Under threat of French invasion during the
Seven Years' War a series of Militia Acts from 1757 reorganised the county militia regiments, the men being conscripted by means of parish ballots (paid substitutes were permitted) to serve for three years. In peacetime they assembled for 28 days' annual training. There was a property qