188 Despite the existence of a delinquent and fugitive minority, the attitudes of British soldiers in pre-Mutiny India largely reflected this outlook. John Ryder of the 32nd Regiment believed that there were many related factors at work in the successful outcome of the Second Sikh War. Of the defeated Sikh warriors, Ryder observed: We seemed like children by the side of them. They were wellmade, and bold-looking, and I wonder how such boys as we were beat them; but it was through having a good heart, steadiness in the field under a heavy fire, and a determined spirit, and the will of the Christian’s God.189 David Haslock, a veteran of the 41st Regiment, expressed the same multifaceted sense of superiority when he wrote of India and the East: Their are some Magnificent Temples called Pagodas . . . they are dedicated to pagan Worship, but the Natives will not allow a European to go into any of them unless we will pull our shoes off our feet, this we never condescend to do, thinking that to be beneath the British soldier allso it would appear that we were countenancing and doing Reverance to their idol worship wich is contrary to Christianity.190 Likewise, Robert Waterfield of the 32nd flatly refused to take off his shoes when visiting a mosque in Delhi in 1848, averring that ‘I never was in a house of worship of a creed so opposed to our own’.191 One of Waterfield’s contemporaries, N.W. Bancroft, remembered that this contempt for native religion was not merely passive. While in camp at Ferozepore in the midst of a terrific storm on New Year’s Day 1843, one Scottish gunner of the Bengal Artillery stubbornly struck the gong outside his troop’s guard-tent for a whole hour between 12 am and 1 am. When asked why he maintained this effort, he replied that he was ringing the old year out and the New Year in as it was done at home ‘blow high, blow low’, insisting that it was particularly important

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to do this in a ‘haythen place like this, whaur we have Sheeva, an’ Deeva, an’ Mamet, an sic trash!’192 Alien religious practices certainly featured prominently among the unfamiliar spectacles which greeted soldiers on arrival in India. In 1755, James Wood, an officer of the Royal Artillery, expressed his revulsion at the sight of Parsee corpses being devoured by birds on Malabar Hill in Bombay and also his surprise at the ‘many absurdities’ of Hindu practices.193 A century later, one of the first sights to greet John Pearman on arrival in India was that of decomposing corpses floating in the sacred waters of the Ganges.194 By this time, however, a longstanding contempt for native religious practices was acquiring more ominous overtones. Of the Hindu festival of Churrukpûja, during which devotees swung from a cross bar suspended by hooks passed through the flesh of their legs, one Queen’s officer wrote in 1838: [I]t is disgraceful for a nation pretending to civilization to tolerate such a practice. If Government considered it a duty which they owed to humanity to suppress the Suttî, it is equally incumbent on them to forbid the Churruk-pûja; for here is a practice senseless in itself, and beastly to behold, celebrated yearly, and publicly notified in the almanack . . . From the careless levity of the spectators, and the degraded condition of the actors, I incline to the belief, that there is no longer, even amongst themselves, any religious merit attached to the performance of the ceremony, and that it has no object at present beyond the extracting [of] money from the pockets of wealthy savages, to enable a few of the most brutalized of the human race, the very dregs of the population of India, to exist in idleness for eleven months of the year. The Churruk-pûja is the harvest of the lazy and filthy fûkir.195 Later that year, and once again in the normally sober pages of the United Service Journal, an officer of a sepoy regiment exposed a Muslim sect whose followers pierced themselves with ‘all sorts of nasty instruments’, drank poison and ate glass. Concluding his description of this ‘Extraordinary Sect of Fanatics in India’ (who performed all these feats with apparent immunity) this anonymous officer wrote: I have now told you what I have seen, and yet I will not ask you to believe it, for I know not myself what to think. There are many persons of very strong minds in other respects who firmly believe, and who do not hesitate to declare their belief, that, although driven out of Christendom, demonology, witchcraft,

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necromancy, and the entire list of black and forbidden arts and powers, are abroad and in full existence in India.196 With the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny (whose origins, history and alignments gave the conflict the character of a religious war)197 this smouldering contempt for native religions was transformed into an explosive hatred of Islam and Hinduism alike. Even the militantly evangelical Henry Havelock felt moved to rebuke his troops for outrages perpetrated in the wake of the recapture of Cawnpore, the scene of one of the most notorious rebel atrocities against British civilians. After disciplining two officers for desecrating a Hindu temple, the news of a Highlander spitting into the face of a Hindu statue in the midst of the city’s bazaar prompted the following order: It having been reported to the General that a soldier while on sentry offered an insult to some object of idolatrous worship in the town of Cawnpore, the troops are warned to abstain from such practices in the case either of Hindoo temples or Mahommedan mosques. The brutal villainy of the population of this place has been evinced by their having reduced to ashes and otherwise desecrated three Christian churches during the brief licence which supervened on the usurpation of Nana Sahib, happily cut short by our victory at Cawnpore. But we must not imitate these wretches. It has always been the wise policy of the British Government to refrain from interference with the superstitions and false religions of the land, and recent provocations and atrocities must not lead us to depart from this line of conduct . . . The assertion that Enfield rifle cartridges were given to the native troops with a view of compelling them to violate by their use the rule of caste, is the lying pretext of deliberate mutiny. But real cause of jealousy and alarm is afforded to the inhabitants of towns and villages, whenever their idols and their temples (however degraded and vile in themselves) are subjected to wanton insult and outrage.198 Despite the wisdom of convention, James Hope Grant, who commanded a column in Oudh in 1858, committed a very deliberate act of sacrilege in the temple dedicated to the monkey god Hanuman at Ayodhya. As Garnet Wolseley recalled: Hope Grant insisted upon the lazy priests who crowded the place opening the temple where was the sacred image of this deity.

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They shilly-shallied until at last they opened the door, and, to the horror of the bystanders, we entered. In the middle was a block of heavy black wood [which] was supposed to represent the head and body of a monkey . . . It was clothed in a garment of some rich stuff, and was decked with jewels . . . [Hope Grant] kicked it over, to the horror of the dirty fat priests about, who had worshipped, or pretended to worship, it since they were boys.199 Although these were individual and unlicensed manifestations of religious hatred, when the military authorities sanctioned such behaviour, systematic attacks on the religious sensibilities of the native population could be ruthless in the extreme. Less restrained than Havelock, Brigadier-General James Neill, a devout Company officer who had become Havelock’s second-incommand at Cawnpore, ordered that captured rebels should lick clean gore-spattered portions of the ‘House of the Ladies’ (where British women and children had been massacred) prior to their execution.200 Although Sir Colin Campbell later cancelled this order as one ‘unworthy of the English name and [of] a Christian Government’,201 this systematic means of defiling Muslim and Hindu prisoners alike was complemented by the widespread practice of forcing prisoners to eat pork or beef before tying them to the mouths of cannons, smearing them with blood and denying them burial or cremation by blowing them to atoms.202 However, such hostility towards native religions was not confined to northern India during the Indian Mutiny. In 1874, the capture of the Ashanti capital of Kumasi led to the discovery of a sacrificial grove full of human remains, a scene which left an indelible impression on Sir Garnet Wolseley and which helped to precipitate the destruction of the royal palace in which it was situated.203 Similarly, with Kitchener’s overwhelming victory at Omdurman in 1898, the determination of the British government to completely crush Mahdism in the Sudan was expressed in the demolition of the Mahdi’s tomb and in the throwing of most of his remains into the Nile in order to prevent them from becoming focal points for future pilgrims. The storm of controversy which ensued in the British press as a result of these actions was not abated by the false (but apparently credible) rumour that Kitchener had kept the Mahdi’s skull for use as an inkpot.204 This deep hostility towards non-Christian religions was not a universal phenomenon, however, and in India, especially, elements within the colonial elite could take a more favourable view. Whereas Islam’s image as a brutal, intolerant and subversive religion tended to hold sway among the British public and among soldiers and administrators throughout the nineteenth century,205 certain Orientalists showed a remarkable interest in India’s Buddhist past.

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Lieutenant Alexander Cunningham of the Royal Engineers, for example, excavated the ruins at Sarnath in the 1830s and became Archaeological Surveyor to the Government of India upon his retirement as a major-general in 1861.206 Such interest in non-Christian religions was not simply antiquarian, however. Prior to the Indian Mutiny, military as well as civil officers of the EIC could find the beliefs and customs of India’s Brahmin caste highly congenial. In Calcutta in 1827, an officer of the 45th Regiment encountered an elderly general in the Company’s service who was: [A]n apostate to the religion of the Hindoos . . . having built many pagodas, or small temples of worship, and there bowed his knee to Baal . . . when I saw him I understood he kept a kind of harem, would not eat the flesh of an ox, and washed in the Hooghly like the natives.207 Even officers of Crown regiments could prove susceptible to local beliefs and practices. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, one officer of a Highland regiment is reputed to have mixed with Brahmins and to have adopted vegetarianism while serving in India.208 In addition to these individuals, the EIC also pursued a policy of paying due respect to native religious sensibilities, a policy which grew increasingly controversial as pressure from the evangelical lobby increased in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Besides the Company’s constraints on missionary activity and its collection of taxes for the upkeep of Hindu shrines, a particular source of chagrin for evangelicals was that European officers of sepoy regiments were expected to participate in Hindu festivals in much the same way as Crown officers were expected to participate in Catholic and Orthodox festivals in Britain’s Mediterranean and North American possessions. As late as the 1830s, the Company’s Court of Directors refused to prohibit such participation, notwithstanding a growing distaste for it among junior officers in particular.209 According to Henry Conran, who was very much of this newer generation, officers of native regiments were ‘from the moment of entering the service’ wholly and unreasonably ‘identified with the spirit and interests of the Sepoys’. Accordingly, they were expected to patronise ‘idolatrous festivals’ and to allow Company property in the form of ‘tents, guns, ammunition, regimental bands and colours, etc’. to be employed on these occasions.210 In the course of his own career, Conran refused the use of his own field guns for the firing of salutes ‘for the native idolatrous festivals’ at Jullundur, but the necessary orders were eventually given by a more ‘easy-going’ superior.211 Such divergences of outlook within the colonial elite in pre-Mutiny India were reflected in attitudes towards native concubines and in different

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perspectives on indigenous religions. Those Company officers who professed sympathy and even admiration for native religions were numerous enough to provoke scandal and alarm among evangelical chaplains and officers. James Coley was appalled by one officer who told him that the British had done no good for the peoples of India, that there was not a genuine Christian convert in the whole of the subcontinent, that Providence had not appointed the British to be there and ‘that we have no more right to the title of God’s chosen people, than the Mohammedans have’. The same officer also maintained that there was little difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England and that the priests of the former were ‘more resembling the Apostolic character, than the Clergy of the latter’.212 Henry Conran also remarked upon the existence of such opinions among Company officers, averring that some held Islam ‘more suitable than Christianity for the natives of India’ while others, who had lived most of their lives in the subcontinent, were ‘as genuine converts to Hindooism as the converts of our missionaries are to Christianity’. Conran even maintained that sepoys who converted to Christianity were held in contempt by officers of this ilk as ‘apostates from the faith of their fathers’.213 If the Mutiny left a bitter legacy for inter-racial relations in India, sympathy towards native religions was not wholly extinguished in its aftermath and the growth of Theosophy from the late 1870s provided sympathetic officers with an obvious focus of identity and interest. In 1882, Madras became the headquarters of the Theosophical Society and, with the activities of Annie Besant in India in the 1890s, Theosophy’s preoccupation with the study of Indian philosophy and mysticism was confirmed. Theosophy’s esoteric pursuit of ultimate spiritual truth certainly proved compelling for some members of the British officer corps. Although the son of a clergyman, J.F.C. Fuller (the future tank expert and renowned military theorist) developed a passion for the study of Hindu religion and philosophy while stationed in India following the Boer War.214 Similarly, Francis Yeats-Brown, who transferred from the King’s Royal Rifle Corps to the Bengal Lancers in 1905, also found solace in the study of Hinduism. Forced to confront the problem of evil by a cholera epidemic on the North-West Frontier, Yeats-Brown rejected orthodox Christianity and its ‘smug mental sanctuary where unpleasantness was veiled in aphorisms’.215 Deflected from a position of outright atheism by indignation at the gross ‘unfairness’ of missionary representations of Hinduism, he developed a taste for Theosophy and an admiration for Annie Besant. This in turn led him to a deeper study of Hinduism and to a lifelong fascination with yoga.216 By the time his memoirs were published in 1930, Yeats-Brown was advancing Theosophist claims as to the transmission of eternal truths: ‘Christ based his teaching on a tradition existing in His time and country’, he maintained, and ‘that tradition originally came from India’, a view which

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effectively recast the Christian Messiah as a Theosophist master.217 That Theosophy should have appealed to some British officers in India around the turn of the twentieth century is not surprising. Besides the interest in native religions which had always existed among the British elite in the subcontinent, Theosophy had an educated and socially acceptable following and its eclectic principles had the advantage of allowing its adherents to retain a nominal attachment to Christianity.218 The established religious tolerance of the officers’ mess and the waning of evangelicalism and of religious certainty in late Victorian Britain also ensured that the growth of Theosophical speculation caused little reaction among the officer corps, notwithstanding Theosophy’s espousal of universal brotherhood and Annie Besant’s high-profile activities in support of Indian Home Rule. Given that non-European native peoples were commonly deemed to be inferior in almost every respect, non-Christian religions generally failed to make any positive impression on the relatively uneducated rank and file of the British army. If John Stevenson felt compelled to acknowledge the piety of Egyptian Muslims in 1801 (deeming their willingness to pray in public a standing reproach to the generally lukewarm conduct of British Christians)219 he nevertheless judged Egypt to be a land subsumed by ‘the darkness of Mahometanism’.220 Despite the interest in Theosophy among the civil and military elite in India at the turn of the twentieth century, there appear to have been very few Theosophical savants among the rank and file of the British army, whose ideas of borrowing from native religions generally amounted to an insistence that their native servants take off their shoes before entering their quarters.221 Although Frank Richards was wholly dismissive of organised Christianity, his memoirs indicate that occult interests were the pursuit of a tiny and eccentric minority among his comrades in India and Burma. The only serious student of the occult among the men of the 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers was a soldier who had spent most of his life in America and whose motive for enlistment was to spend ‘a few years in India, which is the best place to study them, at no cost to himself’.222 Ultimately, this mysterious American deserted in Burma, provoking Richards’ suspicion that he had left to join a mysterious eastern sect.223 The only other ‘student of the occult sciences’ among the men of his battalion was the Goat-Major, a unique regimental functionary who developed a short-lived interest in hypnotism while stationed in Burma. This interest led to the acquisition of a cheap brass statue of the Buddha and to the purchase of an electrical ‘brain-generator’ (which he had seen ‘advertised in a Theosophical magazine’) as aids to concentration. However, and if Richards is to be believed, the Goat-Major abandoned his esoteric experiments after discovering that his brain-generator produced only hair loss.224

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That Christianity was an integral feature of the British soldier’s sense of superiority is reflected in the fact that chaplains and senior officers were prone to invoke the manifest designs of providence in order to boost their soldiers’ morale at critical moments. In 1846, James Coley described the Sikhs ‘as being worse, if possible, than the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah’225 and this low opinion seems to have been widespread among chaplains in the Punjab at this time. At the battle of Chillianwallah in 1849, another EIC chaplain stemmed the flight of some British dragoons with a memorable mixture of exhortation and threat: ‘The Almighty God would never will it that a Christian army should be cut up by a pagan host’, he insisted, ‘Halt, sir, or as I am a minister of the word of God, I’ll shoot you!’226 Likewise, in a famous general order issued during the Indian Mutiny, Havelock put a providential gloss on his victory at Futtehpur, ascribing it to ‘the fire of British artillery . . . the power of the Enfield rifle in British hands; to British pluck . . . and to the blessing of Almighty God on a most righteous cause, the cause of justice, humanity, truth and good government in India’.227 The same confidence in the Christian God was also instanced by Sir Garnet Wolseley during the Second Ashanti War, in which he took the unusual step of circulating a memorandum among his men which, among other things, admonished: It must never be forgotten by our soldiers that Providence has implanted in the heart of every native of Africa a superstitious awe and dread of the white man that prevents the negro from daring to meet us face to face in combat. A steady advance, or a charge, no matter how partial if made with determination, always means the retreat of the enemy . . . Soldiers and sailors, remember that the black man holds you in superstitious awe; be cool, fire low, fire slow, and charge home.228 A few years later in Afghanistan, the Islamic religion of the enemy prompted a Catholic chaplain attached to the Gordon Highlanders to steady his flock with the words ‘It’s Jesus Christ against Mahomet, so we’re sure to win’.229 Naturally, such anti-Islamic rhetoric was well to the fore during the reconquest of the Sudan, the avenging of the martyred Gordon giving an added edge to this renewed struggle against the militant Islam of the Mahdist state.230 Prior to the battle of Omdurman, one chaplain regaled British troops with a sermon which likened their campaign to a crusade and which described the union flag as a holy flag as it contained the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick.231

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Soldiers and missionaries The overseas deployment of the British army in the nineteenth century inevitably led to a close and extensive interaction with the overseas missionary movement and its representatives. This interaction was sometimes problematical, for missionary imperatives and military policy could come into conflict. In 1851, Major-General Sir Harry Smith, then governor of Cape Colony, accused ‘radical’ missionaries of the London Missionary Society of fomenting native unrest and of helping to inflame the Eighth Frontier War by ‘preaching to [the Hottentots] like evil spirits that they were an oppressed and ill-used race’.232 Similarly, in the wake of the reconquest of the Sudan, Kitchener banned L.H. Gwynne, a newly arrived missionary of the CMS, from working in the northern Sudan for fear of the reaction which his activities might provoke among its Muslim population.233 Significantly, Kitchener brusquely informed Gwynne that he could usefully employ himself evangelising the British officers and NCOs attached to the Egyptian army, assuring the missionary that there were ‘plenty of heathen among them’.234 Although individual missionaries may have antagonised soldiers as well as officers, it must be stressed that Britain’s overseas army was a natural constituency for the overseas missionary, a phenomenon which we have already discussed in relation to the military revivals in pre-Mutiny India. For soldiers of all denominations, missionaries were often the only ordained ministers available to them and the overseas missionary movement consequently proved to be an important source of spiritual support and guidance for the contemporary British army. In view of the common absence of commissioned chaplains, missionaries frequently served as temporary chaplains in the colonial wars of the Victorian era.235 In the Zulu War alone, George Smith, an SPG missionary with a penchant for soldiering, doled out ammunition to the defenders of Rorke’s Drift with the words, ‘Don’t damn them, men: shoot low’.236 Similarly, during the blockade of Eshowe, Robert Robertson, the chaplain of the beleaguered British column, not only led Bible classes but gave lectures on Zulu history, Robertson having worked among the Zulus for twenty-five years prior to the war.237 In fact, the indebtedness of the British army to the overseas missionary movement was reflected in the unexpected appointment of Bishop John Taylor Smith as Chaplain-General in 1901. Taylor Smith was then a CMS missionary and Bishop of Sierra Leone who had come to the attention of the royal family through his ministrations to the ailing Prince Henry of Battenberg during the Ashanti War of 1895–6. Although his previous experience of the army had been very limited, one senior officer recalled of Taylor Smith’s appointment:

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It was put to him that, being a great missionary, he might be nominated to a position which would give him the best chance of dealing with the largest missionary society in the world – namely, the soldiers of the British Army, who go into all countries and are watched by the believers in Moslem and Hindu faiths as an example of what Christianity is. It is obvious from this that if the soldier is brought to the knowledge of Jesus Christ he and his fellows become members of a very fine missionary society scattered throughout the world.238 The British army had connections with the overseas missionary enterprise in many other ways, a point which is again illustrated by the Zulu War of 1879. Not only did tensions over missionary work form part of the background to the conflict (European missionaries having been expelled from Zululand in April 1878) but missionaries provided military intelligence while their converts in Natal were a useful source of native auxiliaries.239 Moreover, mission stations were routinely commandeered by the army because their buildings were among the few local structures solid enough to serve a military purpose. Rorke’s Drift and Eshowe were both pre-war mission stations founded by Scandinavian missionaries240 and the irony of the situation was not lost on one British officer, who wrote of the appropriation of St Andrew’s mission on the Tugela river, ‘The room we are occupying here, has been fitted up as a Church [and] we use the altar as a dining table, which would astonish some of the Exeter Hall people could they see our desecrations’.241 As we have already noted, there was a strong and abiding conviction in church circles that the conduct of the soldier abroad directly affected the success of the overseas missionary, a consideration which never failed to serve as a spur to religious work in the army. In 1845, George Gleig reminded the readership of the Quarterly Review that: ‘Our troops . . . go forth sometimes to fight, but much more frequently to protect and control millions of heathens . . . If not a missionary, therefore, in his own person, there is not a man in our ranks who, if he felt aright, would fail to perceive that he should be a pioneer to the missionary’.242 Furthermore, it was in keeping with evangelical perspectives on the missionary opportunities of the Crimean War that John Cumming urged a public meeting in 1856 to ‘Do what in you lies to extend and increase the Church in the Army [for] Mahomedan, Hindoo, Jew, Greek, Christian, and Roman Catholic, will very much estimate what Protestantism is at home by what they see of it in the camp and in the army abroad’. Having impressed this fact upon his listeners, Cumming went on to pray that the unconverted ‘may see in our soldiers “living epistles”, “lights of the world”, “salt of the earth”, – pure and true exponents of

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the blessings of a Scriptural and a pure religion’.243 With the eruption of the Indian Mutiny, leading church figures invoked the missionary cause in calling for more chaplains for the army. At a missionary meeting in November 1857, the Bishop of London, Archibald Campbell Tait, enquired ‘is it not our bounden duty to see that the soldiers whom we send forth shall be specimens of what Christian soldiers ought to be in their lives, and that in the provision which we make for their instruction, and for their religious ministration, no one shall be able to say, we sent them forth into a heathen country as if they were themselves heathens?’244 Indeed, and as late as 1898, one of the most telling reasons for the Westminster Gazette’s condemnation of the treatment of Mahdist wounded after the battle of Omdurman was that it was ‘useless to try and promote Christianity if the missionaries come from people who again and again disregard every law of humanity and decency in their treatment of vanquished races’.245 It is remarkable that individual soldiers did feel a strong commitment to the work of overseas mission. Of the celebrated ‘Cambridge Seven’ (a band of young evangelical gentlemen who renounced promising careers in order to work with the China Inland Mission in 1885) two were ex-army officers, D.E. Hoste of the Royal Artillery and C.H. Polhill-Turner of the 2nd Dragoon Guards.246 However, there were many soldiers from the non-commissioned ranks who also chose to labour in the mission fields. Besides making ideal army scripture readers, ex-soldiers who had spent many years abroad were well equipped to become foreign missionaries. Because of the size of its garrison and the army’s long association with the subcontinent, India was the greatest field for the soldier-turned-missionary. The missionary potential of the army in India had been evident from the early 1800s, the Baptist missionary William Ward arguing in 1810 that the army’s pious soldiers could be used to ameliorate the chronic shortage of available hands. In fact, Ward consistently advocated purchasing the discharge of these soldiers in order to achieve this end.247 Clearly, many discharged and time-expired veterans did give their declining years to the evangelisation of India. In its early stages, the work of the Calcutta City Mission was heavily dependent on pious veterans of the 24th Regiment.248 By the late 1850s, ex-soldiers were sufficiently prominent in missionary work in the subcontinent for Henry Conran to observe that ‘Many of our missionaries are drawn from the army’ and for him to pronounce the Indian army a veritable ‘school’ for missionaries.249 Some soldiers appear to have commenced their missionary activities while still serving with the colours. One of these was Sergeant James Carson of the 28th Regiment. According to his obituary, which was published in The Christian Sentinel in April 1860, Carson

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was not able to speak any of the vernaculars of the country; but he provided himself with tracts in the Maratha and Guzerati languages, and distributed them as he had opportunity; and he gladly entered into conversation on the subject of religion with the English-speaking natives, whom he chanced to encounter. He willingly spent a large portion of his humble pay in supplying them with books suitable to their case; and no missionary could be more untiring, more prayerful, than he was in behalf of those young natives with whom he became acquainted.250 However, Carson was by no means an isolated case. One chaplain even noted how the soldiers of his Bible class at Muttra in 1891 sought to make amends for their past misconduct towards the natives by distributing missionary tracts among them.251 Nor was such missionary activity confined to India. In March 1854, the Presbyterian convert, Philip O’Flaherty of the 7th Regiment, embarked for the Crimean War in the hope ‘that though we depart as warriors . . . we may be going to spread gospel truth in Turkey, and maybe in Russia too’.252 After his arrival in Turkey, O’Flaherty quickly learned some Turkish in order to preach to the Turks and to reprove them ‘for the abominable habit [of] having many wives’.253 This missionary impulse was also shared by two cooks of the famous 93rd Regiment, who on one occasion made a forceful but apparently well-intentioned attempt to convert a friendly Tartar. As one witness recalled: Seeing he could drink rum, Sandie thought it was a pity that he would not come a step further – renounce Mahomet, and eat pork like a Christian. But this he would not do. Sandie, however, did not despair of him; but, on the contrary, resolved to make a Christian of him whether he would or not. He accordingly got the assistance of another cook, and getting hold of Dhobrah they set to work to Christianise him after their own rough and rather curious fashion. The one held him while the other rubbed his beard all over with pork fat. This they thought would defile him and cause him to give up Mohammedanism.254 If only a minority chose to evangelise the heathen directly, a consciousness of the needs of missionary work was commonplace among religious soldiers. Collections were often raised for missionary purposes and Wesleyan soldiers in the Crimea even dispatched £20 from Balaclava in November 1855 for the benefit of Wesleyan missionaries in China.255 Similarly, in New Zealand in 1858, Sergeant William Marjouram resolved to support the work

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of local missionaries by forming a Total Abstinence Society for the garrison of New Plymouth, his motive being to curtail the vices among soldiers which so hindered the spread of the gospel among the Maoris.256 If the dream of a Christian India faded slowly in the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny,257 the shining examples of David Livingstone and Charles Gordon ensured a growing interest in the African missions. Among soldiers at the end of the nineteenth century (men who had imbibed tales of missionary heroism at Sunday school and through popular missionary literature)258 the cause of the conversion of Africa appears to have inspired genuine enthusiasm. Paul Bull noted how, on one occasion, a group of soldiers had come to him as their transport sailed down the Suez Canal, their purpose being to join ‘in fervent prayer for the conversion of the world’.259 In the light of his South African experiences, Bull even maintained that the example of British soldiers during the Boer War had helped to strengthen Christianity’s hold on the African continent: Its sands have been consecrated by the blood of Gordon, its forests sanctified by the prayers of Livingstone, its lakes and valleys hallowed by the life and death of many a martyred missionary, and its veldt is the sacred resting-place of many a brave soldier and noble patriot.260 Inter-denominational relations The overseas missionary movement has been hailed as one of the sources of twentieth-century British ecumenism because of the co-operation it fostered between Protestant missionary societies.261 However, one of the most remarkable features of life in the nineteenth-century British army was that it too sought to promote religious harmony among Christians. Clearly, this policy was developed and even imposed by a consistent and understandable reluctance to sacrifice professional interests to sectarian antagonisms. As we have seen, the Duke of Wellington sought to ensure a due regard for native religious sensibilities in Spain and Portugal. However, he was also keen to ensure that sectarian sentiments among his own troops were curbed and contained. Such sentiments were certainly present, being inflamed, as John Green of the 68th Regiment noted, by recent memories of the 1798 rebellion.262 Consequently, and notwithstanding his Protestant Anglo-Irish background, Wellington was firmly opposed to the growth of Orangeism in the army. Besides its potential for causing unnecessary strife, in Wellington’s eyes any association which fostered a competing allegiance to that required of the soldier to his sovereign was a definite threat to the service.263

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Orangeism, which had emerged in Ireland in the mid-1790s, was exported to mainland Britain by militia regiments which had served in Ireland during the rebellion of 1798. By 1813, approximately 20 per cent of the Orange Order’s membership in England and Scotland was composed of regular soldiers or militiamen.264 As early as 1809, Sir Henry Dundas, then Commander-inChief, had consulted with the Home Secretary, Lord Liverpool, on the worrying rise of the Orange Order in the army at home and had been informed that its administration of secret oaths – however loyal in substance – made it an illegal organisation. Subsequent action by commanding officers saw the dissolution of two military lodges in 1811 but most senior officers remained passive on this issue and the connections between the Orange Order and the army continued to be controversial, not only because of its administration of oaths but also because of the army’s volatile sectarian mix. Notwithstanding the Duke of York’s initial sympathies for the Orange Order (in 1821 he rashly accepted the office of Grand Master before being convinced of the illegality of its oaths)265 he nevertheless proscribed Orange lodges in the army in a confidential circular to commanding officers in 1822. Significantly, this proscription was reiterated by Lord Hill in another circular of 1828 and was finally issued as a general order to be read to troops on parade in 1835, the order forbidding membership of Orange lodges or, for that matter, soldiers’ attendance at any party gatherings. Despite fears for the army’s reliability and extant rumours of an Orange plot to plant the ultra-Tory Duke of Cumberland on the throne on the death of William IV, by the 1830s the Orange presence in the army was less than impressive, its thirty-one military lodges mustering only 500 members among the troops stationed in Great Britain.266 As we have seen, the 1820s and 1830s were worrying times for the military authorities, the turbulence of the political climate in Ireland stoking fears that secret societies were infiltrating its garrisons and that Catholic troops were falling under the influence of disaffected priests. Despite the fact that Orangeism proved attractive to a small minority of Protestant officers and soldiers, the indications are that the majority were neutral and that they concurred with the position adopted by the military authorities. John Green, for example, was convinced that, when it came to the Catholic and Protestant Irish, ‘each has about equal cause for resentment against the other’.267 Another Englishman, George Calladine of the 19th Regiment, grew friendly with individual Orangemen while stationed in Ireland in the 1820s but very much shared Wellington’s views as to the undesirability of soldiers joining the Orange Order. As Calladine maintained, it was foolish to compromise the unity of an army in which ‘every one has taken the same oaths of allegiance and fidelity’.268 Given the ethnic and religious composition of the army,

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Calladine saw membership of the Order as a good way of causing unnecessary trouble: ‘our regiment was one half Irish and Romanists’, he recalled, ‘and it would have been a difficult matter to have done your duty without giving great offence, any little circumstance occurring where a distinction of creeds might have been mentioned’. Indeed, and although his Catholic comrades in the 19th Regiment were unconcerned by Protestantism per se, Calladine noted that they saw Orangeism in very different terms, even as ‘an abomination’ because of their conviction that Orangemen took ‘some tremendous oath against them and their religion’.269 In view of these contemporary problems, it is conceivable that it was as much a desire to forestall the growth of sectarian feeling within the army as it was to maintain good relations with the Maltese that dictated the hard line adopted towards Captain Atchison and Lieutenant Dawson on Malta in 1824. Probably because of its determined attempts to accommodate and conciliate its Catholic soldiers, by the 1840s the army had earned itself the distinction of being one of the most religiously tolerant institutions of the British state. The Irish Protestant, John MacMullen, in one of the few positive observations he had to make about his brief military career, was fully convinced of the wisdom of the army’s policy of religious toleration and felt that it did much to moderate the political instincts of his Catholic comrades and fellow countrymen.270 Indeed, when controversy erupted in the early 1840s over alleged proselytising by the staff of the army’s Royal Hibernian Military School, one Catholic protagonist pronounced that: The foul stain of religious intolerance has been for some time wiped away from the British army, and those who are in high stations in it affect to proclaim the full enjoyment of religious liberty to every man in the army: surely then the Catholic soldier has a right to expect that his children will be brought up in his own religion.271 Whatever the truth of Catholic suspicions as to the nature of this asylum, from the time he took charge of the Army Chaplains’ Department, George Gleig was anxious to ensure that chaplains steered clear of sectarian controversy. In a letter to the vicar of Dover in 1845, Gleig warned him ‘to bear in mind that everything like controversy, all grounds on which disputes between one denomination of Christians and another may be built up, is in the Army peculiarly to be deprecated’.272 Furthermore, the army’s policy of discouraging sectarian discord served as a definite brake on the missionary activities of evangelical soldiers and civilians. In the case of Hedley Vicars, a fellow officer observed that:

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With all his zeal, he was ever careful to avoid giving offence. I have known him to erase passages which seemed to speak harshly of Roman Catholics from tracts he was about to distribute generally amongst the men. Much as he abhorred Popery, he had the greatest tenderness for the feelings of Roman Catholics.273 It was, moreover, indicative of Sarah Robinson’s desire to retain the support of the military authorities that she reacted swiftly when signs of sectarian tension arose in one barrack room which she was accustomed to visit in the 1860s. Because there had been ‘some little disputing . . . among the men of different denominations’, Robinson told a mixed group of fifty or sixty soldiers that there were no denominations but ‘only Christians’ in Heaven and she went on to invoke some conciliatory passages from Ephesians and 1 Corinthians.274 If the army’s precarious religious concord survived the political ferment of early nineteenth-century Ireland, the bile of Victorian anti-Catholicism and the missionary efforts of fervent evangelicals, it was again thrown into jeopardy by the Home Rule crisis of 1912–14, a crisis which had obvious sectarian overtones. Although the Curragh incident of March 1914 was the most dramatic indication of how Unionist politics had affected the officer corps,275 the army remained faithful to its policy of suppressing displays of sectarian feeling within the ranks. As we have already noted, in July 1914 the men of the 1st Irish Guards were reprimanded for cheering John Redmond and other members of a Nationalist deputation as they emerged from talks at Buckingham Palace. This policy was also very much in evidence in the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, a battalion composed of roughly equal numbers of Ulster Protestants and southern Irish Catholics. John Lucy, a Catholic recruit from Cork, recalled that ‘Party songs were rightly forbidden’ and that he once brawled with a Protestant – ‘an uncouth hairy fellow from Derry’– who had hummed The Boyne Water while cleaning his boots in their barrack room.276 Nevertheless, while stationed some time later on Salisbury Plain, regimental loyalty won out and Lucy was successful in averting a fracas between the Royal Munster Fusiliers and his own battalion by convincing a drunken Fusilier that the Royal Irish Rifles was not a regiment ‘stinkin’ with ‘Orangemin’.277 Notwithstanding the army’s determination to curb sectarianism within its ranks, it would be wrong to treat the generally peaceful nature of interdenominational relations throughout the period as a product of military policy alone. Overseas and active service had a marked tendency to minimise differences between British Protestants, a phenomenon which pan-denominational evangelicals such as John Gelson Gregson were keen to encourage. Indeed, in his fascinating study of colonial warfare, V.G. Kiernan has maintained that

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‘the overseas army may be looked upon as one of the starting points of ecumenicalism’, this spirit of inter-denominational co-operation being a ‘facet . . . of Europe’s united feeling against the lesser breeds’.278 Significantly, even the Catholic–Protestant divide was bridgeable in the circumstances of active service. During the Crimean War (and despite the recent tumult over the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales and widely advertised fears of prosleytising by Catholic nuns in military hospitals) relations between Catholic and Anglican chaplains were generally cordial, a product of shared adversity and a common Russian enemy. As Henry Press Wright put it in a letter to the SPG in October 1855, there was a distinct absence of animosity between army chaplains, a fact which he attributed partly to the wise selection made by the Society of clergy known for piety and not party and partly to the fact that men with hundreds of sick and thousands of strong, daily requiring their attention, have no time for disputing. The platform of the Camp stirs up more of sympathy and love than of vanity and hatred. The miseries of war are so great that the Chaplains have every excitement to unity but none to division.279 In the context of subsequent campaigns against non-Christian enemies, hostility between Catholics and Protestants could recede still further. The Indian Mutiny witnessed some unprecedented manifestations of goodwill between Catholics and Protestants, a goodwill which was often notably lacking in contemporary British society.280 In the circumstances of a beleaguered Christendom’s life or death struggle against native heathenism, even Henry Havelock could show a certain solicitude towards Rome. During his famous march to relieve Lucknow, Catholic soldiers comprised ‘the greater part of his force’ and Havelock readily accepted the services of a chaplain whom he thought to be a Catholic priest, the general having ‘as much consideration for the claims of Roman Catholic soldiers . . . as for those of another creed’.281 Although the chaplain in question turned out to be a Baptist, there was no mistaking the denomination of the French priest who blessed a British column poised to storm Delhi’s Kashmir Gate in September 1857. Chiefly composed of the 75th Regiment, the men of this column had already been subjected to a fiery sermon on the fall of Nineveh from a Protestant chaplain and the services of the priest were accepted on his compelling plea: ‘We may differ some of us in matters of religion . . . But the blessings of an old man and a clergyman can do nothing but good.’282 Significantly, this spirit of ecumenism resurfaced in the face of militant Islam in the Sudan, the victory at Omdurman and the recapture of Khartoum in 1898 resulting in a joint memorial service for Gordon

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that was a fitting tribute to his unique brand of non-denominational Christianity.283 Conceived and stage-managed by Kitchener himself, the service went ahead despite the opposition of the expedition’s senior Anglican chaplain, the Revd Alfred Watson, who protested that Gordon had been an Anglican.284 Conducted amid the ruins of Gordon’s residence, the service was led by Watson, Owen Spencer Watkins, a Presbyterian chaplain named J.M. Simms and by Fr Robert Brindle. Comprising the Lord’s Prayer, a psalm and ‘Abide With Me’ (Gordon’s favourite hymn), the final prayer and blessing were given by Brindle, who had the distinction of having accompanied the unsuccessful relief expedition of 1884–5.285 As this example illustrates, by the end of the nineteenth century the British army had come to make a virtue of its essentially pragmatic religious tolerance, a tolerance that was dictated by professional imperatives which led even the staunchly Protestant Sir Garnet Wolseley to admit that he would ‘gladly support a Mohammedan or a Buddhist’ soldiers’ home given the value of these institutions.286 Nevertheless, this ethos was no doubt more in evidence overseas than it was at home. For example, while the Indian Mutiny was strengthening a common Christian identity in the subcontinent, Anglican and aspiring Wesleyan chaplains were locked in controversy at Aldershot. Likewise, in Ireland (where sectarian tensions were never far beneath the surface) a Protestant clergyman in Galway lodged a complaint with the police in 1898 because his Sunday morning services were regularly disturbed by the band of the Connaught Rangers.287 Conclusion Despite a close and manifold similarity throughout the nineteenth century between the religious attitudes and behaviour of soldiers and civilians, there were obvious and significant areas of difference arising from the peculiar circumstances of army life. Quite apart from its compulsory worship, the army helped to promote religious values through many aspects of its regimental system, through the attributes and qualifications it required from its non-commissioned officers and, less directly, through the masculinisation of religion which active service could entail. Moreover, army life seems to have endowed soldiers with an acute sense of the providential and with a susceptibility to religion in circumstances as diverse as the chronic boredom of the troopship and the excitement of the battlefield. Seemingly irrespective of their personal religiosity, an innate sense of Christianity’s superiority over other faiths was probably more deeply and more keenly felt among soldiers than among their civilian contemporaries in Britain, for whom extensive contact with other religions remained exceptional.288 Furthermore, the same

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circumstances of overseas service which fostered this conviction of Christian superiority also helped to forge and sustain a widespread and active sympathy with the overseas missionary movement. It also helped to reinforce a culture of interdenominational amity which was frequently lacking in civilian life. In short, while the religion of the British soldier clearly had much in common with that of his civilian counterpart, the situation and culture of the British army in the nineteenth century could not fail to lend it some exceptional qualities.

1111 C H A P T E R 1 2 3 4 5 6 C O N C L US I O N 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 U R I N G T H E E I G H T E E N T H and nineteenth centuries, the British 7 soldier laboured under a seemingly invincible reputation for irreligion. 8 Although there was no doubt a sordid side to army life, for the greater part 9 of the period this unenviable reputation owed as much to political mistrust 20111 of a standing army as it did to natural concerns about the spiritual and moral 1 state of young men released from the constraints of ordinary civilian life. 2 With the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the easing of political tensions 3 in British society, the resultant decline of popular anti-militarism among civil4 ians allowed the concerns of the moralist and the evangelist to come to the 5 fore. These concerns were fuelled by evangelical enthusiasm for home mission, 6 by the power of a domestic and feminine ideal in contemporary religion and 7 by a growing realisation of the place of the army in the scheme of overseas 8 missionary work. In combination, these factors served to generate an unprece9 dented level of civilian interest in the moral and religious condition of the 30111 soldier. This interest proved to be enduring and it was reflected in the cults 1 of a new band of soldier saints, in the rise of new forms of missionary work 2 among soldiers, in the expansion of the religious military press and in pres3 sure upon the War Office to broaden and improve formal religious provision 4 for the army. 5 So much is clear and uncontroversial. However, the existing historiog6 raphy of religion and the British soldier prior to the First World War (a 7 historiography which is very much preoccupied with these developments) 8 fails to take into account wider historical realities. First, this missionary enter9 prise was to a great extent reliant on the pragmatic goodwill of the military 40111 authorities. Evangelical temperance work, for example, found favour because 1

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of the discipline and efficiency which it helped to promote. Eventually, in the 1880s and 1890s, more direct military control was imposed upon it and it was extensively remodelled in order to maximise its benefits. Similarly, the military authorities regarded soldiers’ homes – the new flagships of missionary work in the army – as useful and cost-effective supplements to the army’s burgeoning range of recreational facilities. Consequently, those homes which wished to retain the goodwill of the army (and public subsidies from the War Office) were obliged to downplay their missionary character and to stress their professional usefulness. The second reality is that this varied and prolonged missionary enterprise met with meagre success in the long term. Certain categories of soldier – notably Catholics and more hardened sinners – were largely beyond its reach. Furthermore, those soldiers who were saved by its missionaries were greatly outnumbered by those who simply took advantage of the other benefits which its agents had to offer, particularly in the comfortable setting of the soldiers’ home. Nor was the tone of the later nineteenth-century barrack room improved solely through the efforts of soldiers’ homes, scripture readers and miscellaneous soldiers’ friends. As we have seen, their work was simply part of a much wider range of improving influences to which ordinary soldiers were exposed during the course of the nineteenth century, most of these emanating from within the army itself. Ironically, even the propaganda generated by this high-profile missionary endeavour failed to redeem the reputation of the common soldier among key sections of the religious public. From the 1860s through to the outbreak of the First World War, Nonconformists were glaringly under-represented in the army, a clear indication of the continuing suspicion with which soldiering was viewed in the more respectable reaches of working-class society. In addition to exaggerating the impact and success of the later nineteenthcentury mission to the army, the existing historiography of religion and the British soldier has completely failed to appreciate the existing strength of religious life among soldiers themselves. As this study has revealed, the British army in the eighteenth century proved fertile ground for the growth of Methodism. In combination, a modest output of religious publications aimed at soldiers, a lack of clerical supervision, the manifold dangers of their calling and a leavening of pious officers and soldiers helped to ensure that British soldiers proved highly receptive to the evangelical message of justification by faith alone. This receptivity in turn ensured that the British army was an important vehicle for the spread of the evangelical revival throughout the Protestant world during and after the wars of the mid-eighteenth century. Evangelical Protestantism also proved to be a strong and expansive force in the British army during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

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Besides the factors already alluded to, the appeal of evangelicalism was heightened at this time by the rise of the Sunday school in recent decades and by the extent of national mobilisation in years of dramatic growth for evangelical Nonconformity in England. During the years 1793–1815, evangelical Protestantism accompanied the British army on its overseas campaigns and expeditions and found a secure foothold in many of the army’s overseas garrisons. Though evident at Gibraltar, at the Cape and in the Mediterranean, this was particularly true of the army’s Indian cantonments, where its appeal was heightened by unusually high mortality rates and its progress furthered by the organising activities of Baptist missionaries and evangelical chaplains of the EIC. However, evangelical Protestantism also influenced the army in other ways prior to the 1860s, affecting the Presbyterian churches of several Scottish regiments and most notably that of the celebrated 93rd (Highland) Regiment. However, if evangelical Protestantism was clearly strong in the army prior to the 1860s, then so was Roman Catholicism. Habitually disdained if not derided by evangelical Protestants, the dismissal of this substantial and very largely Irish religious constituency greatly skewed civilian perspectives on the religious state of the army. In fact, it did so to such an extent that this distortion has inhered in the whole historiography of religion and the nineteenth-century British army. As Linda Colley has argued, in the fifty or so years prior to Catholic Emancipation, military service proved to be a vital means of reconciling British Catholics to a historically Protestant and exclusivist British state. If the constitutional dimensions of this process are significant enough, its effects on the religious culture of the army were profound, although these effects have been largely ignored. As we have seen, the British army’s absorption of large numbers of Irish Catholics was part and parcel of its transformation from an exclusively Protestant force (at least in theory) to a national model of confessional tolerance. Out of professional pragmatism as well as imperial policy, the British army in the nineteenth century came to discourage and even penalise sectarian organisations and sentiments in its own ranks. Furthermore, the military route to Catholic Emancipation in 1829 created a strong and self-conscious Catholic subculture in the British army which was largely independent of clerical control or supervision. Although lacking the firm organisation and devotional lineaments of the Ultramontane Catholicism which triumphed in Ireland in later years, the religion of the army’s Irish Catholic soldiers in the early decades of the nineteenth century was not lacking in vitality. This vitality was expressed in searching out Catholic priests for the administration of the sacraments, in pressing Catholic rights, in noisy celebrations of St Patrick’s Day and in brawling with Orangemen on the streets of Ulster. In addition to its some-

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times belligerent assertiveness, the army’s large Catholic constituency also helped to smooth relations with Britain’s Catholic allies during the Peninsular War and made a significant contribution to the development of the Catholic church in mainland Britain and in the Indian subcontinent. In view of its long history, it seems abundantly clear that the army’s evangelical subculture was appropriated rather than created by the later nineteenth-century mission to the army. Since the late 1730s, the army’s evangelical subculture had been local and (at least in India) often panevangelical in character and it had been sustained by the largely independent efforts of godly officers, NCOs and soldiers. However, from the 1860s it was increasingly focused on the new soldiers’ homes, on army-wide evangelical associations of various kinds and on a growing range of recognised Protestant chaplains with different denominational agendas. Furthermore, its currency was probably weakened by the decline of evangelical certainty among the mainstream churches, by declining recruitment in Presbyterian Scotland and by gradual improvements to the health of the soldier at home and overseas. Likewise, and rather than being rallied and revived by the appointment of commissioned Catholic chaplains in 1859 (chaplains who were generally attached to the army’s Irish regiments) the army’s Catholic subculture was quickly and irrevocably changed by this clear extension of clerical control over its Catholic soldiers. Whereas army Catholicism was unavoidably lay in ethos in the early nineteenth century and had been dependent on the efforts of Catholic officers and NCOs, by the 1860s it had been firmly embraced by that assertive and strongly clerical form of Catholicism which was then in the ascendant throughout the British Isles. However, like its evangelical counterpart, the army’s Catholic subculture also went into decline in the mid-Victorian period. Between the 1860s and the outbreak of the First World War, falling recruitment in Ireland halved the proportion of Catholics in the army and rendered its Catholic constituency increasingly reliant on recruits of Irish descent drawn from the urban areas of mainland Britain. Given that recruitment was also falling away in Scotland, by the end of the nineteenth century dwindling recruitment in Ireland had helped to ensure that the great majority of soldiers in the British army were English by birth and overwhelmingly Anglican by attestation. So much for the long-term fate of the army’s evangelical and Catholic subcultures. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that most officers and men of the British army during our period were not identified with either of these groups. This did not mean, however, that religion was unimportant to them. Although the Victorian moralist could always find fault with the attitude of army officers on matters ranging from flogging to the regulation of Indian brothels, most army officers throughout our period were conformist (if not

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necessarily devout) in their religious attitudes and denominational affiliations. Furthermore, they strove to maintain a military system which recognised and encouraged the professional benefits of soldiers’ religion and which acknowledged the claims of religion over it. This recognition was, of course, most conspicuous in the army’s enduring requirement that its soldiers should parade for a religious service once a week whenever practicable. While a sizeable evangelical constituency seems to have emerged among British officers from the 1730s for much the same reasons as it did among the other ranks, this constituency reached its peak in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, slowly dwindling thereafter in consequence of the weakening of evangelical certainties among the officer-producing classes and of a growing presence of younger officers more imbued with the Broad Church ethos of the new and reformed public schools. Nevertheless, and as in the days of Marlborough, even at the turn of the twentieth century there was still room for a Christian hero to make his mark upon the British army and upon British society in general, as the career and celebrity of Lord Roberts of Kandahar clearly illustrates. As for the majority of the rank and file, religion was hardly a marginal consideration either. Though much has been made of the soldier’s immoral habits and of his resentment of religious compulsion, it is clear that a religious worldview held sway among soldiers throughout our period. Undoubtedly, Deism, agnosticism and atheism were very much minority positions among them but this represents only a negative indicator of a broader religious consensus. Soldiers in general seem to have held a providential view of their immediate circumstances and of their service with the colours, a view which generally expressed itself in prayer before and sometimes after battle and which constituted an important basis of belief to which evangelicals in particular could appeal. Furthermore, and while religious presumption could be despised and even persecuted, this did not amount to a hostility towards religion per se. Indeed, even in the early decades of the nineteenth century the prevalence of a ‘diffusive Christianity’ among the army’s Protestant soldiers was reflected not only in their providential view of the world but in their regard for genuinely religious comrades and officers, in their desire for a Christian burial and even in their attitudes towards their regimental colours. Furthermore, and in the context of overseas service, this diffusive Christianity was exemplified by the sense of religious superiority which was felt in the face of Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam in India and (in the context of the Peninsular War) when faced with an allegedly inferior type of Christianity. However, the strength of this diffusive Christianity is most apparent in the late-Victorian army, when the army’s rank and file was very largely

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composed of the unpromising off-scourings of the English urban poor. Whatever their abiding moral weaknesses may have been, the soldiers of the late-Victorian army were by no means immune to religious influences, a fact which was largely due to their previous exposure to the churches in Sunday school and elsewhere. Although soldiers generally resented the imposition of church parade and were unlikely to seek salvation in a soldiers’ home, they attended voluntary services in surprisingly large numbers, particularly when on campaign. Furthermore, they evinced proclivities which were endemic in civilian church life, namely in their passion for hymn-singing and in their maudlin sensitivity to the ideals of pious femininity and domesticity. If many also chose to patronise the soldiers’ homes and support the temperance cause, their deeper religious convictions were highlighted on active service, when their belief in the power of prayer (and even in the bullet-stopping efficacy of the Bible) was clearly in evidence. Again, the strength of their Christian identity was reflected in their emphatic sense of superiority over their nonChristian adversaries, a sense which rather contrasted with their attitudes towards the white, Christian Boers of South Africa. This study of religion and the British soldier in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries demonstrates that he has been chronically miscast as a godless reprobate and that much of the existing historiography on this subject is flawed because it has too readily confused contemporary stereotypes with more fundamental realities. Obviously, these stereotypes need to be reconsidered. As we have seen, they were not only born of religious and moral misgivings but also of sectarian prejudice and an abiding suspicion of standing armies and regular soldiers in British political culture. Furthermore, it is clear that the religious attitudes and behaviour of British officers, NCOs and private soldiers largely reflected those of the social and ethnic groups from which they were recruited. If they were significantly modulated and accentuated by the peculiar circumstances of army life, then this was generally to the advantage rather than to the detriment of religion. In this respect, the army’s regulations and professional requirements, the close-knit nature of regimental life and the hazardous conditions of the service probably rendered soldiers more rather than less susceptible to religion than the majority of their civilian peers, a situation which was most clearly apparent towards the end of the nineteenth century when the typical British soldier was the product of the English urban slum. Clearly, and perhaps most obviously, this study has considerable implications for the distinctly secular tone which has hitherto dominated the historiography of the British army in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This historiography has been preoccupied with the study of the army’s command, campaigns, recruitment and internal organisation and has paid

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scant attention to the religious character of the army and the fundamentally religious outlook of its officers and men. As we have seen, the British army of this period was not a secular institution and nor was it composed of secular individuals. On the contrary, the army to a very great extent reflected the religious identity, culture and beliefs of the contemporary British state and of contemporary British society. As such, religion needs to be recognised by military historians as being of central and even defining importance to the institutional culture of the British army and to many if not most of the officers and men who served in its ranks. The findings of this study also have obvious implications for the historiography of religion in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. First, they demonstrate the inadequacy of an exclusively civilian approach to this subject. This is particularly true of major traditions such as evangelical Protestantism and Irish Catholicism, the historians of which have very largely failed to recognise the extent and significance of their presence within the army. Second, and because the army was of prime concern to the overseas missionary cause (and in many practical respects closely connected with it) this study suggests that historians of overseas mission may benefit from paying much closer attention to the links which existed between the British army and the overseas missionary movement. However embarrassing these links may appear to be for historians of mission in the post-colonial era, their sheer ubiquity indicates that they merit much further scrutiny. Third, our conclusions show that historians of religion and gender have greatly overstated the extent to which popular religious life was feminised during the course of the nineteenth century and the degree to which it was dependent on the presence and example of women. Despite the links between godliness, femininity and the domestic sphere which were so widely perceived and propounded by contemporaries, it is clear that an emphatically and even exclusively male religiosity could thrive outside this nexus, even among common soldiers in the supposedly inimical setting of the barrack-room and bivouac. Once again, this fact serves to illustrate that, however powerful contemporary assumptions and stereotypes may have been, their practical validity deserves more critical consideration by historians. Finally, in pointing out the presence and resilience of religion in this supposedly unlikely quarter, the conclusions of this study have certain implications for two important and conflicting models of secularisation which have been advanced in recent years. As we have noted, Callum Brown has identified gender and gender roles as critical in explaining the secularisation of British society. In Brown’s view, male religiosity was an awkward and peripheral phenomenon in the religious culture of nineteenth-century Britain. As religion was fundamentally the realm of womankind, secularisation was a

CONCLUSION

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relatively late and rapid phenomenon which was triggered by the secular tone of late-twentieth-century feminism and by women’s consequent rejection of their traditional gender roles. However, our studies of the religious life of the British soldier show that the godlessness of the British male – even in the highly masculine and notoriously irreligious milieu of the Victorian army – was more the stuff of myth than reality. Indeed, this study indicates the existence of a broadly diffused male religiosity which throws into question the underlying assumptions of Brown’s model. If Brown’s thesis falters on the underlying strength of male religious life, there are also difficulties with Hugh McLeod’s more nuanced and established narrative of secularisation which places a heavy emphasis on the issue of social class. In McLeod’s view, the secularisation of English life was multi-factorial. However, its prime component was the long-term detachment of the urban working classes from organised church life in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. This estrangement involved the growth of class-based politics, the rise of a secular leisure culture and the relative decline of the churches’ role in public education and welfare work. However, the cumulative effects of this process seem absent from our studies of the late Victorian army. In fact, this study shows that, even at the beginning of the twentieth century (and at a time when short service enlistments ensured a greater continuity with civilian attitudes), ordinary soldiers recruited from the urban working classes were far more likely to betray symptoms of church influence and a susceptibility to the churches’ ministry than any clear indications of alienation from organised religion. Clearly, these influential models of religion and secularisation in nineteenthcentury Britain still have some way to go towards explaining the depth, complexities and significance of working-class male religiosity at the beginning of the twentieth century. If we move away from our conclusions and their implications towards an agenda for future research, we can see that the present study represents only a first step towards writing the religious history of the British soldier and the religious history of Britons at war during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Given the numerous conflicts in which Britain was involved during this period, and the country’s emergence as the world’s leading power, the historiography of British religion from 1700 to 1900 clearly needs to widen its traditional focus on the civilian, peacetime and domestic arena. With this in mind, a whole new agenda for research presents itself. Although further study of the British army would undoubtedly pay dividends, there is clearly as much potential in the study of religion in the Royal Navy, which also produced its Christian heroes and a strong evangelical tradition. Furthermore, the religious life of the nation in time of war also merits much greater attention. While a new generation of historians is engaged in studying the far-reaching

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impact of the two World Wars on British religious life, there have been no comparable studies of the religious impact of the massive and prolonged intercontinental wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or of traumatic colonial conflicts such as the Boer War and the Indian Mutiny. Fascinating though the study of British religion and its long-term trends has proven to be, it is clear that the extensive historiography of religion in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain has yet to fully engage with the religious effects and implications of Britain’s emergence as the world’s most successful imperial and military power.

CHAPTER 1

APPENDIX

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Chronology of wars and campaigns cited in the text 1688–97 1702–14 1715 1727–8 1739–43 1740–8 1745–6 1756–63 1775–83 1779–84 1792–1801 1803–15 1808–14 1839–42 1845–6 1848–9 1854–6 1857–9 1861–5 1867–8 1873–4 1878–80 1879 1880–1

Nine Years War War of the Spanish Succession Jacobite Rebellion Siege of Gibraltar Anglo-Spanish War (War of Jenkins’ Ear) War of the Austrian Succession Jacobite Rebellion Seven Years War American War of Independence Second Mysore War French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars Peninsular War First Afghan War First Sikh War Second Sikh War Crimean War Indian Mutiny American Civil War Abyssinian War Second Ashanti War Second Afghan War Zulu War Transvaal War

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1882 1884–5 1895–6 1896–99 1899–1902

Egyptian War First Sudan War Fourth Ashanti War Second Sudan War Boer War

CHAPTER 1

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1111 C H A P T E R 1 2 3 4 5 6 N OT E S 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 Introduction 8 1 Wolffe, 1994; Robbins, 1993; Hempton, 1996. 9 2 Colley, 1992, 11–54, 326–9. 20111 3 Stanley, 1990. 1 4 Oman, 1912, 331. 2 5 Gilley, 1984 and 1994; Hempton, 1996, 72–92; Samuel, 1989; Parsons, 1988; Mullett, 1998. 3 6 Johnstone and Hagerty, 1996, 1–45. 4 7 McLeod, 2000, 3. 5 8 McLeod, 1996, 169–220; McLeod, 2000, 171–215. 6 9 Robbins, 1993, 122–3. 7 10 Hempton, 1996, 156–64. 8 11 See, for example, Davidoff and Hall, 2002, 73–192; Tosh, 1999. 9 12 McLeod, 1996, 149–56. 13 Brown, 2001, 98. 30111 14 Brown, 2001, 192. 1 15 Berends, 1998; Gilpin Faust, 1987; McPherson, 1997; Miller, 1998; 2 Mitchell, 1998; Shattuck, 1987 and 2004; Watson, 1994; Woodworth, 2001. 3 4 5 1 The soldier, religion and the rise of Methodism, 1702–93 6 1 Guy, 1994, 93. 7 2 Bowen, 1998, 50; Houlding, 1981, 9; Anderson, 1998, 82–5. 8 3 Anderson, 1998, 85. 9 4 Steppler, 1984, 12–13. 40111 5 Bowen, 1998, 5; Kearney, 1989, 175. 6 Reid, 1994, 32; Gruber, 1997, 10. 1

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7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

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Gruber, 1997, 10. Gruber, 1997, 11. Fortescue, 1931, 16–17. Doughty, 1914, I, 142. Colley, 1992, 105–32; Gruber, 1997, 11; Fontana, 2002, 15, 37–8. Duffy, 2003, 146–7, 175. Ferguson, 1746, 22–3. Colley, 1992, 105–17. Prebble, 1985, 147–8. Dow, 1962, 223. Wilcox, 1930, 303. Fontana, 2002, 49–51; Western, 1955, 431. Agar, 1758, 223–4. Guy, 1990, 24. Colley, 1992, 103–4, 120; Bartlett, 1993, passim; Donovan, 1985, passim. Scouller, 1987, 52–4. Fontana, 2002, 16. Duffy, 2003, 142; Reid and Zlatich, 2002, 225. Fontana, 2002, 16, 32; Brumwell, 2002, 59–60. Frey, 1981, 10–11. Conway, 2004, 137. Donovan, 1985, passim; Bartlett, 1993, passim. Guy, 1996, 217–19. Fontana, 2002, 88–9. Jackson, 2000, 11; Duffy, 2003, 478; Hargreaves, 1968, 95–6; Anderson, 2000, 112; Doughty and Parmelee, 1901, V, Appendix II, 5, 97. Morgan, 1988, 77–8, 234; Conway, 2004, 129. Haydon, 1993, 54. Duffy, 2003, 213 and 530. Dow, 1962, 178. Kopperman, 1987, 399. Doughty, 1914, II, 259. Anderson, 2000, 112–14; 255–6. Doughty, 1914, II, 278; Young, 1925, 10. Woodward, 1705, passim; Hanway, 1776, passim; Kopperman, 1996, passim. Haythornthwaite, 2001, 12. Jackson, 1871, I, 109. Wearmouth, 1945, 152. Dow, 1962, 240–1. The Press Acts were operative in the years 1704–12, 1745–6, 1755–7, and 1778–9. See Houlding, 1981, 118; Holmes, 2001, 138–9. Holmes, 2001, 144. Frey, 1981, 3. Kopperman, 1982, 32–3; Frey, 1981, 58. Chandler, 1994, 76.

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50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

NOTES

Steppler, 1984, 85–90; Steppler, 1990, 14. Steppler, 1984, 26–7. Houlding, 1981, 118 footnote; Holmes, 2001, 138. Trustram, 1984, 50–9; Houlding, 1981, 118. Rogers, 1980, 926. Agar, 1758, 113–15. Brown, 1997, 69–73. Snape, 2003, 27–32. Swift, 1709, 171–2. Cragg, 1975, 242, 549. Newton, 1806, 81. Brumwell, 2002, 117; Duffy, 1998, 284. McGuffie, 1964, 409. Chandler, 1994, 78; Guy, 1994, 107–9. Newton, 1806, 64. Swift, 1720, 33. Mandeville, 1732, 147. Doddridge, 1813, 21. Agar, 1758, 225. Dr Williams’s Library, MSS.II.A.18, 64, Jonathan Scott to Richard Hill, 20 March 1766. Burn, 1789, v. Burn, 1789, vi. Rediker, 1987, 169–89; Earle, 1998, passim. Jackson, 2000; Fontana, 2002. Kopperman, 1987, passim. Brumwell, 2002, 118. Duffy, 1998, 240. Scouller, 1966, 290–1. The Spectator, 24 August 1711. Johnson, 1800, II, 195–6. Kopperman, 1987, 390. Telford, 1909–14, II, 32. Mandeville, 1732, 133; Guidée, 1856, 9; Walford, 1915, 5. Mandeville, 1732, 147. Mandeville, 1732, 134. Mandeville, 1732, 149. Mandeville, 1732, 148. Mandeville, 1732, 160. Mandeville, 1732, 185. Mandeville, 1732, 233. Mandeville, 1732, 161–2. Mandeville, 1732, 147. Kopperman, 1987, 400. Agar, 1758, 115. House of Commons Journal, XVIII, 1714–18, 708.

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95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

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Scouller, 1966, 388–9; Anon., 1868, 256. Dow, 1962, 229. Ward, 1953, 25. Kopperman, 1987, 391. Dow, 1962, 184–5; Scouller, 1966, 278. Gibson, 1994, 23. Steppler, 1990, 13. Dow, 1962, 184. Dow, 1962, 229. Scouller, 1966, 381–4; Guy, 1985, Table 4.2, 93. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1930, 290; Duffy, 1990, 25. Murray, 1965, 102, n. 1. Murray, 1965, 144. Murray, 1965, 142. Doughty, 1914, I, 30–1. Ward, 1971, 171. Sandby, ‘Journal of the Blenheim campaign’, Blenheim Papers at the British Library, Reel 61. Sandby, ‘Journal of the Blenheim Campaign’, Blenheim Papers at the British Library, Reel 61. Anon, 1744, 17. Anon, 1835, 205–6. Crookshank, 1885, I, 153. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1993, 298–9. Prebble, 1985, 12–13; Kopperman, 1987, 393–4. Duffy, 2003, 517. Taylor, 1745, 332; Duffy, 1998, 259. DNB. Watkins, 1981, 10. Allen and McClure, 1898, 456. SPCK Early 18th Century Archives, Minutes and Reports, Reel 1, 1 March 1705. Allen and McClure, 1898, 456. Murray, 1965, 141. Kopperman, 1987, 396 n. 28. Woodward, 1705, 4. Woodward, 1705, 7. Woodward, 1705, 8–13. Woodward, 1705, 18. Woodward, 1705, 35 Woodward, 1705, 40. Woodward, 1705, 48–9. Taylor, 1985, 7. Taylor, 1985, 135; Frey, 1981, 58. Hanway, 1776, 111. Hanway, 1776, 28. Taylor, 1985, 165.

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139 140 141 142

Cormack and Jones, 2001, 38. Telford, 1909–14, II, 20–5. Woodward, 1705, title page. National Library of Scotland, Gardiner Papers, Philip Doddridge to James Gardiner, 22 August 1745. Gentleman’s Magazine, 15, 1745, 654. Gentleman’s Magazine, 15, 1745, 530. Doddridge, 1746, 27–8. Doddridge, 1813, 23–4, 128. Doddridge, 1746, 25. Doddridge, 1746, 29–30. ODNB; Doddridge, 1813, 38. Doddridge, 1813, 36. ODNB. Doddridge, 1813, 45. Doddridge, 1813, 52. Doddridge, 1813, 56. Doddridge, 1813, 102–9. ODNB. Duffy, 1998, 70–1. Doddridge, 1813, 115. Doddridge, 1813, 122. Guy, 1994, 98–9; Houlding, 1981, 100. Doddridge, 1813, 123. Prebble, 1985, 14. Duffy, 2003, 489. Doddridge, 1813, 116–17. General Wightman, however, who had been present at the battle, took a more dispassionate view of Gardiner’s death: ‘I believe he prayed for it’, Wightman maintained, ‘and got his desire; for his state of health was bad, and his heart broken with the behaviour of the Irish dogs whom he commanded’ (Speck, 1981, 51). Telford, 1909–14, I, 136. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 385. Hindmarsh, 1996, 28 Newton, 1806, n.p. Doddridge, 1746, xi. Davidson, 1890, 266; ODNB. Burn, 1789, 169. Guy, 1990, 111–25. Anon, 1812, 224. Doddridge, 1813, 73–81. Doddridge, 1813, 115–16. Doddridge, 1813, 165–6. Doddridge, 1813, 167.

143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165

166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178

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179 In his introduction to his edition of Thomas Jackson’s Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers, which he significantly entitled Wesley’s Veterans, John Telford noted with satisfaction how more than a quarter of Jackson’s original subjects were ex–soldiers and deliberately gave their lives pride of place in his edition, placing their autobiographies ‘shoulder to shoulder in the first volume’. Telford, 1909–14, I, 8. 180 Jacob, 1996, passim. 181 Ditchfield, 1998, 67–8. 182 Bowen, 1998, 45–6. 183 Foley, 1879, V, 195–212. 184 Barnett, 1970, 176. 185 McPherson, 1997, 85–9; Ellis, 1990, 136–52; Bartov, 1992, 30–1. 186 Muir, 1998, 200. 187 Jackson, 1871, VI, 129. 188 Telford, 1909–14, II, 27. 189 Snape, 1998, passim. 190 Rack, 1982, passim; Davies, 1997, passim. 191 Telford, 1909–14, II, 20. 192 Clyde, 1995, 150–80; Brander, 1971, 68–70; Dow, 1962, 233–4. 193 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 272 n. 75, 273, 343. 194 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1993, 448. 195 Holmes, 1994, 240–1. 196 Holmes, 2001, 347–8. 197 Barnett, 1970, 144; Frey, 1981, 37. 198 Hayter, 1994, 112–13. 199 Woodward, 1705, 111. 200 Godwin, 1932, 188. 201 Like James Gardiner, Munro was killed as a result of panic among troops of whom he had only recently taken command, the men of his infantry regiment leaving Munro and his brother, their regimental surgeon, to be cut down by the Jacobites. Munro’s vaunted piety may have suffered in the rout at Falkirk, for at least one of his adversaries claimed that Munro was ‘heard much to blaspheme during the engagement, and as a punishment for which his tongue was miraculously cut asunder by a sword that struck him across the mouth’. Doddridge, 1813, 234–43; Duffy, 2003, 424. 202 Linn, 1921–2, 24. 203 Bishop, 1744, 95–6. 204 Hastings, 1985, 151. 205 Jackson, 1871, I, 288–9. 206 Newton, 1806, 105–6. 207 Leslie, 1926, 50. 208 Ancell, 1784, 156. 209 Stewart, 1822, I, 100–1. 210 Stewart, 1822, I, 100–1 footnote. 211 Stewart, 1822, II, Appendix, xxxii–iii. 212 Brander, 1971, 118–23.

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213 214 215 216 217

Brander, 1971, 124. Newton, 1806, 55–6. Woodward, 1705, 31. Guy, 1996, pp. 220–2; Telford, 1909–14, II, 20–1. National Library of Scotland, Gardiner Papers, John Mitchell to Lady Frances Gardiner, 20 June 1745. Godwin, 1932, 187. Murray, 1965, 131–2. Murray, 1965, 138. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1990, 19. Telford, 1909–14, II, 13–15. Kopperman, 1987, 399. Murray, 1965, 137. Jackson, 1871, I, 276. Jackson, 1871, I, 277. Baker, 1982, 98–9. Jackson, 1871, I, 281. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 42–3. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 42–3. Godwin, 1932, 188. Jackson, 1871, I, 284. Jackson, 1871, I, 288. Jackson, 1871, I, 279. Jackson, 1871, I, 284. Jackson, 1871, I, 285. Jackson, 1871, I 281. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 45. See also a slightly different version in the The Arminian Magazine, I, 1778, 277–80. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 45. Jackson, 1871, VI , 110. Jackson, 1871, VI, 110. Jackson, 1871, VI, 110–11. Jackson, 1871, VI, 112. Jackson, 1871, VI, 114–15. Jackson, 1871, VI, 116. Jackson, 1871, VI, 116–17. Jackson, 1871, VI, 117. Jackson, 1871, VI, 112. Jackson, 1871, VI, 118. Jackson, 1871, VI, 159. Jackson, 1871, VI, 122. Jackson, 1871, VI, 123; Telford, 1909–14, I, 84. Jackson, 1871, VI, 124. Chandler, 1998, 17. Duffy, 1998, 195–6. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 107–8.

218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256

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257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302

Jackson, 1871, VI, 125. Jackson, 1871, I, 288. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 107. Jackson, 1871, I, 290. Jackson, 1871, I, 290 Jackson, 1871, I, 291. Jackson, 1871, I, 291. Whitworth, 1958, 107. Jackson, 1871, VI, 130. Jackson, 1849, I, 407. Jackson, 1871, VI, 132. Kopperman, 1982, passim. Jackson, 1871, VI, 132–3. Jackson, 1871, I, 292. Whitworth, 1958, 163–4. Jackson, 1871, I, 292. Jackson, 1871, VI, 133–4. Jackson, 1871, VI, 134. Jackson, 1871, VI, 136. Whitworth, 1958, 141. Jackson, 1871, VI, 136–7. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 147. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 148. Jackson, 1871, VI, p. 138. Jackson, 1871, I, 301–2; Baker, 1982, 319. Wesley, 1830, XI, 198–202. Watkins, 1981, 7. McLynn, 1983, 1; Rack, 1992, 216. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 95. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 96–7. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 96–7. McLynn, 1983, 47; Speck, 1981, 29, 37. McLynn, 1983, 47–8. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 98. Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 98–9. Ward, 1992, passim. Jackson, 1871, I, 285. Jackson, 1871, I, 287. Jackson, 1871, I, 295–6. Jackson, 1871, I, 296. Jackson, 1871, I, 297. Jackson, 1871, I, 298. Jackson, 1871, I, 299. Hughes, 1746, 47–8. Houlding, 1981, 45–6. Connolly, 1996, 244.

275

276

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NOTES

303 Houlding, 1981, 53; Connolly, 1992, 141–9. 304 Baker, 1982, 310. 305 C. 1752, Nenagh was home to a small, composite garrison of infantry and cavalry. See Houlding, 1981, 53. 306 Dillon, 1791, 7–8. 307 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 54. 308 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 151–2. 309 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 342. 310 Telford, 1909–14, II, 13. 311 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 152–3. 312 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 368. 313 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1995, 356. 314 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 53. 315 Jackson, 2000, 14–25. 316 Coke, 1793, 61, 76–7. 317 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1991, 450. 318 Telford, 1909–14, VI, 118. 319 Telford, 1909–14, VI, 120. 320 Telford, 1909–14, VI , 131. 321 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 320–2. 322 Telford, 1909–14, II, 26–7. 323 Agar, 1758, 163. 324 Agar, 1758, Appendix, p. viii. 325 Agar, 1758, Appendix, p. viii. 326 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 40–1, 229. 327 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 41. 328 Telford, 1909–14, II, 66. 329 Gentleman’s Magazine, 17, 1760, 151. 330 Sidney, 1835, 151–8. 331 Telford, 1960, III, 165. 332 Western, 1965, 397. 333 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1993, 147. 334 Telford, 1909–14, II, 172. 335 Telford, 1909–14, II, 173. 336 Telford, 1909–14, II, 174–84. 337 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1992, 229. 338 Seymour, 1839, II, 86. 339 Rogal, 1997, II, 267; Welch, 1995, 69–71. 340 The Arminian Magazine, II, 1779, 91–2. 341 Charteris, 1925, 58. 342 Telford, 1909–14, VI, 7–8. 343 Telford, 1909–14, VI, 6–8, 34, 46, 53. 344 Andrews, 2000, 38. 345 Rack, 1992, 485; Bucke, 1964, I, 78–9. 346 Andrews, 2000, 52–4. 347 Bucke, 1964, I, 79–80; Lewis, 1995, II, 1165.

NOTES

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277

348 The Arminian Magazine, VI, 1783, 441–2. 349 Dr Williams’s Library, MSS.II.A.18, 64, Jonathan Scott to Richard Hill, 20 March 1766. 350 Lewis, 1995, II, 988. 351 Burn, 1789, 200–9. 352 Ward and Heitzenrater, 1995, 250. 353 Telford, 1909–14, VII, 159. 354 Hanway, 1779, iii. 355 Middleton, 1989, 235. 356 Watson and Trickett, 1998, 408. 357 Doddridge, 1746, 36.

2 The soldier and society, 1793–1914 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, 1930–7. Colley, 2002, 345. Anderson, 1971, passim. Wolffe, 1994, 225–36. Hendrickson, 1998, 9–15, 96. Hendrickson, 1998, 48–93. Hendrickson, 1998, 94–121. Hendrickson, 1998, 122. Hendrickson, 1999, passim; Edghill, 2002, passim. Wolffe, 1994, 227. Hendrickson, 1998, 25. Hendrickson, 1998, 34. Keegan, 1998, 49. Spiers, 1992, 214. Spiers, 1980, 206, 219. Wavell, 1953, 125. Bonham-Carter, 1963, 5. Denman, 1994, passim; Jeffery, 2000, 148–51. Griffin, 1998, 117–18. Denman, 1994, 210. Compton, 1893, 98. Graves, 1960, 71. Hardy, 1902, 14. Richards, 1983, 79. Steppler, 1990, 4; Spiers, 1980, Table 2.1, 36. Spiers, 1980, Table 2.1, 36. Duffy, 1998, 184–207. Burroughs, 1999, 320–45. Baumgart, 1999, 78–82. Judd and Surridge, 2002, 85–8. Gates, 1994, 141–2; Buckley, 1987, 3, 30–2. Summers, 1989, 238–9.

278

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33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

NOTES

Farwell, 1981, 58; Harries-Jenkins, 1977, 95–8. Farwell, 1981, 44–8. Spiers, 1980, Table 1.3, 8. Spiers, 1980, 2–6. Farwell, 1981, 58. Farwell, 1981, 60–7. Farwell, 1981, 67–8; Spiers, 1992, 107. Keegan, 1976, 8–9; Best, 1975, passim; Harries-Jenkins, 1977, 138. Spiers, 1992, 97–9; Harries-Jenkins, 1977, 140–1. Milton Small, 1897, 87. MacMullen, 1846, 13. Haythornthwaite, 2001, 20. Spiers, 1996, 340; Grattan, 1847, I, 119. Denman, 1994, 209–10; Denman, 1996, 258–9; Spiers, 1980, 48; Spiers, 1992, 130–1. Spiers, 1980, Table 2.5, 47–8. Spiers, 1992, 11, 19. Spiers, 1992, 129–30. Strachan, 2001, 159. Barnett, 1970, 313. MacMullen, 1846, 311. Bull, 1904, 5–6. Hanham, 1973, 166. Holmes, 2001, 56. Denman, 1996, 261; Spiers, 1996, 340. Cookson, 1997, 126–7. Spiers, 1996, 340. Spiers, 1980, Table 2.6, 50. Hanham, 1973, 163. Fitzpatrick, 1996, 380. HCPP, The General Annual Return of the British Army, 1913, 1914, LII, 92. Rothenberg, 1994, 93. Kingsley, 1855, 14. Quoted in Judd and Surridge, 2002, 12. Trustram, 1984, 136; Laity, 2002, 140–2. Dinwiddy, 1982, passim. Denman, 1994, passim. Hichberger, 1989, 50–1. Myerly, 1996, 133–5. Myerly, 1996, 123–4. Spiers, 1980, 87–8; Dinwiddy, 1982, 323–5. Summers, 1989, 238. Attridge, 2003, 102–6. Harvey, 1992, 153. Myerly, 1996, 139–42, 150–1. Myerly, 1996, 58–9.

NOTES

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78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123

279

Myerly, 1996, 131. Gentleman’s Magazine, 71, 1801, 491–2. Kussmaul, 1986, 23. Everett, 1859, 61. Lucy, 1938, 23–4. Haythornthwaite, 2001, 64. Fortescue, 1899–1930, IV (Part 1), 22. Haythornthwaite, 2001, 51; Spiers, 1980, 42–4. Koppermann, 1996, 447–8. Holmes, 2001, 363–4, 405–6. MacMullen, 1846, 141. Stevenson, 1841, 146. Billanie, 1820, 7. Hibbert, 1975, 33. Conran, n.d., 3. Strachan, 1984, 99–102; Skelley, 1977, 160–3; Wood, 1993, 86–96. Skelley, 1977, Table III A–1, 313. Compton, 1893, 157–8. Nasson, 1980, 128–9. Bull, 1904, 16. Richards, 1983, 133–5. Orwell, 1994, 399. Skelley, 1977, Table III A–1, 313. Harrison, 1971, 332–3. Skelley, 1977, 30. Trustram, 1984, 29–49. Trustram, 1984, 118; Hall, 1999, 206–7. Trustram, 1984, 121. Trustram, 1984, 123–4. Trustram, 1984, 125–6. Marshall, 1997, 90. Hyam, 1990, 88. James, 1997, 218; Colley, 2002, 37. Ferrar, 1922, 75–7. James, 1997, 207. Coley, 1856, 119. Coley, 1856, 92–4. Peers, 1999, 34. Hyam, 1990, 122 MacMullen, 1846, 170–1. Hyam, 1990, 122. Compton, 1893, 162. Richards, 1983, 199. Ballhatchet, 1980, passim; Hyam, 1990, Figure 2, 127; Dixon, 1915, 4–5. Nasson, 1980, 124. Beckett, 2003, 194.

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

280

NOTES

124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136

Smith, 1998, 548. Spiers, 1980, pp. 55–6. Skelley, 1977, 22–3. Myerly, 1996, 4. Skelley, 1977, Table 1–1, 23. Fortescue, 1899–1930, IV (Part 1), 20. Burroughs, 1980, 15. Fortescue, 1899–1930, IV (Part 1), 20. Burroughs, 1980, 28. Muir, 1998, 9. Holmes, 2001, 249; Baumgart, 1999, 156, 215–16. Kiernan, 1998, 130; Keegan, 1967, 186. Nasson, 1999, 279.

3 The churches and the soldier, 1793–1914 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Dow, 1962, 266. Keegan, 1976, 11. Whinyates, 1984, 145; Jones, 1852, 39; Milton Small, 1897, 106. Innes, 1835, 193–4. MacMullen, 1846, 162–3. Holmes, 2001, 88–9. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1931, 445; PRO WO 7/60, John Owen to James Briscall, 28 November 1810; Dow, 1962, 262. Brett–James, 1961, 212–14. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1931, 479–80. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1931, 519. Strachan, 1980, 801–3 Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, July 1931, 66–9. Anderson, 1965, 209–21; Anderson, 1971, 52–3. Anderson, 1971, 61. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, July 1933, 321. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, July 1933, 330. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, July 1933, 322. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, July 1931, 76–7. Stanley, 1983, 277–89. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1931, 494. Anderson, 1971, 62, n. 3; Smith, 1987, 203. NAM, 8211–17–3. Jackson, 2000, 204. Hendrickson, 1999, passim. Jackson, 2000, 204–7; Hendrickson, 1999, 22 n. 69. Anderson, 1971, 62. Thompson, 1990, 247. Hendrickson, 1999, 23. Anderson, 1971, 63.

NOTES

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

281

RAChD Archive, ‘Ministers to the Soldiers of Scotland 1856–1945’, 101–2. Wright, 1858, 99; Reports of the Church Congress, 1885, 78. Green, 1827, 14. PRO, WO 30/95. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, July 1930, 361. PRO, WO 7/60, John Owen to Secretary at War, 15 September 1810. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, July 1930, 378. Allen, 1898, 456. Methodist Magazine, 35, 1812, 878. Methodist Magazine, 37, 1814, 559–60. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1931, 450. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1931, 452–3. PRO, WO 30/93. Billanie, 1820, 24–5. Conran, n.d., 5. Innes, 1835, 191. Farwell, 1981, 33; Richards, 1983, 71. Stevenson, 1841, 38. MacMullen, 1846, 35. Coley, 1856, 60–1. Coley, 1856, 169. Methodist Magazine, 35, 1812, 878. Berends, 1998, 131–66; Shattuck, 1987, 48–9. Allen, 1898, 456. Allen, 1898, 457. The Times, 3 March 1854, 9. Allen, 1898, 457. Anderson, 1971, 54. Reports of the Church Congress, 1885, 376. Thompson, 2002, 106–13. Kelly, 1900, 37. Heasman, 1962, 259. Edghill, 2002, 50–6. Dobbie, 1988, 12. Robinson, 1898, 106–7. The Army Scripture Readers’ and Soldiers’ Friend Society, 1864, 15–16. Report of the Meeting of the Manchester Auxiliary, 1867, facing 12. The Army Scripture Readers’ and Soldiers’ Friend Society, 1864, 13. Anon., 1865; Anon., 1879; The Army Scripture Readers and Soldiers’ Friend Society, 1882, 2. The Army Scripture Readers’ and Soldiers’ Friend Society, 1864, 9. Bickersteth, 1866, 6. Robinson, 1898, 106–7. Beatson, 1882, 24–5. Report of the Meeting of the Manchester Auxiliary, 1867, 17–18. Reports of the Church Congress, 1885, 85.

282

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75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

NOTES

Thompson, 1990, 12; Watkins, 1981, 158. Watkins, 1981, 147, 162–3. Thompson, 1990, 192–8; Watkins, 1981, 142–66. Watkins, 1981, 142. Spiers, 1980, 64; Strachan, 1984, 92–3. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 731. Strachan, 1984, 85. Golby and Purdue, 1984, 88–110. Edgerton, 1999, 151–3. The Times, 5 March 1856, 10. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 738–9; Skelley, 1977, 163; Spiers, 1992, 144. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 736. HCPP, Reports on soldiers’ institutes, 1863, XXXIII, 470–1. HCPP, Reports on soldiers’ institutes, 1863, XXXIII, 469. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 736. Wood, 1993, 90; Beckett, 2003, 22. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 736. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 736; Reports on soldiers’ institutes, 1863, XXXIII, 476. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 737; Thompson, 1990, 196. Watkins, 1981, 143. Watkins, 1981, 153–4. Robinson, 1892, 75. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 771. Robinson, 1892, 77; Ewbank, 1960, 19. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 724. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 714–25. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 725. Robinson, 1898, 279. Watkins, 1981, 145–6. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 710. Robinson, 1892, 78. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 708. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 709. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 710. HCPP, Reports on soldiers’ institutes, 1863, XXXIII, 493. Watkins, 1981, 149. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 709; Reports on soldiers’ institutes, 1863, XXXIII, 492–3. ODNB. Robinson, 1892, 78–80. Hendrickson, 1998, 86. Shipley, 1879, 55–84. United Service Magazine, 1893–4, 8, 264. Sandes, 1896, passim.

NOTES

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163

Sellers, 1900, 23; Robinson, 1898, 382. United Service Magazine, 1893–4, 8, 263–70; ODNB. Hopkins, 1872, 17. Shipley, 1879, 184. Stevenson, 1887, 54. Robinson, 1898, 223–4. Robinson, 1876, 70–1. Stevenson, 1887, 52. Stevenson, 1887, 54. United Service Magazine, 1893–4, 8, 270. Farwell, 1981, 199. Hopkins, 1872, 16, 35. Kinahan, 1900, 52; Lowry, 1902, 27, 157. Dobbie, 1988, 18–22. YMCA, K32, ‘The Annual British Conference’, 1885, 201. Byrnell, Journal of the RAChD, July 1925, 99–102. YMCA K32, Notes: History of YMCA Military Work. YMCA K32, ‘Appeal from Natal’, 1899. Sellers, 1900, 55; Kinahan, 1900, 2–3. Sellers, 1900, 55–6. Kinahan, 1900, 2. Sellers, 1900, 56. Kinahan, 1900, 51; Sellers, 1900, 57. YMCA, K32, J.G. Harris to F.J. Fedarb, 15 December 1902. Findlay, 1941, 141. Bull, 1904, 13–15. Watkins, 1981, 142–3. Spiers, 1992, 145; Skelley, 1977, 164. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 716. Acland-Troyte, 1881, 38. Compton, 1893, 326. Richards, 1983, 290. Robinson, 1898, 112. Lucy, 1938, 46–7. Bull, 1904, 47–8. HCPP, Reports of Captain Jackson, 1862, XXXII, 716. Maurice and Arthur, 1924, 266. Wenniger, 1886, 31. Lucy, 1938, 48–9. Hughes, 1979, n.p. Gelson Gregson, 1878, 24–5. Gelson Gregson, 1878, passim; Wood, 1993, 91–4. Gelson Gregson, 1878, 67–70. Roberts, 1897, 520. Roberts, 1897, 520. Roberts, 1897, 519; Wood, 1993, 94–5.

283

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

284

NOTES

164 165 166 167 168 169 170

Roberts, 1897, 520; Wood, 1993, 94–5; Monro, 1922, 135–6. Monro, 1922, 135–6. Monro, 1922, 138 Richards, 1983, 284, 291–3. Gelson Gregson, 1883, 131. Gelson Gregson, 1883, vi. Monro, 1922, 136.

4 The soldier and the churches, 1793–1914 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Billanie, 1820, 146. Gleig, 1857, 8. Wright, 1857, 11. Shipley, 1879, 42–3. Gleig, 1845, 400–2. Holmes, 2001, 60; Glover, 1977, 73. Glover, 1979, 103. NAM, 8402–24, 15, 18 and 25 June 1849. Coley, 1856, 31. ODNB. Boothby, 1900, passim. Davenport, 1869, 24, 166–7, 333. Smith and Riach, 1926, 188–91. Wright, 1857, 29. Wright, 1857, 51. ‘Anglican’ in this case includes members of the Church of Ireland, whom H.J. Hanham described as ‘the most army–orientated denomination in the British Isles’ in view of the large number of officers it provided for the Victorian army. Hanham, 1973, 162. Spiers, 1980, Table 1.3, 8. Fontana, 2002, Table B2.b. Munson, 1991, 35. Spiers, 1980, Appendix 3, 298. Marsh, 1857, 37. Spiers, 1980, Appendix 2, 297; Spiers, 1992, Table 3, 98. Fontana, 2002, Table B2.b. Brander, 1971, 68–9. Denman, 1992–5, 181–2. Cookson, 1997, 159–60; Bartlett, 1993, 73–7. Western, 1955, 428–32. Bartlett, 1993, 77. Cookson, 1997, 159, note 23; Haythornthwaite, 2001, 26. Huffer, 1995, 446–7. Cassidy, 2003, 41–2, 76, 183–84. Ravenhill, 1991, 83.

NOTES

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285

33 Butler, 1911, 10. 34 United Service Magazine, 1860, iii, 415–23. 35 One Catholic source claimed 306 army officers as converts between 1850 and 1910. Gordon Gorman, 1910, ‘Statistics of the List’. 36 Fontana, 2002, Table B2.b; Spiers, 1980, Appendix 3, 298. 37 United Service Magazine, 1879, iii, 467–79. 38 Bellenger and Fletcher, 2001, 133–4. 39 Fullerton, 1868, 68. 40 Fullerton, 1868, 118–22. 41 Fullerton, 1868, 69–70. 42 Gates, 1994, 144. 43 Gleig, 1864, 366; Guedalla, 1997, 421. 44 Report of the Proceedings of the NMBS, 1824, 3. 45 Holmes, 2002, 302. 46 Longford, 1969, 330; Wellington, 1858–72, X, 531. 47 Gleig, 1864, 366. 48 Oman, 1912, 330. 49 ODNB; Shand, 1902, 3–4, 81, 92–3; Haythornthwaite, 1995 (b), 337–8. 50 ODNB. 51 Oman, 1912, 330. 52 Edwards, 1934, 413–14. 53 Brett–James, 1961, 213. 54 Neville, 1813, 71–2. 55 Innes, 1835, 51. 56 Innes, 1835, 45–69. 57 Innes, 1835, 218. 58 Conran, 1867, 11–12. 59 McLeod, 1997, 81–2. 60 Fortescue, 1899–1930, XI, 199. 61 Laverack, 1874, 2. 62 Tuker, 1953, 80. 63 Conran, 1867, 1, 12, 135. 64 Conran, 1867, 38–40; 77–84; Farwell, 1999 (b), 54. 65 Conran, 1870, 222. 66 Conran, 1870, 224–5. 67 Carey, 1857, 189–90. 68 Marshman, 1876, 12; Pollock, 1957, 12–13. 69 Pollock, 1957, 31–2. 70 Marshman, 1876, 39, 68; Pollock, 1957, 20–2, 38–42, 76. 71 Pollock, 1957, 42; Watkins, 1981, 64–5. 72 PRO, WO 30/93. 73 Conran, n.d., 6; Conran, 1870, 62. 74 Peers, 1999, 43. 75 Conran, n.d., 6. 76 Pollock, 1957, 44. 77 Conran, 1870, 88, 94.

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286

NOTES

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123

Conran, 1867, 131. Hammond, 1858, 31–4; Marsh, 1857, 36. Hammond, 1858, 41, 136; Marsh, 1857, 38. Hammond, 1858, 42. Harvey, 1992, 157. Farwell, 1981, 133. Hammond, 1858, 136–7. ODNB; Beckett, 2003, 15. Macrory, 2002, 13. Marshman, 1876, 33. ODNB; Macrory, 2002, 103–4. Warner, 2001, 156–7; Marsh, 1857, 296–7. Conran, 1867, 158, 162; Conran, 1870, 227. Coley, 1856, 169. Marsh, 1861, 359–66, 373–5. Laverack, 1874, 23–4. Orwell, 1994, 399. Sellers, 1900, 108. Lowry, 1902, 156. Sellers, 1900, 56; Lowry, 1902, 157. Wessels, 2000, 137–9. M’Clelland, 1902, 78. Wolseley, 1903, I, 147–8. Giddings, 1996, 75. Potter and Matheson, 1936, 25. Sandes, 1896, 172–4. Knollys, 1894, II, 317. Male, 1901, 50–1. Pollock, 1998, 27–9. Pollock, 1998, 36–7. McLeod, 1996, 179–88. Farwell, 1981, 217. Churchill, 1965, 112. Mangan, 1981, 106–10,135–6. Churchill, 1965, 112. Bull, 1904, 85. Church Times, 12 July 1901, ‘At the Front’. James, 1954, 237. Bryans, 1882, 11–13. Jourdain, 1934, 25–6. Crozier, 1969, 224. Crozier, 1969, 225. Nicholls, 2000, 90–104 Coley, 1856, 45. Coley, 1856, 53. Billanie, 1820, 145.

NOTES

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141

142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

287

Billanie, 1820, 5. Coley, 1856, 57–9. Stevenson, 1841, 175. Gates, 1986, 463. Fitchett, 1976, 285. Stevenson, 1841, 174–5. Hibbert, 1999, 37. Methodist Magazine, 34, 1811, 473. Watts, 1995, 5–158. Oman, 1912, 321–2. Everett, 1859, 77. For a discussion of Methodist and Dissenting attitudes to the war, see Stafford, 1982, 381–95 and Lovegrove, 1983, 263–76. Watts, 1995, 52. Donaldson, 2000, 269. Sadler, 1967, 17. I am grateful to Dr John Walsh for this reference. Ferrar, 1922, 3. Stevenson, 1841, 168–70. By 1795, more than 90,000 children attended English Sunday schools. By 1811, this number had reached about 415,000, representing nearly a quarter of working–class children aged between five and fifteen. Laqueur, 1976, Table 5, 44. Kussmaul, 1986, 1–4. Kussmaul, 1986, 58. Watts, 1995, 7–8. Kussmaul, 1986, 38–9. Kussmaul, 1986, 50. Kussmaul, 1986, 52. Selby, 1967, 13. Ferrar, 1922, 41. Duffy, 1990, 29. Haythornthwaite, 2001, 236–7. Stevenson, 1841, 148. Methodist Magazine, 31, 1808, 188. SOAS, WMMS Records, Microfiche, Box No. 4, Correspondence: France, 1815–18, 17. Kussmaul, 1986, 35. Sadler, 1967, 17. Chamberlain, 1998, 141–5. Rothenberg, 1997, 90. Rothenberg, 1997, 90. Wolfe, 1830, 62. Methodist Magazine, 30, 1807, 189. Methodist Magazine, 31, 1808, 477; 32, 1809, 528–9. Methodist Magazine, 33, 1810, 323–4. Methodist Magazine, 32, 1809, 528.

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288

NOTES

165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210

Methodist Magazine, 34, 1811, 235–6. NAM, 7912–21. Watkins, 1981, 121–2. Kussmaul, 1986, 37–8, 43. Kussmaul, 1986, 59–60. Stevenson, 1841, 194, 179–80. Huston, 1851, 18–24. Billanie, 1820, 25. Billanie, 1820, 33, 54. Kussmaul, 1986, 43–6. Donaldson, 2000, 219–21. Billanie, 1820, 146. Huston, 1851, 10–11. Stevenson, 1841, 181. Stevenson, 1841, 185–6. Stevenson, 1841, 182. Wesleyan Missionary Notices, 1, 1816–18, 72. Watkins, 1981, 122–6. Methodist Magazine, 31, 1808, 188–9. Methodist Magazine, 36, 1813, 474–5. Field, 1869, 80. Stevenson, 1841, 182–3; Oman, 1912, 329–30. Methodist Magazine, 33, 1810, 402. Stevenson, 1841, 183–4. Methodist Magazine, 34, 1811, 473. Stevenson, 1841, 183. Methodist Magazine, 34, 1811, 473. Methodist Magazine, 36, 1813, 374. Longford, 1969, 242–3. Brett–James, 1961, 213–14. Stevenson, 1841, 184. Stevenson, 1841, 186. Billanie, 1820, 5. Jackson, 2000, 25–6, 30–4. Methodist Magazine, 33, 1810, 446. Hempton, 1984, 78. Crookshank, 1885, II, 148–9. Field, 1869, 31. Selby, 1967, 14. Heasman, 1962, 247; Lewis, 1995. Smith, 1820, passim. Haythornthwaite, 2001, 125. Heasman, 1962, 259. Davidson, 1890, 265. Innes, 1835, iv. Keay, 1993, 340; Burroughs, 1994, 164.

NOTES

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251

289

Haythornthwaite, 1995 (a), 99; Marshall, 1997, 93. Barnett, 1970, 278. Conran, 1870, 5. Laverack, 1874, vii. Laverack, 1874, 20. Neill, 1985, 100–12; Hughes, 1991, 12–15. For the duties of Company chaplains at the time of the Mutiny, see Carshore, 1857. Gleig, 1844, II, 287. MacMullen, 1846, 145. Colley, 2002, 308–46 Stanley, 1998, 39, 68; Hibbert, 1980, 44–5. HCPP, Returns of sickness and mortality, 1847, XLI, 67; Stanley, 1998, 39–40; Marshall, 1997, 94. Conran, n.d., 7. MacMullen, 1846, 137–9. MacMullen, 1846, 144–5. Potts, 1967, 39–40. Colley, 2002, 316. Bickersteth, 1866, 4. Corrie, 1847, 64–221; Corrie, 1856, 10–28. Sargent, 1819, 221–310. Carey, 1934, 299. Potts, 1967, 40, 194. Carey, 1857, 168. Carey, 1857, 166, 176. The disruption caused to the religious life of the 24th Regiment may be attributable to the capture of half of the regiment while sailing from the Cape to India in 1810. Farwell, 1999 (b), 54. Carey, 1857, 177. Carey, 1857, 186–8. A different sequence of the spread of soldiers’ churches among British regiments in Bengal is given in Smith, 1820, 4–8. Conran, 1870, 195–6. Conran, 1870, 34–52. Conran, 1870, 196–7. Conran, 1870, 198. Wood, 1993, 86. Pollock, 1957, 47. Pollock, 1957, 47–8. Wood, 1993, 87. Macrory, 2002, 101. Marshman, 1876, 320. Marshman, 1876, 366; Wood, 1993, 91. Ward, 1972, 6; McLeod, 1996, 56–7; Smith, 1994, 161–2. Conran, 1870, 198; Gelson Gregson, 1894, 39–40. Wesleyan Missionary Notices, Third Series, 2, February 1856, 18. Conran, n.d., 7.

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

290

NOTES

252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274

Conran, 1867, 84. Corrie, 1856, 10. Morris, 1966, 299; Conran, 1867, 79. Conran, 1870, 97. Watts, 1995, 162–4. ‘H.E.’, 1962, 108. Conran, n.d., 5. Carshore, 1857, 93. Carson, 1990, 183. Neill, 1985, 194; Potts, 1967, 194–6. Potts, 1967, 58. Conran, 1870, 198. Conran, 1870, 196. Anglesey, 1968, 123. Anglesey, 1968, 66. Watkins, 1981, 131–5; Wesleyan Missionary Notices, 2, 1819–20, 228, 245. Ferrar, 1922, 48. Barnett, 1970, 241. Cookson, 1997, 155–6; Fontana, 2002, 122–38 Elting, 1997, 359–60; Forester, 1994, 157–8; Teague, 1975, 24, 29. Spiers, 1980, 78. Spiers, 1996, 346. Melvin, 1984–6, note 4, 226; Ballhatchet, 1993, 280–1; Ballhatchet, 1978, 18–19. Semple, 1974, 133–60. Henderson, 1989, 217 Henderson, 1989, 217; Hanham, 1973, 159–60. Denman, 1996, 265–6. Wood, 1997, 81. Hanham, 1973, Appendix II, 179; Spiers, 1996, Table 15.1, 337. Ballhatchet, 1993, 273–88; Bartlett, 1993, 70. For Irish soldiers in the Company’s service, see Stanley, 1998, 17; Cadell, 1949–53, 75–9 and Murphy, 1969–70, 318–19. Cadell, 1949–53, 78. Gilley, 1994, 351; Connolly, 1982, passim. Cookson, 1997, 172–3. Fontana, 2002, 148–52; Johnstone and Hagerty, 1996, 2. Anon., 1835, 181. Mullett, 1998, 148. United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, 1836, iii, 240. Guedalla, 1997, 163. PRO, WO 7/61, John Owen to Secretary at War, 1 December 1812. Cookson, 1997, 177. Cookson, 1997, 173–5. Johnstone and Hagerty, 1996, 2. O’Neil, 1997, 44–8.

275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295

NOTES

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342

Grattan, 1847, I, 18. Anon., 1835, 181. Hill, 1984–5, 30–2. Cookson, 1997, 178. Cassidy, 2003, 98. MacMullen, 1846, 134. MacMullen, 1846, 135–6. Moyle Sherer, 1825, 51–2. Donaldson, 2000, 58. Johnstone and Hagerty, 1996, 2–4; Fontana, 2002, 243–4. Buckley, 1987, 174. Green, 1827, 60–1. Donaldson, 2000, 187. Ormsby, 1809, II, 46. Liddell Hart, 1999, 72. Whinyates, 1984, 146. Hibbert, 1975, 6. NAM, Microfilm, 109–11. Hibbert, 1975, 10–11. Grattan, 1847, I, 9. PRO, 30/43/63/1; Hathaway, 1993, 73–4. Unsworth, 1858, n.p. Ballhatchet, 1993, 273–88. Ballhatchet, 1993, 280–1. Sargent, 1819, 300. Sargent, 1819, 300. Coley, 1856, 52 footnote. Conran, 1870, 209. Fontana, 2002, 238; Unsworth, 1858, title page. Unsworth, 1858, 26–7. MacMullen, 1846, 163. Fontana, 2002, 241–2 O’Meara, 1886, 1. O’Meara, 1886, 3. O’Meara, 1886, 13–14, 16. Doherty and Truesdale, 2000, 26–7. Laverack, 1874, 88–91. Laverack, 1874, 150. Laverack, 1874, 150–1. Johnstone and Hagerty, 1996, 6. Murphy, 1961–2, 258. O’Meara, 1886, 128. Paget, 1956, 121, 160. O’Meara, 1886, 131–2. Johnstone and Hagerty, 1996, 9. Mullett, 1998, 185. Unsworth, 1858, viii.

291

292

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

NOTES

343 Parsons, 1988, passim. 344 Johnstone and Hagerty, 1996, 7; NAM, 8408–38, John Kyne to Cardinal Wiseman, 6 November 1857. 345 NAM, 8408–38, John Kyne to Cardinal Wiseman, 12 January 1858. 346 Murphy, 1969–70, 329. 347 Wenniger, 1886, 184–5. 348 Spiers, 1992, 131. 349 McLeod, 1996, 12–13 350 McLeod, 1996, 27–8. 351 These estimates are derived from Mitchell and Deane, 1957, 12 and Currie, Gilbert and Horsley, 1977, Table 2.3, 25. 352 Munson, 1991, 35–66; McLeod, 1974, 31–4; Watts, 1995, 127–30. 353 Spiers, 1992, 126–7. 354 Watts, 1995, 569–74; Ceadel, 1980, 23–6; Bebbington, 1982, 107–8. 355 Watts, 1995, 596. 356 Hanham, 1973, Appendix II, 179–80. 357 Thompson, 1990, 247. 358 Hanham, 1973, Appendix II, 181. 359 Munson, 1991, 10. 360 Watkins, 1981, 107. 361 Brown, 1914, 75. 362 Thompson, 1990, 261–6. 363 Acland-Troyte, 1881, 62. 364 Wyndham, 1899, 65. 365 Gelson-Gregson, 1894, 39–40. 366 Spiers, 1996, 337. The General Annual Return of the British Army for the year ending 30 September 1913 gave figures of 33,662 Roman Catholics and 20,780 Irish–born soldiers of all denominations. 367 Brown, 2001, 56. 368 Cox, 1982, 93. 369 Williams, 1999, passim. 370 Compton, 1893, 3. 371 Richards, 1983, 11, 13, 340. 372 Watkins, 1901, 268–9. 373 Watkins, 1899, 185. 374 Reports of the Church Congress, 1875, 305. 375 Gleig, 1857, 19. 376 Reports of the Church Congress, 1875, 305. 377 Bull, 1904, 30–1. 378 Bull, 1904, 30–1. 379 Williams, 1999, 142–3. 380 Bull, 1904, 30. 381 Williams, 1999, 113–15. 382 Findlay, 1941, 130, 136. 383 Acland-Troyte, 1881, 40. 384 Report of the Meeting of the Manchester Auxiliary, 1867, 23–4.

NOTES

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398

Acland-Troyte, 1881, 62. Male, 1901, 120. Findlay, 1941, 136. Anon., 1933, 256. Findlay, 1941, 136. Herdman, 1888, vii–viii. Herdman, 1888, 43. Kinahan, 1900, 24. Findlay, 1941, 136. Findlay, 1941, 133. Reports of the Church Congress, 1875, 297. Reports of the Church Congress, 1900, 196. Male, 1901, 115–18. Bull, 1904, 7–8.

5 Religion and the British military experience, 1793–1914 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Wright, 1858, 96. Haythornthwaite, 1995 (b), 222. Richards, 1983, 88–9. Robertson, 1921, 8. Acland-Troyte, 1881, 62. Richards, 1983, 88. Reports of the Church Congress, 1875, 305. Robertson, 1921, 9. Weaver, 1981, 37. Reports of the Church Congress, 1875, 305. Crozier, 1969, 196. Wyndham, 1899, 68. Robertson, 1921, 9. Wood, 1906, II, 265. Richards, 1983, 89–91. Wyndham, 1899, 68. Acland-Troyte, 1881, 62. Male, 1901, 118–20. Compton, 1893, 146–7. Bull, 1904, 169. Beatson, 1882, 34–5. Beatson, 1882, 35. Shattuck, 1987, passim. Marshman, 1876, 41. Gleig, 1857, 25–6. Billanie, 1820, 130. Haythornthwaite, 2001, 55. Spiers, 1980, 53–4. Haythornthwaite, 2001, 53–54; Strachan, 1984, 89.

293

294

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

NOTES

Skelley, 1977, 94–5. Huston, 1851, 25–30. Laverack, 1874, 6, 17. Trustram, 1984, 33–4, 46. Farwell, 1981, 90. Strachan, 1980, 798–801. Farwell, 1981, 25. Holmes, 2001, 105–6. Weaver, 1981, 130. Cookson, 1997, 146–9, 170–1. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1931, 471. Spiers, 1996, 339. ‘N.M.’, 1929, 207; Egerton, 1929, 263–4. Stewart, 1822, II, 280–1. Stirling, 1936, 190–1. Stewart, 1822, II, 281; Forbes-Mitchell, 1893, 52; Fontana, 2002, Table 1.8a. Anon., 1915, 56. McElwee, 1972, 13. Stewart, 1822, II, 280; Forbes-Mitchell, 1893, 51. Stirling, 1936, 191. Keegan, 1994, 167. Royle, 2000, 268. Cumming, 1856, 14. Stirling, 1936, 190–2; Brander, 1971, 68–9. Brander, 1971, 69; Henderson, 1989, 286. Henderson, 1989, 286; Forbes-Mitchell, 1893, 214. Myerly, 1996, 98. Helgeland, Daly and Patout Burns, 1987, 49–50. Edwards, 1954, 68. Colley, 2002, 314; Frey, 1981, 122–3. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1931, 507. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1935, 10; July 1937, 430–2; Edwards, 1954, 68. Spiers, 1980, 345. Wood, 1906, II, 240–1. Edwards, 1928, 80–90. Haythornthwaite, 1995 (a), 35. United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, 1842, i, 411. Kingsley, 1855, 9–10 Morris, 1966, 299. Lock and Quantrill, 2002, 222–3. Downham, 2000, 148, 150–1. United Service Magazine, 1865, ii, 238. Lummis, 1991, 91–7. Holmes, 2001, 211.

NOTES

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118

295

Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, January 1935, 13–15. Myerly, 1996, 98 Weaver, 1981, 139. Knight, 1997, 27. Gleig, 1845, 397–8. Gelson Gregson, 1894, 54–5. Bull, 1904, 244. Bull, 1904, 19–20. Laverack, 1874, 30. Hopkins, 1872, 19–20. Hopkins, 1872, 27–8. Gambier Parry, 1885, 13. Bull, 1904, 240–1. Attridge, 2003, 60–1. Bull, 1904, 124. Bull, 1904, 145. Church Times, 15 July 1898, 62. Berends, 1998, passim; Mitchell, 1998, passim; McPherson, 1997, 75–6; Gilpin Faust, 1987, passim. McLeod, 1996, 149–56. Gill, 1998, passim. Sellers, 1900, 28. Thompson, 1990, 269. Watkins, 1899, 69. Bull, 1904, 167–8. Churchill, 1965, 113–14. Tuker, 1953, 46. Beatson, 1882, 45. Keegan, 1991, 137. Gleig, 1915, 43. NAM, 7912–21. NAM, 7405–84–1, Henry Press Wright to SPG, October 1855. Ferrar, 1922, 41, 63, 71. Milton Small, 1897, 60. Hibbert, 1975, 3. Anglesey, 1968, 101. Gleig, 1835, viii–ix. Christian Sentinel, March 1860, 33. Billanie, 1820, 46. Crookshank, 1885, II, 326. NAM, Microfilm, n.p. The Times, 29 November 1854, 10. Wright, 1857, 51. Wright, 1857, 61. Wright, 1857, 50. Herdman, 1888, 113.

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

296

NOTES

119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145

Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 4 April 1900, 620. M’Clelland, 1902, 20. Conran, n.d., 4. Forbes-Mitchell, 1893, 55. Brander, 1971, 125–6. Gordon, 1929, 116. Gordon, 1929, 187. Costello, 1841, 163. Thomas, 1991,713. Kussmaul, 1986, 36. Costello, 1841, 79. Gleig, 1915, 83–4. Swinson and Scott, 1968, 6. Billanie, 1820, 42. Coley, 1856, 37–8. Pearse, 1897, 157, 181. Lenihan, 1994, 186–7. IWM, Exhibits and Firearms, Troops’ mascots, 1914–17 Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 4 April 1900, 620. Williams, 1999, 71. McPherson, 1997, 63. Christian Sentinel, October 1860, 151–3. Forbes-Mitchell, 1893, 192–3. Farwell, 1981, 223; Richards, 1983, 156–7. Harrison, 1971, 170, 241; Watkins, 1899, 69–70. Smith, 1915, 20–3, 31, 35. Wenniger, 1886, 137–72; Male, 1901, 134–5; Bull, 1904, 52; Watkins, 1899, 66. Bull, 1904, 125. Edwards, 1954, 192–5. Huston, 1851, 44. Gleig, 1904, 130. Hoppen, 1998, 328. Hoppen, 1998, 328; Morley, 1971, 13–18, 32. Coley, 1856, 41–2. Wright, 1857, 73–4. Wright, 1857, 62. Male, 1901, 19. Greaves, 2003, 91–5. Wood, 1906, II, 50–1; Morris, 1966, 481–2. Morris, 1966, 507–8; Knight, 2004, 223–4. Bull, 1904, 220–1. Cotton, 1852, 73. Billanie, 1820, 71. Billanie, 1820, 91–2. SOAS, WMMS Records, Microfiche, Box No. 53, Correspondence: Egypt and Greece, 1882–8, 4.

146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163

NOTES

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164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205

297

Elton, 1954, 116–20. Murphy O’Connor, 1992, 146–7. Carey, 1857, 187. Bull, 1904, 170–1 Haythornthwaite, 2001, 62–3. Whinyates, 1984, 153. Whinyates, 1984, 180. Field, 1869, 74. Teague, 1975, 47. Glover, 1977, 152. Guedalla, 1997, 163. Holmes, 2001, 355–6. Cooper, 1869, 9; Moyle Sherer, 1825, 166, 170. Grattan, 1847, II, 182–3. Ormsby, 1809, I, 133–4. Atchison, 1825, 3; Atchison, 1830, 5. Wesleyan Missionary Notices, 4, 1823–5, 226. Atchison, 1825, 12, 17. Atchison, 1825, 61–5. Atchison, 1825, 4. Atchison, 1829, passim; Atchison, 1830, passim. Wolffe, 1991, 67–8. HCPP, Return of Chaplains of Church of England, 1859, XV, 365. Colley, 2002, pp. 269–328. Kiernan, 1986, 318. Ryder, 1853, 183. NAM, MF 8109–63. Swinson and Scott, 1968, 37. Hughes, 1979, 25. Whitworth, 1988, 85, 95. Anglesey, 1968, 28. United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, 1838, i, 70–1. United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, 1838, ii, 378–9. Neill, 1985, 422–6; James, 1997, 256, 267–9; Stanley, 1983, passim. Marshman, 1876, 383. Wolseley, 1903, I, 375–6. James, 1997, 250–2; Hibbert, 1980, 209–12. Forbes-Mitchell, 1893, 20. Hibbert, 1980, 124–5. Wolseley, 1903, II, 360–6; Keegan, 1967, 194. Pollock, 1998, 149–51. Robinson, 1999, 405; Beckerlegge, 1997, 244–6, 260–2; United Service Magazine, New Series, 1889, 2, 486–8; United Service Magazine, New Series, 1889, 3, 72–85. 206 Allen, 2002, 218–19. 207 Bell, 1867, I, 295–6.

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

298

NOTES

208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253

Kiernan, 1986, 67. Carson, 1990, 179–80; James, 1997, 136. Conran, 1867, 2–4. Conran, 1870, 231. Coley, 1856, 55–6. Conran, 1867, 5–6. DNB. Yeats-Brown, 1984, 32. Yeats-Brown, 1984, 32–3, 43–54, 95–109. Yeats-Brown, 1984, 219–21. Carlson, 1993, 29–30; Channing, 1936, 278–9. Stevenson, 1841, 57–8. Stevenson, 1841, 178. Richards, 1983, 143. Richards, 1983, 256. Richards, 1983, 315–18. Richards, 1983, 313–14. Coley, 1856, 85. Farwell, 1999 (b), 57. Banks, 1874, 124–5. United Service Magazine, 1875, 2, 326. Brander, 1971, 69. Spiers, 1998 (b), 4. Spiers, 1998 (a), 66. Moore Smith, 1901, II, 273. Pollock, 1998, 163–4; Steele, 1998, 28–9. Pollock, 1998, 163. Johnstone and Hagerty, 1996, 7, 11–14, 30–1. Lummis, 1978, 14; Morris, 1966, 318. Beatson, 1882, 33; Morris, 1966, 281, 455. Whitlow, 1938, 88. Knight, 2004, 80; Lock and Quantrill, 2002, 23; Emery, 1977, 251–2. Greaves, 2003, 73; Knight, 2004, 45, 114 Knight, 2004, 191. Gleig, 1845, 405. Cumming, 1856, 33–4. Wright, 1858, 101. Watkins, 1899, 198. Pollock, 1955, passim. Potts, 1967, 40. Conran, 1867, 79. Conran, n.d., 7. The Christian Sentinel, April 1860, 52. Davies, 1933, 4–5. Anon., 1855, 11. Anon., 1855, 14, 21.

NOTES

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288

299

Anon., 1915, 109. Wesleyan Missionary Notices, Third Series, 2, January 1856, 13. Marsh, 1861, 65, 82. Kiernan, 1986, 64–5. Wolffe, 1994, 215–26; MacKenzie, 1999, 212; McLeod, 1996, 150. Bull, 1904, 56. Bull, 1904, 267. Williams, 1994, 401–2. Green, 1827, 21–2. Longford, 1969, 242–3. Senior, 1966, 151–60. Senior, 1966, 173–5. Senior, 1966, 271–2. Green, 1827, 21. Ferrar, 1922, 134. Ferrar, 1922, 134. MacMullen, 1846, 163. NAM, 8309–61. Jarvis, Journal of the RAChD, July 1931, 47. Marsh, 1857, 158. Hopkins, 1872, 33. Strachan, 1997, 111–17. Lucy, 1938, 43. Lucy, 1938, 70. Kiernan, 1998, 152. NAM, 7405–84–1, Henry Press Wright to SPG, October 1855. Wolffe, 1991, passim. Marshman, 1876, 366. Hibbert, 1980, 302. Nutting, 1967, 83–4. Nutting, 1967, 173; Elton, 1954, 297, 304. Pollock, 1998, 139–41, Evans, 1937, 378–9. Maurice and Arthur, 1924, 267. Jourdain, 1934, 240–1. Beckerlegge, 1997, passim.

1111 C H A P T E R 1 2 3 4 5 6 INDEX 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 Abercromby, Sir Ralph 23 Aboukir Bay 139, 212 8 Abyssinian War 87 9 Acland-Troyte, J.E.A. 110–11, 176, 20111 178, 179, 185, 187 1 Act of Union 22 2 Advisory Committee on the Spiritual 3 and Moral Welfare of the Army 4 175 5 Afghan War: First 129; Second 115, 6 132, 179, 205 7 Afghanistan 129, 156, 181, 211, 224 8 Africa 216–17, 229 9 Agar, William 9, 10, 14–15, 17, 21, 62–3 30111 agnosticism 135, 179, 180, 240 1 Agra 97, 128, 129, 158, 196 2 Aix-la-Chapelle 68 3 Albany, NY 65 4 alcohol 55, 78, 81–2, 87, 102, 105, 5 121, 153, 159, 175, 188; Bibles 6 and Prayer Books sold for 96, 167; 7 ‘boozing schools’ 82; rum 81 8 Aldershot 91, 92, 103, 104–7, 109–10, 9 119, 172, 185, 186, 198, 234 40111 Alexander, William 132–3 1 Alkmaar, battle of 203

Alleine, Joseph: Alarm to the Unconverted 28 Allen, Major 95 Alma, battle of the 170, 191, 203, 204 Alnwick 62 Ambala 159 America: Continental Congress 65 American Civil War 5, 70, 97–8, 188, 198, 208 American War of Independence 8, 11, 14, 21, 25, 26, 66 Ancell, Samuel 16, 40 Anderson, Olive: ‘Growth of Christian militarism’ 69, 70, 90, 93 Anglicanism, see Church of England Annapolis Royal, NS 8 Anne, Queen 18, 26 Antinomianism 50 anti-Ritualism 134–5, 138 Anton, James 139 Antwerp 149 Armagh 159 Arminians 33, 37, 43, 58, 140 Army, the, see British army Army Chaplains’ Department 69, 70, 231; Catholics and Nonconformists excluded 92;

INDEX

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

cutbacks 90; established 89; expansion and diversification 93, 101, 116, 173; India 152; and reform 90; religious literature 94; see also chaplains Army Council 175 Army Enlistment Act 180 Army Prayer Union 121 Army Scripture Readers’ Society 99 Army Service Corps 198 Army Temperance Association 114, 115 Arnold, Dr Thomas 88 Arras 144 Articles of War 21–2, 31, 47, 88, 184 Artificer Company 61 Ashanti 220 Ashanti War: Second 87, 224; Fourth 225 Asia 216–17 Assche 45 Atchison, Captain Thomas 216, 231 atheism 135, 179–80, 240 Athlone 60, 146 atrocities: Boer War 71, 78–9, 134; Indian Mutiny 219, 220; Sudan 71 Australia 73, 86 Austria 123 Ayodhya 219 Badajoz 78, 205 Bagshawe, Fr John 171 Bagshawe, Samuel 10 Balaclava 102, 171, 228 Balaclava, battle of 192, 210 Bancroft, N. W. 217 Band of Hope 107 Bandon 60 Bankton 29, 31 Baptist Missionary Society 154 Baptists 92, 93, 142, 150, 155, 156, 175, 185, 188, 213; India 114, 182; missionaries 129, 154, 158, 238 Barbados 61 Barnard Castle 47, 64

301

Barnet conference (1862) 105, 106 Barnett, Correlli 35, 76, 151, 159 Barrackpore 128, 129–30 barracks: boredom 144, 200; building programme 86; Christians persecuted in 177; isolation in 144, 200; libraries 102; loneliness in 101; monotony of life in 81 Bath 65 battle experience 199–208 Beatson, Staff Sergeant 100, 187, 200 Beckett, Ian 130 Beckwith, John Charles 121 Benares 156 Bengal 96, 129, 152 Bengal Artillery, see East India Company Bennet, Reverend Samuel 12 Berhampore 154–5, 158 Bermuda 86 Besant, Annie 222–3 Bibles 94, 95, 98, 125, 138, 147, 150; Bible classes 213; Douai 91; King James 91; lost 97; magic 204, 241; sold for alcohol 96, 167; see also Prayer Books; scripture readers; Testaments Bickersteth, Bishop Robert 100, 154 Billanie, George 95–6, 138–9, 141, 145–6, 149, 188, 203, 206, 212–13 Birkenhead 85 Birmingham 75, 178 Bishop, Matthew 38–9 Blackader, Colonel John 16, 17, 39–40, 41–2 Blaina 177 Blake, Colonel 203 Bland’s Dragoons 30 Blandford 62 blasphemy 80, 180; see also swearing Blenheim, battle of 22, 24 Bliss, P.P.: ‘Hold the Fort’ 187 ‘Blue Lights’ 136, 159 Boer War 72, 73–4, 82, 85, 87, 93, 98, 108, 136, 197, 211,

302

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

INDEX

213–14, 229, 241 244; atrocities 71, 78–9, 134 Bombay 218 Bond, Mark 47–8, 54 Book of Common Prayer, see Prayer Books Boothby, Charles 121 Boyle, Andrew 28–9 ‘Boyne Water, The’ 232 Boys’ Brigade 4 brain-generator 223 Bray, Dr Thomas 26 Breadalbane, Lord 41 Bremen 146 Bright, John 74 Brighton 107 Brindle, Fr Robert 234 Briscall, Revd Samuel 149 Bristol 184 British and Foreign Bible Society 98 British army: Anglicisation 77–8, 174, 239; black and coloured recruits 74; Catholic contribution declines 174; cavalry regiments 74; character 73; church billets 215; commissions purchased 74; Crown regiments 160; demobilisation 79; denominations registered 93, 176, 185; estimates 7; ethnic composition 77; expenditure on religious needs 91; field sports 74; flogging eradicated 79; function 73; German soldiers 57–8; Guards regiments 74; Highland regiments 159, 221; Horse Guards 161; hussars 171; increased denominationalism 175; invalid companies 14; Irish Brigade 123; Irish contribution 77, 78, 123, 190; Ironsides 133; irreligion 236; lieutenant–colonel (rank) 31; manpower problems 73; Methodism 71, 147, 150, 174–5; moral and spiritual degeneracy 13, 70, 195, 241; Mounted Infantry 136; national mobilisation 141, 238;

national regiments 190; NCOs 169, 170, 175, 239; new battalions added 190; New Model Army 19; Nonconformists underrepresented 175, 237; officer corps 74–5, 82, 88–9, 120–31, 131–8, 216; officers’ servants 188; organisation 189; other ranks 138–73, 173–82; Presbyterian constituency declines 174; public opinion 86; religious subculture 138, 159, (Catholic) 5, 113, 159, 160, 162–3, 165, 171, 172, 175, 182–3, 238, 239, (evangelical) 118, 119, 173, 182, 239; Scottish regiments 77, 78, 190, 191; short-service enlistments 176; size 7–8, 35, 73; soldiers’ susceptibility to religion 178; status 79; unpopularity 8; unskilled urban poor recruits 174; urbanisation 76, 77; Welsh contribution 77, 78; winter quarters 47, 48, 58 regiments and corps: 1st Dragoon Guards 141; 1st Foot Guards 144; 1st Regiment (Royal Scots) 36, 95, 98; 2nd Dragoon Guards 227; 2nd Life Guards 124; 2nd Regiment 61, 127, 145, 149; 3rd Foot Guards 95, 141, 148; 3rd Light Dragoons 158–9, 202; 4th Hussars 136; 6th Dragoons 63; 7th Dragoons 66; 7th Hussars 212; 7th Regiment 228; 8th Light Dragoons 154; 9th Regiment 96, 126, 129, 144, 148; 10th Regiment of Foot 62; 11th Dragoons 152; 13th Regiment 84, 128, 129, 130, 152, 153, 156, 164, 169, 188; 14th Light Dragoons 163; 14th Regiment 155; 16th Lancers 72; 17th Regiment 158; 18th Hussars 190; 19th Regiment 84, 141, 195, 201, 230, 231; 20th Regiment 9, 10, 14–15, 21, 62; 21st Light

INDEX

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Dragoons 147; 23rd Regiment 170; 24th Regiment 128, 147, 155, 157–8, 194; 26th Regiment 95, 129; 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment 163, 169; 28th Regiment 163, 227; 30th Regiment 26; 32nd Regiment 200, 206, 217; 33rd Regiment 203; 34th Regiment 165; 38th Regiment 145, 146; 40th Regiment 123, 167; 41st Regiment 217; 42nd Highlanders 77, 139; 43rd Regiment 24, 100, 121, 161, 163; 44th Regiment 188; 45th Regiment 221; 46th Regiment 107; 51st Regiment 166; 53rd Regiment 154; 54th Regiment 85; 56th Regiment 141; 58th Regiment 16, 64; 59th Regiment 155; 60th Rifles 124 see also King’s Royal Rifle Corps; 61st Regiment 97; 63rd Regiment 207; 66th Regiment 121, 150, 155, 213; 68th Regiment 94, 229; 69th Regiment 100; 70th Regiment 160; 71st Regiment 81–2, 166, 167, 169, 202; 72nd (Highland) Regiment 147, 149, 155, 191, 193–4; 73rd Regiment 33, 150, 160; 74th Regiment 147; 75th Regiment 233; 77th Regiment 203, 211; 80th Regiment 139; 82nd Regiment 170; 84th Regiment 172; 87th Regiment 159, 163; 88th Regiment (Connaught Rangers) 95, 162, 163, 167, 234; 90th Regiment 75, 121; 92nd (Highland) Regiment 141, 205 see also Gordon Highlanders; 93rd (Highland) Regiment 95, 123, 147, 191–2, 195, 204, 208, 228, 238; 94th Regiment 146; 95th Rifles 139, 205 see also Rifle Brigade; 97th

303

Regiment 130–1; 98th Regiment 151; 99th Regiment 100, 187; Black Watch 8–9, 36, 41, 100–1, 205; Bland’s Dragoons 30; Cameronian Regiment 16; Campbell’s Regiment of Foot 38; Gordon Highlanders 146, 149, 188, 224, (1st Battalion) 205 see also 92nd (Highland) Regiment; Graham’s Regiment of Foot 58; Irish Guards 123, (1st Battalion) 160, 232; King’s Royal Rifle Corps 222 see also 60th Rifles; Manchester Regiment 207; Rifle Brigade 121, 130, 141 see also 95th Rifles; Royal Artillery 102, 131, 141, 216, 218, 227; Royal Engineers 121, 135, 221; Royal Horse Artillery 166; Royal Irish Regiment (1st Battalion) 193; Royal Irish Rifles 112, (2nd Battalion) 80–1, 112, 232; Royal Munster Fusiliers 232; Royal North Gloucesters 184; Royal Welch Fusiliers 72, 85, 111, 177, 185, (2nd Battalion) 72–3, 223; Scots Guards 201; Stair’s Dragoons 30; see also East India Company: Bengal Artillery and militia British Empire 4, 70, 73, 211 Brooks 205 Brown, Callum: Death of Christian Britain 4–5, 242–3 Browne, Captain Philip 40 Bruges 12, 43, 45, 58 Brumwell, Stephen 18 Brussels 45 brutality 78 Bryans, J. W.: Active Service 136–7 Buchan, Earl of 31 Buddhism 220, 223 Buenos Aires 167

304

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INDEX

Bull, Paul 82, 109–10, 113, 136, 177–8, 182, 187, 196, 197, 199, 211, 213–14, 229 Bunker’s Hill, battle of 41 Bunyan, John: Grace Abounding 44 burial service 88, 89 Burke, Edmund 13 Burke, Patrick 148 Burma 100, 151, 223 Burmese War 129 Burn, Andrew: Christian Officer’s Panoply 17–18, 32–3, 66 Busaco, battle of 148 Butler, Sir William 123 Cains, John 205 Cairo 213 Calamy, Edmund 33 Calcutta 128, 152, 221; City Mission 227; Fort William 154, 155, 158 Calladine, George 141, 143, 159, 201, 230–1 Calvert, Sir Harry 90, 148 Calvinism 33, 37, 38, 53, 57, 58, 140, 146 camaraderie 35, 208–11 Cambrai 144 Cambridge 127, 145 Cambridge, Duke of 91, 134 Cambridge Seven 227 Campbell, Sir Colin 191, 220 Campbell, Major Duncan 41 Campbell of Glenlyon, Colonel 41 Campbellpore 170 Canada 11, 12, 73, 86, 99, 191, 216 Canning, Lord 128 Canterbury 63, 65, 103 Canty, Fr Michael 171 Cape Breton Island 12 Cape Colony 86, 147, 225 Cape Town 109, 143, 149, 155, 182, 191, 204, 238 Cardwell, Edward, 1st Viscount 72, 73, 76, 161, 180

Careless, Jack 16 Carey, Eustace 155 Carey, William 154, 155 Caribbean 23, 37, 143 Carlyle, Dr Alexander 31 Carrickfergus 64 Carriden 30 Carson, Sergeant James 227–8 Cartagena 37 Cartaxo 147, 148 Carus-Wilson, Revd William 104, 110, 113 Cashel 11, 36 Cassell’s Saturday Journal 204, 207 Catalonia 163 Catholic Relief Act 123 Catholic Soldiers’ Association 170 Catholic Soldier’s Guide During His Stay Abroad 173 Catholics 2–3, 123, 209, 226, 238; army subculture 5, 113, 159, 160, 162–3, 165, 171, 172, 175, 182–3, 238, 239; barred from becoming officers 10; church parades 168; Crimean War 72; Emancipation 92, 124, 238; excluded from Army Chaplains’ Department 92; fifth column 36; hostility to Army 72; illegal chapels 12; Irish recruits 2–3, 67, 123, 238; Marian devotions 170; and officer corps 124; orphanages 173; penetration of Army 18; persecution and abuse 11, 32, 163; Protestant soldiers convert to 198; recruitment extended 10; regard for sensitivities 12; schools 17; Scotland 159; soldiering as a demonstration of loyalty 11; soldiers permitted to attend Mass 161, 163; soldiers’ rights 95; unreliable soldiers 159, 160 Caution to Swearers 26 Cawnpore 129, 132, 154, 156, 157, 158, 219, 220

INDEX

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Cennick, John 44, 59 census of religious worship (1851) 140, 174 Cephalonia 147 Ceylon 84, 86, 159, 201 Chamberlain, John 154, 158 chapel huts 70, 91 chapel schools 70 chaplains 6, 15, 21–3, 35, 71, 224, 227; absenteeism 23, 24, 88, 89, 153, 225; Anglican 93; AngloCatholic 135; Bible classes 118; Catholic 2, 91, 92, 93, 113, 116, 160, 162, 171, 190, 239; civilian clergymen volunteer 23; colonels appropriate pay of 23; commissions sold 89; duties 22; East India Company 158, 167–8; evangelical 154; garrison chaplaincy 93; Jewish 116; Nonconformists commissioned 93; numbers 90, 116; pay 23; Presbyterian 91, 92, 93, 116, 190, 191; relations between denominations 233; religious societies and 118; temporary 93; uniform 91; Wesleyan Methodist 116; see also Army Chaplains’ Department Charles XII of Sweden 26 charms, see lucky charms Chartism 79 Chatham 65, 75, 91, 100, 103, 104–5, 106, 172 Chelmsford 144, 145 Chester 170 Chillianwallah, battle of 158, 168, 194, 224 China 227, 228 Christian burial 240 Christian manliness, see muscular Christianity Christian Sentinel, The 198, 202–3, 208, 227–8 Chunar 154, 157

305

Church Lads’ Brigade 4 Church Missionary Society 225 Church of England 71, 209; Church Army 108; Congress: (1875) 98, 177, 181, 185; (1900) 181; evangelicals 195; High Church 195; and officer corps 122; pluralism 22; societies 26; Soldiers’ Institute 110 Church of England Men’s Society 209 Church of England Temperance Society 115 Church of Ireland 123 Church of Scotland 9, 92, 150, 192; and officer corps 122 church parade, mandatory 21, 71, 88, 93, 116, 163, 169, 184–7, 240; abolished 92; as a show of military force 184; Nonconformists excused 129; resented 185, 240, 241 Church Times, The 198 Churchill, General Charles 24 Churchill, Winston 135, 136, 199, 201 Churrukpûja 218 Ciudad Rodrigo 78 class conflict 3 Claughton, Piers 193 Clements, William 48–9, 50, 56 Clifford, Captain Henry 124, 171 Clifford, Hon. Robert Edward 123 Clisham, Quartermaster 98 Clonmel 60 Coddrington, Lieutenant-General W.J. 103 Coghill, Lieutenant 194 Coke, Thomas 61 Colchester 91, 106, 144, 182 Cole, Sir Galbraith Lowry 127 Colenso, battle of 134 Colenso, J.W. 211 Coley, Revd James 84, 97, 121, 131, 138, 139, 168, 206–7, 210, 222, 224

306

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INDEX

Colley, Linda: Britons 1, 152, 153, 217, 238 Columbine, General 23 comradeship 35, 208–11 Confraternity for Catholic Soldiers 209 Congregationalists 93, 175 Conran, Henry Mascall 127, 128, 129, 151, 153, 155–6, 157, 158, 168, 204, 221, 222, 227 Contagious Disease Acts 79, 83 Cookson, J.E. 77, 162, 163 Cope, Sir John 29 Corfu 147 Cork 59, 60, 106, 203 Cornwallis, Lieutenant-General George 61 Corporation Acts: repealed 92 Corrie, Daniel 154, 157, 158, 168 Corunna, battle of 81–2, 203, 209 Costello, Edward 205 Cotton, Edward 212 Council of Military Education 189 Counley, Joseph 60 Covenanters 133 Coventry, William 36 Coveny, Colonel 205 Cowie, Archdeacon 129 Cox, Private J.H. 209 Cox Heath 66 Cranfield 158 Craufurd, Robert (‘Black Bob’) 120 Crawley 206 crime in the Army 110; Army a refuge for criminals 14; teetotalism reduces 115 Crimean War 69, 72, 73, 78, 87, 90, 92, 98, 102, 116, 171–2, 182, 192, 194, 211, 226, 228, 233, 236 crisis of faith 135 Cromwell, Oliver 7, 19, 70, 133, 136 Crowe, Lieutenant Charles 163–4 Crown officers 128, 129 Crozier, Frank 137–8 Cullen, Archbishop 161

Culloden, battle of 32, 38, 58 Cumberland, Duke of 9, 25, 32, 51, 54, 59, 65, 230 Cumming, Dr John 192, 226–7 Cunningham, Lieutenant Alexander 221 Curragh, the 91, 232 Curtis, Dr 165 Dakins, William 192–3 Daniell, Louisa 106, 107–8, 119 ‘Dark Lanthorns, The’ 43 Davenport, E.M. 121 Dawson, Lieutenant George 216, 231 Deacon, Lucy 108 Defoe, Daniel 14 Deism 17, 31, 121, 138, 140, 240 Delaware 65–6 Delhi 78, 173, 217; Kashmir Gate 233 denominational consciousness 157 deserters 60, 206, 217 despotism: army as a bulwark for 7 Dettingen, battle of 25, 40, 44, 45, 46, 60 ‘Devil’s Corner’ 206 Dickens, Charles 105 diffusive Christianity 177 Dillon, John (Methodist soldier) 60 Dillon, John (Irish politician) 160 Dinapore 154, 155, 168 Diprose 100 disease 37, 86, 143, 152–3, 200; cholera 87, 128, 156, 222; dysentery 53, 153, 156, 201; fever 156; malaria 143; mortality rate 86–7, 158, 238; scurvy 87; tropical 81; typhus 87; VD 83, 84, 85, 105; Walcheren Fever 143; yellow fever 201; see also health Dissection Act 210 Doddridge, Philip 17, 38; ‘Christian Warrior Animated’ 29; Life of Gardiner 10, 29–33, 65, 67–8, 127 domesticity, see home Donaldson, Joseph 141, 146, 165

INDEX

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Doncaster 55 Dormer, Ensign Henry 124–5 Dover 103 Dow, Alexander 23 Dowart Castle, Mull 13 drinking, see alcohol Drummond, William Hay 25 Drummond Tract Depot 98 drunkenness, see alcohol Dublin 59, 60, 75, 134, 150, 159; Castle 163; soldiers’ institute 103 duelling 60 Dum-Dum 155–6, 158 Dunbar 62 Dunbar, Ninian 58–9 Dundas, Sir Henry 80, 230 Dungannon 145 Dutch Reformed Church 146 Earle, Peter 18 East India Company 6, 84, 128, 151, 152, 157; Bengal Artillery 82, 127, 128, 132, 154, 155, 156, 217; and Brahmins 221; and Catholics 160–1, 167–8; chaplains 88, 97, 158, 167–8, 224, 238; Charter renewal 154; and Dissenters 158; European regiments 190; and native religions 222; sepoys 221 East Indies 73 ecclesiastical courts 15 Eckford, Brigadier 131 ecumenism 229–34 Edghill, J.C. 135, 181 Edinburgh 9, 29, 58 education, see schools Egypt 99, 181, 197, 201, 212–13, 223, 225 employment: discharged soldiers and 115 English Civil War 19, 20, 192 Episcopalians 122 Erskine, Lady Frances 31 Eshowe 187, 200, 225, 226

307

ethnicity: diversity 8, 9; religious identity and 4; tensions in society 9 Eton College 75 evangelicalism 2, 3, 33, 34; Anglican 195; army subculture 118, 119, 173, 239; chaplains 154; India 128, 182; Nonconformist 237, 238; officer corps and 126; pamphlets 137; panevangelicalism 239; religious societies 208–9; soldiers susceptible to 152; women 70 Evans, John 46–7, 56 executions 22, 60 Exeter 146 Eyre, Major-General 102, 104 Falkirk, battle of 38, 59 Falmouth 33 family life, see home Far East 81 Farwell, Byron 74, 135, 189–90 fatalism, see providence Fatehgarh 128 Fathers of Charity 172 Feast of St Lorenzo 216 Feast of the Assumption 171 Featherstone colliery riots 71 femininity, see women feminism, see women Fencibles 23, 73 Fenianism 72, 160 Ferguson, Adam 8–9 Ferozeshah, battle of 97, 168, 206–7, 217–18 fey (doomed) 204–5 Field, James 141, 145, 147, 150, 189, 203, 209, 214 Findlay, J.L. 178, 179, 180 Fisher, Edward: Marrow of Modern Divinity 28 Fisher, Revd 152 Flanders revival 23, 34, 35, 42–55, 56, 57, 67, 126 flogging 163

308

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INDEX

Fontenoy, battle of 38, 39, 40, 49, 50, 51, 52, 60 Forbes-Mitchell, William 204, 208 Fort William 121; see also Calcutta Fortescue, Sir John 86 Forward! 106 France 169; civil war 19; Methodism 143–4; see also French Revolution; Napoleonic Wars; Revolutionary War Frederick I of Prussia 26 Free Kirk 123 Freeman, The 82 Freemasonry 214 French Revolution 2, 35, 123, 142, 210 Frey, Sylvia 13–14 Frontier War, Eighth 225 Fuller, J.F.C. 222 Fullerton, Lady Georgiana 124–5 funerals, military 22 Fureius, Baron 26 Gainsborough 65 Galway 59, 203, 234 Gamble, Revd John 23, 89 gambling 36, 60, 102, 105, 120, 175 Ganges, River 156, 218 Gardener 155 Gardiner, Lady Frances 42 Gardiner, Hon. Colonel James, see Doddridge, Philip Gell, Bishop Frederick 99–100 gender 242–3; rejection of inherited female roles 5; religion and 195–9; Victorian religion and 4; see also women Gentleman’s Magazine, The 63, 80 George I 17, 26, 31 George II 17, 25, 31, 52 George III 123 Germany 44, 47, 146 Ghent 44, 45, 47, 48 Ghuznee 156

Gibraltar 8, 23, 43, 81, 99, 138–9, 163, 238; captured (1704) 11; Catholicism 12; Methodism 18, 61, 92, 143, 149; siege (1727–8) 39, (1779–83) 16, 40, 41, 61; soldiers’ institute 102–3 Gibson 155 Gilley, Sheridan 161 Givet 144, 145 Glasgow 48; Cathedral 195 Gleig, Revd George 90, 95, 121, 125, 193, 195, 200, 206, 209–10, 226, 231; ‘Moral Discipline of the Army’ 120; Religion in the Ranks 118, 119; Soldier’s Help 202 Glencoe massacre 41 Goat-Major, the 223 Godwin: ‘Brief Account of the Late Work of God’ 42–3, 45 Gordon, General Charles 1, 70, 78, 108, 131, 134, 135, 213, 224, 229, 234 Gordon, Captain John 127, 145, 205 Gordon riots 11 Gough, Sir Hugh 168 Graham, James 148 Graham’s Regiment of Foot 58 Grant, Sergeant Bernard 169–70 Grant, General Sir James Hope 107, 134, 219–20 Grant, Thomas, Bishop of Southwark 169–70, 171, 172 Grattan, William 75, 162, 163, 167, 215 Graves, Robert 72 Gravesend 106, 107 Greek Orthodox 226 Green, John 94, 165–6, 230 Green, William 146, 214 Gregson, Revd John Gelson 114, 115, 156–7, 176, 195–6, 232 Guernsey 172 Guild of the Holy Standard 135, 209 Gujerat, battle of 202

INDEX

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Gumley, Colonel Samuel 65 Gustavus Adolphus 19 Gwynne, L.H. 225 Haime, John 39, 43–7, 49–52, 53, 55, 56, 57–8, 61, 146 Haldane, Richard Burdon 73, 175 Halifax, NS 130 Hamilton, Lord George 122 Hammond, Maximilian 130, 131 Hanby, Thomas 63, 66 Hanham, H. J.: ‘Religion and Nationality’ 69 Hanoverian succession 7, 9 Hanway, Jonas: Soldier’s Faithful Friend 27–8, 55, 67 Hare, Revd William 118–19 Harris, Benjamin 139 Harris, Howell 11 Harrison, Major 207 Hasker, Thomas 80, 141 Haslock, David 217 Havana 41 Havelock, Sir Henry 114, 130; and atrocities 219, 220; and Catholics 233; and church parade 92; ‘eccentric’ 1, 137; religious conversion 128–9; soldier-saint 32, 68, 70, 71, 78, 131, 224; temperance 156, 188 Hawker’s Zion Pilgrim 96 health 14, 85; improved 239; sunstroke 153; teetotalism and 115; see also disease Heber, Bishop 129 Hennell, George 121 Henrickson, Kenneth: Making Saints 70–1, 106 Henry of Battenburg, Prince 225 Herdman, Miss 179–80, 204 Herring, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury 62–3 High Wycombe 126 Hill, Rowland (clergyman) 125

309

Hill, Rowland, 1st Viscount 75, 92, 102, 125–6, 129, 216, 230 Hinduism 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 226, 240 Hlobane, battle of 211 Hobart’s Town 95 Hodgson, Revd Robert 90 Holy Communion 51, 58, 88, 122, 128, 149, 167, 177, 191 Holy Land 212 home 151, 161, 195, 236; bedside prayers 178; domesticity idealised 106, 236, 241 hooliganism 80 Hooshearpore 128 Hope 204–5 Hoppen, Theodore 210 Hopper, Christopher 32 hospitals 85, 171, 173, 209 Hoste, D.E. 227 Hougoumont chapel 212 Howard, Edward 124 Howard, Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas 12 Hughman, N.R. 108 Huntingdon, Countess of 65 Huntly, Marquis of 149 Hyam, Ronald 83–4 hymns 147, 241 hypnotism 223 imperialism, popular 80; see also British Empire Ince, Henry 61 Indemnity Acts 9–10 Independents 145 India 81, 82, 97, 99, 100–1, 111, 172, 197, 218, 227; Baptists 114, 213; Bengal Lancers 222; Brahmins 221; brothels 71; Catholicism 113, 239; chaplains in 113, 152; concubines 221; Crown regiments 151, 221; evangelicalism in 128, 182; Home Rule 223; imperial

310

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INDEX

expansion 73; Irish radical priests 160; Irish soldiers in 173; Methodism in 137; missionary activity 11, 70, 128, 153, 160, 172, 229; moral laxity in 84, 85, 121; mortality rate 86, 158, 238 Indian Mutiny 5, 69, 73, 91, 119, 151, 161, 172, 204, 221, 222, 224, 227, 229, 233, 234, 236, 244; atrocities 219, 220 Industrial Revolution 3, 243 Inkerman, battle of 203 Innes, William: Church and the Army 96, 118, 127, 150–1 International Order of the Good Templars 209 Inverawe 41 Inverness 9, 38 Ionian Islands 86, 216 Ireland 146, 234; agricultural prosperity 77; emigration 77; Home Rule 160, 232; Irish Legion, Grande Armée 159; Methodism in 59, 147; Nationalism 2, 77, 79, 160, 232; new oath of allegiance (1774) 10; and officer corps 8; parliament 11; peasant soldier 75–6; Potato Famine 77, 161; rebellion (1798) 159, 211, 229, 230; recruitment in 11, 67, 87, 159, 160, 239; recruits to attest Protestantism 18; repeal of the Union 160; ‘Roman Legion’ 11; ‘Second Reformation’ 162; soldiers’ homes 134 Irish Parliamentary Party 160 Isandlwana, battle of 86, 187, 194, 211 Islam 217, 218–19, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 233, 240 Italy 121, 124 Jablonski, Mr 26 Jackson, Lieutenant Pilkington 102–3, 104, 105–6, 110, 113

Jacobinism 140 Jacobites 10, 36, 124; rebellion (1715) 11, 38, (1745) 9, 11, 52, 55, 57 Jamaica 86 James, Morris 149 James II 7 Jelf, Colonel R.H. 181 Jennings, Captain Peter 167, 203 Jerusalem 213 Jesuits 34, 169, 172 Jews 93, 226 Johnson, Samuel 14; ‘Bravery of the English common soldiers’ 19 Jones, Robert 196 Jourdain, H.F.N. 137 Jullundur 221 Kabul 151 Kandahar, battle of 205 Karnal 156 Keating, Sir Henry Sheehy 123 Keegan, John 71, 200 Kelly, Charles Henry 104–5 Khartoum 70, 108, 233 Kiernan, V.G. 217, 232–3 Kilkenny 62, 69 Killeen, Lord 171 Kilsyth 33 Kinahan, John 109 Kingsley, Charles 78; Brave Words 194 Kingston-upon-Thames 63 Kinsale 59, 60, 61 Kipling, Rudyard: ‘Bobs’ 132; Mutiny of the Mavericks 160; ‘plaster saints’ 83; ‘Tommy’ 71–2, 112 Kirbekan, battle of 205 Kitchener, Horatio, 1st Earl 135, 177, 220, 225, 234 Knight, Frances 195 Knox, Capt. John 24 Kopperman, Paul 18, 19 Kroonstadt 134 Kumasi 220 Kyne, Fr John 172–3

INDEX

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Laffeldt, battle of 54 Lahore 84, 131 Laing’s Nek, battle of 193 Lamb, Sergeant Roger 21 Landour 111, 130 Laverack, Quarter Master Sergeant Alfred 128, 131–2, 151–2, 170–1, 189, 197 Lawson, John 155 Le Marchant, Major-General John Gaspard 126 Leeds Conference (1772) 66 Leo XIII 136 libraries, regimental 102, 104, 190 Liège 34, 54 Limerick 36, 42, 59, 60, 62, 96 Lisbon 37, 147, 165–6 Lisle 45 literacy 6, 97, 188, 189 Liverpool 64, 174 Liverpool, Lord 230 Livingstone, David 229 Llerena, battle of 126 Localization Act 72, 161 Lockart, Major 59 London 64, 113, 159, 173, 208; Brentford 44; Buckingham Palace 160, 232; Camberwell 9; Chelsea 65; Chelsea Hospital 90; Deptford 55; Exeter Hall 107, 108, 226; Foundery 52; Hyde Park 65; Irish quarters 10; Kennington Common 46; Nonconformity in 174; Regent’s Park 95; St Giles 179; St John’s Church, Hammersmith 177; St Mary Woolnoth 32; Southwark 179; Tower 64; Westminster 43, 150; Woolwich 103, 104, 131, 161 London City Mission 99 London Missionary Society 225 Londonderry 232 looting 47, 78, 139, 165, 173, 215 Louis XIV 19 Lovett, Edward 207–8

311

loyalty: conflicts of 8–9; soldiering as demonstration of Irish Catholic 11 Lucknow 68, 128, 156, 172, 173, 200, 204, 233 lucky charms 207, 208 Lucy, John 80–1, 112–13, 232 Lutherans 146 Macaulay, Private 201 McBean, William 192 McClelland, Robert 133–4 McDonald, Donald 167 McKay, Captain 23 McKay Scheme 175 McLeod, Hugh 243; Religion and Society in England 3, 4; Secularisation in Western Europe 3, 4 McLeod, Pipe-Major John 204–5 MacMullen, John 75, 76, 84, 88–9, 96, 152, 153, 164, 169, 231 McPherson, James 208 Madras 88, 99, 222 Mahdism 220, 224, 227 Mahomed Ali Khân 208 Maiwand, battle of 86 Male, Arthur 134–5, 179, 181–2, 187, 211 Malet, Captain G. E. Wyndham 185 Malplaquet, battle of 39–40 Malta 137, 231; Castle St Angelo 216; soldiers’ home 104; soldiers’ society 147 Manchester 61, 64, 75, 106, 174 Mandeville, Bernard 17, 80; ‘Enquiry into the origin of honour’ 19–20 manpower: chronic shortage 10–11 Mansfield 142 Maoris 229 Marine Society 28 Marjouram, Sergeant William 131, 228–9 Marlborough, Duke of 7, 18, 22, 24–5, 34, 240 marriage 22, 158, 189

312

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INDEX

Marsh, Catherine: Hedley Vicars 131–2 Martyn, Henry 154, 168 mascots 208 Mascotte, La (opera) 208 Mauritius 85, 86, 216 Mayett, Joseph 80, 141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 205 Maynooth seminary 160 Mediterranean 73, 86, 216, 238 Meerkirk 58 Meerut 111, 152, 185 Melita 137 Melvill, Lieutenant Philip 33, 194 Melville, Viscount, see Sir Henry Dundas Merioneth 72 Methodist Magazine, The 147–8 Methodists 2, 71; anti-Methodist disturbances 36; Arminian 33, 37, 43, 58, 140; and Army 33–42, 67, 71, 92, 93, 147, 150, 174–5, 182; class meetings 147; Crimean War 228; early history 5; and fishermen 34; France 143–4; garrison societies 182; Gibraltar 18, 61, 92, 143, 149; growth 237; India 137; Ireland 59, 147; love-feasts 129, 144, 147; ‘Methodist’ as disparaging term 141; and miners 34; popularity 140; resistance in Flanders 45; soldiers’ homes 101; South Africa 143, 147, 149, 155, 182; term 122; watchnight services 147; Wellington and 148–9, 150; Welsh Calvinist 62 Middlemiss, George 149 Milazzo 169 Military Register, The 192 militia 6, 64, 73; Breconshire 11; Buckinghamshire 80, 142, 145, 146; Durham 64, 66; Irish 149, 159, 163; Lincolnshire 64; Yorkshire 64 Militia Acts 13, 123 Miller, John 205

missionary work 2, 4, 6, 135, 140, 154, 177, 225, 232, 236, 237; Baptist 129, 154, 158, 238; French 11; India 11, 70, 128, 153, 160, 172, 229; Methodist 159; and military intelligence 226; prison hulks 145; soldiers and 225–9; soldiers’ homes 105, 106; working class 177 Mitchell, John 42 Mitchell, Lieutenant 127 Mole, Sergeant Edwin 82, 84–5, 111, 177, 187 Montevideo 166, 167, 202 Montreal 12 Moody, Dwight 108 Moore, Sir John 147, 165 Moravians 65 Morpeth 62 Morris, Thomas 142–3, 150 Moss, ex-Sergeant Major 198 Muir, Rory 35 Mulcahy, Sergeant 169, 170 Mull, Presbytery of 13 Mullett, Michael 172 Multan 78 Munro, Sir Robert 38 Murray’s Highlanders, see British army: Black Watch muscular Christianity 4–5, 198–9 music: military 80; negro musicians 47 Muslims, see Islam Musselburgh 62 Mutiny Act 7, 14 Muttra 228 Mysorean forces 33 Napier, General Sir William Francis 35, 78, 115, 142, 144, 148 Napoleonic Wars 3, 73, 86, 87, 89, 94, 95, 140, 144, 145, 150, 162, 182, 190, 200, 209, 237 Natal 108–9, 226 National Army Museum 6

INDEX

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National Temperance League 107, 115 Naval and Military Bible Society 25, 94, 95, 97, 98, 116, 118, 125 Naval and Military League 209 Neill, Brigadier-General James 220 Nelson, John 13, 43 Nenagh 60 Netherlands 54, 141–2, 146, 206 Nettleton 141 New France 12 New Jersey 66 ‘New Light, The’ 43, 61, 65 New Plymouth 229 New South Wales 147 New York 65–6 New Zealand 73, 99, 228 Newcastle 55–6 ‘Newport Rising’ 79 Newry 159, 169, 192 Newton, John 32 Nine Years War 10, 34 Nineveh 233 Non-Commissioned Officers, see British army Northampton 29, 33, 66 Nova Scotia 12, 99 Nugent, Sir Robert 67 nuns 171 obscenity 17 O’Connell, Daniel 160, 216 O’Connor, Sergeant Luke 170, 203 O’Dogherty, Theobald 123–4 officer corps, see British army Officers’ Christian Union 121 O’Flaherty, Philip 228 Oglander, Colonel Henry 95, 129 Oman, Sir Charles 2, 125, 140 Omdurman, battle of 177, 204, 220, 224, 227, 233 O’Neil, Charles 163 Orangemen 148, 159, 238, 229–31 Ormsby, Revd James Wilmot 166, 215–16

313

Ostend 80 Oudh 219 Outram Institutes 103, 114 overseas service 211–24 Owen, Revd John 94, 127, 162 Oxford movement 124 Pacific Ocean 73 pacifism 2, 34 Paine, Thomas: Age of Reason 138–9 Palestine 212 pan-denominationalism 156–7 Papillon, Lucy 104 Paris 30, 31 Particular Baptists 185 Peace Society 72, 79, 174 Pearman, John 158–9, 218 peasant soldier 75–6 Peking 78 Pendennis castle 33 Peninsular War 3, 78, 88, 89–90, 120, 121, 123, 125, 144, 150, 157, 165, 167, 182, 200, 214, 239, 240 Pennsylvania 65–6 pensions 14 Penzance 150 Peshawar 134 Philadelphia 66 philanthropists 25 Picton, Sir Thomas 120, 163 Pitt, William 64, 67 Pius IX 124 plundering, see looting pluralism: Church of England 22 Plymouth 66, 91, 106, 142, 161, 162 Polhill-Turner, C. H. 227 Pollilur 33 Porter, Paul 100 Portsea barracks 145 Portsmouth 91, 104, 106, 110, 111, 113, 161, 206 Portugal 11, 123, 147, 163, 165, 214–15, 229 Poynter, William 169

314

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INDEX

prayer 199–200, 201, 241 Prayer Books 49, 62, 91, 94, 95, 98, 125, 193, 204; sold for alcohol 96, 167; see also Bibles; scripture readers; Testaments Presbyterians 36, 38, 67, 121, 147; army constituency declines 174; chaplains 91, 92, 93, 116, 190, 191; and officer corps 122–3; soldiers’ rights 95 presentiment 205 Preston, battle of 30 Preston, Henry 121 Prestonpans, battle of 10, 29, 32, 55 Pretoria 133, 179, 211 primary group cohesion 35 prisoners of war 209; British 144–5, 159; French 145; Hindu and Muslim 220 promiscuity 36, 55, 60, 78, 79, 81, 83–4, 87, 105, 153, 175, 188, 221 promotion, piety and 188–9 Prosperous 60 prostitutes 71, 83, 84, 121 providence 37–42, 125, 134, 139, 140, 202, 203, 204–5, 222, 224, 240; see also Bibles: magic and presentiment Prussia 11, 18 Public Record Office 6 public schools, see schools public worship, mandatory, see church parade Punjab 224 Purfleet 65, 205 Quainton, 142 Quakers, see Society of Friends quartering system 35 Quarterly Review, The 120, 226 Quebec 9, 12, 192 Queen’s Regulations 88, 160, 184, 193 Raglan, Lord 122 Ramillies, battle of 30

Rankin, Thomas 61–2, 66 rape 78 Reading 28 reading rooms 130 recreation 237 recruitment: agricultural labourers 76; Army’s appeal for the destitute 14; categories 76–7; competitive labour market and 70; economic motives for enlistment 13–14; Highlands 40; married men 83; problems 76; recruiting parties 36, 81; rejection on medical grounds 75; shortservice enlistment 176; unskilled labour 76, 87 Redemptorists 172 Rediker, Marcus 18 Redmond, John 160, 232 Reform Act 92 regiment, the 189–95; colours and standards 192–5, 240; esprit de corps 190; regimental libraries 102, 104, 190; second battalions 190; tradition 190; for individual regiments, see under British army religious controversy: ban on 102 religious hysteria 49 religious literature 91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 116 religious medals 207 religious military press 97–8, 101 religious processions: military honours paid to 216 religious societies 43, 146 Religious Tract Society 98, 118 Restoration 192 Revolutionary War 73, 86, 87, 95, 123, 138, 140, 145, 150, 161, 182, 190, 209, 237 Reynolds, Sergeant Edward 147–8 Richards, Frank 82, 85, 111, 115, 177, 180, 185, 187, 223 Richmond, Yorkshire 64 Ridley, Matthew 55–6

INDEX

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

Ripon 94, 100, 154 Roberts, Frederick Sleigh, 1st Earl 1, 114–15, 132–4, 136, 193, 240 Robertson, Robert 225 Robertson, Sir William 72, 186 Robinson, Sarah 98, 104, 106, 107, 108, 111–12, 197, 232 Rocoux, battle of 54 Rogers, James 66 Roman Catholics, see Catholics Rorke’s Drift 225, 226 Rotterdam 58 Royal Army Temperance Association 209 Royal Hibernian Military School 231 Royal Military Academy, Woolwich 122 Royal Military College, Sandhurst 126 Royal Navy 18, 28, 83, 243 Rule, Dr William Harris 92, 105 Russia 18, 228 Rutledge, James 149–50 Ryder, John 217 Sabbath 16, 17, 31, 55, 121, 128, 161, 185, 186 Sabine, Governor 23, 43 St Andrew’s mission 226 St Helena 86, 150 St Jean island 12 saints’ days 15; St Andrew 8; St Patrick 8, 163, 164, 207, 238 Salamanca, battle of 126, 145 Salamanca: Cathedral 215; Irish College 165 Sale, Sir Robert 188 Salisbury Plain 232 Salvation Army 108 Salvationists 209 San Sebastián 78 Sandby, Josiah 24 Sandes, Elise 106, 108, 134, 209 Sandgate 104 Sarah Sands 85 Sardinia 8

315

Savannah 43, 57 savings banks, regimental 190 Scheldt, River 143 Schellenberg Heights, the 24 schools: Catholic 173; churches’ declining role in education 3; evening 130; public 75, 88, 122, 124, 135–6; regimental 90, 190; Sunday 141, 142, 151, 177, 186, 192, 229, 238, 241 Scotland: Catholics 159; Highlands 77, 80, 87, 204; kirk 15; Lowlands 77; Methodist soldiers in 53; and officer corps 8, 122; peasant soldier 75–6; recruitment declines 87, 239 Scott, Captain Jonathan 17, 66 Scotter 64, 65 Scottish Missionary Society 127 Scouller, R.E. 18 scripture readers 99–101, 179, 198, 227, 237; see also Bibles; Prayer Books; Testaments Scutari 102, 171 Seacole, Mary 102 Sebastopol 68, 78, 119, 131, 171, 201, 207 ‘Second Hundred Years War’ 8 secularisation 1, 3–4, 5, 242–3 Sellers, W.E. 198 Serampore 129, 154 Seringapatam 78, 96 Seven Years War 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 36, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67 sex, see gender sexual promiscuity, see promiscuity Shadford, George 64–5, 66 Shaftesbury, Earl of 92, 99, 106, 119 Shakespeare, William 56 Shaw, William 141, 144 Sheerness 161 Sherer, Joseph Moyle 165, 214 Shorncliffe 91, 104, 178–9 Short Service Act 181 Sicily 169

316

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INDEX

Sierra Leone 86 Sikh War: First 97, 139, 168; Second 168, 217 Sikhism 194, 240 Sikkim 137 Silesia 42 Simeon, Charles 127 Simms, J.R. 234 Sind 157 Sisters of Mercy 171 Skelley, Alan 110 Smith, Major-General Sir Harry 225 Smith, Revd George 225 Smith, Revd George: Christian Soldier 150 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 26–7, 95, 97; Clericus Fund 94, 98 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 90, 201, 233 Society of Friends 72; ‘Quakers’ as disparaging term 141 Society of United Irishmen 159 Soldier-saints 69, 71, 124, 130, 131, 134, 188, 236 Soldier’s Magazine and Military Chronicle, The 156 Soldier’s Manual, The 127 ‘Soldier’s Prayer’ 127 Soldiers’ Almanacks 99 Soldiers’ Christian Association 108–9, 133, 180, 209 Soldiers’ Friend and Army Scripture Readers’ Society 98, 99, 100, 116, 150 soldiers’ homes 70, 101–13, 116–17, 134, 174, 209, 237, 239, 241 Soldiers’ Institute, Portsmouth 98 Soldiers’ Prayer Unions 114 Soldiers’ Scripture Union 179–80, 209 Soldiers’ Total Abstinence Association 114, 156 Sorauen, battle of 125

South Africa 73, 177, 179, 180, 187, 199, 204; ‘Black Week’ 132; Methodism in 143, 147, 149, 155, 182; soldiers’ homes 108; writing tents 108–9; see also Boer War and Transvaal War South America 167 Southcott, Joanna 142 Spain 18, 121, 123, 147, 150, 165, 166, 167, 214, 229 Spanish–American War (1898) 108 Spark, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert 192 Spiers, Edward 76, 110 sport 102, 199; cruel 120; field sports 74, 121 Spy 13 Stack, Edward 123 Stair, Earl of 44; Dragoons 30 standing army 7, 79 Staniforth, Sampson 35, 47–9, 50, 52–7, 61, 146 Stead, W. T.: ‘Methods of Barbarism’ 78–9 Steele, Richard 18–19 Stevenson, John 139, 141–2, 143, 145, 146–7, 148, 149, 223 Stewart, Colonel David: Sketches 40–1 Stirling 80 Stirling Castle 150 Sudan 71, 135, 199, 201, 205, 220, 224, 225, 233 Suez Canal 229 Sukkur 152, 153, 169 Sunday evening services, voluntary 179 Sunday schools 141, 142, 151, 177, 186, 192, 229, 238, 241 superiority, British Christian sense of 224, 234–5, 240 superstitious terror 206 Surtees, William 141, 146 Sutherland 191 Swabey, Lieutenant William 166, 214 swearing 17, 28, 31, 47, 55, 78, 102, 180, 204–5 Sweden 18

INDEX

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Swift, Jonathan 15–16, 17 Symes, William 155–6, 157, 158 Tait, Archibald Campbell, Bishop of London 227 Talavera, battle of 127, 145, 148 talismans 207 Tamai, battle of 205 Tasmania 147 Taylor, Jeremy: Holy Dying 125; Holy Living 125 Taylor, Jimmy 111 temperance movement 82, 107, 113–15, 116, 129, 130, 156, 188, 209, 229, 236–7, 241 Temple, Frederick, Archbishop of Canterbury 133 Territorial Force 73 Test Acts 9, 10, 123; repeal 92, 124 Testaments 94, 98, 204; see also Bibles; Prayer Books; scripture readers Theosophical Society 222–3 Ticonderoga, battle of 41 Tilbury 65, 113 Times, The 86, 102, 106 Todd, William 26, 28 Torres Vedras, Line of 147 Total Abstinence Society 107, 229 Toulouse, battle of 139 Trade Union Congress 83 transport ships 37, 85 Transvaal War 211 Treasury 91 Trincomalee 143 Truro 64 Tugela river 226 Tullamore 60 Turkey 228 turncoats 217 Twining, Dr J.T. 130 Ulster 113, 232, 238 uniform 204; kilt 80; sexual excitement created by 80

317

Union Jack 224 Unionism 232 Unitarianism 121, 192 United British Army Scripture Readers’ and Soldiers’ Friend Society 99 United Irishmen 149–50 United Provinces 56 United Service Journal 218–19 United Service Magazine 108, 124 Unsworth, Fr Thomas 167; Catholic Soldier’s and Sailor’s Prayer Book 169, 171 urbanisation 75, 140 Utrecht, Treaty of 7, 12, 30 Valencia 37 Valenciennes 144 Valton, John 65 vegetarianism 221 venereal disease, see disease Verdun 144 veterans 205, 227 Vicars, Hedley 32, 68, 122, 130–1, 131, 137, 231–2 Victoria, Queen 194, 197 Victoria Cross 170 Vimiero, battle of 139 Vittoria, battle of 148 Volunteers 70, 73, 79–80, 109 Wade, General 55, 56 Waldenses 121 Wales 8, 62, 72 Walker, Samuel 64 War of Jenkins’ Ear 2 War of the Austrian Succession 2, 61, 68 War of the Spanish Succession 6, 7, 10, 24, 26, 34 War Office 6, 88, 91, 93, 102, 103, 171, 236; Bibles and Prayer Books 95, 98; chaplains 190; colours and standards 195; ‘Other Protestants’

318

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INDEX

92, 175; scripture reader 99; soldiers’ homes 101, 104, 105, 237 Ward, W.R. 157 Ward, William 227 Waterfield, Robert 206, 217 Waterford 59, 60 Waterloo, battle of 73, 77, 79, 80, 85, 91, 121, 125, 140, 143, 190, 200, 202, 212 Watkins, Owen Spencer 101, 110, 175, 177, 199, 234 Watson, Revd Alfred 234 Watson: Christian Soldier 30 Watts, Michael 140, 141, 174 wayside calvaries 212 Webb, Captain Thomas 65–6 Webster, Joseph 213 Weedon 106 Wellington, Duke of 2, 6, 85, 126, 140, 147, 165, 182; and Catholics 123, 162; and chaplains 90; character of soldiers 3; and drunkenness 81, 82; Fourth Division 127; and Methodism 148–9, 150; NMBS 125; and Orange Order 230; and Portuguese 214–15, 229; 72nd (Highland) Regiment colours 193–4; and Spanish 229 Wesley, Charles 52, 59; Hymns and Sacred Poems 68; ‘Soldiers of Christ, arise’ 68 Wesley, Elizabeth 106, 107 Wesley, John 25, 49; and Black Watch 36; Brentford 44; Canterbury 63, 65; death 140; Doncaster 55; Evans and 46; ex–soldiers as preachers 34; Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion 16, 55; Foundery 52; and French invasion 64; German soldiers 57; Haime and 45, 50; Ireland 59–60, 61, 62; Journal 59–60; Kennington Common 46; Limerick 36; Plymouth 66; Prestonpans 32; and public execution 60; and

recruitment 67; soldier society 43; soldiers and 55–66; Waterford 37; Westminster 43; Word in Season 55; writings 147 Wesleyan Book Room 98 West, James 64 West Indies 73, 99 Western, J.R. 10, 123 Westminster Gazette, The 227 Wheeler, Private William 166 Wheler, Colonel Stephen 128, 129–30, 157–8 Whitefield, George 23, 26, 44, 58, 65; and French invasion 64; Gibraltar 43; Glasgow 48; Ireland 59; and recruitment 67; Savannah 43, 57 Whitelocke, General 167 Whole Duty of Man, The 28 whoring, see promiscuity Wickham, E.R.: Church and People in the Industrial City 3 Wighton 139 Wilberforce, William 94 ‘Wild Geese’ 159 William III 34, 38 William IV 229 Williams, Sarah 178 Wilson, Bishop Daniel 158 Windham, Colonel Charles 207 Windsor Castle 193–4 Windward and Leeward Islands 86, 87 Wiseman, Cardinal Nicholas 172 wives, see women and marriage Wolfe, James 9 Wolffe, John: God and Greater Britain 70, 71 Wolseley, Garnet, Viscount 87, 109, 134, 219–20, 224, 234 Wolseley Soldiers’ Home 134 women 5; evangelical 70; femininity idealised 106, 197, 198, 236, 241; feminism 83, 243; maintenance of wives 14; motherhood 107, 177; social utility of religion for 136

INDEX

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1

Wood, Sir Evelyn 186, 193, 211 Wood, James 218 Woodward, Revd Josiah: Soldier’s Monitor 26–7, 28–9, 37, 42, 55 working class: bedside prayers 178; detachment from organised religion 3, 243; male religious capacities 5; missionary work in 177; social utility of religion for 136 World War: First 6, 76, 93, 175, 207, 212, 236, 237, 239, 244; Second 35, 244 worship, mandatory, see church parade Wright, Duncan 19, 28, 36, 42, 60, 62 Wright, Revd Henry Press 119, 121–2, 184, 201, 203, 209–10, 233 writing tents 108–9 Wyndham, Horace 176, 187

319

Yeats-Brown, Francis 222–3 Yeomanry 73 yoga 222 York 13 York, Duke of, 96; Army Chaplains’ Department 89; Bishop of Osnabruck 125; Catholics permitted to attend Mass 161, 163; Flanders expedition 23, 146; NMBS 94–5; Orange Order 230; regimental schools 90 Young Men’s Christian Association: American 108; British 108, 109, 209 Ypres 209 Zante 147 Zion’s Warrior 96 Zulu War (1879) 100, 187, 211, 225, 226 Zululand 99, 194, 200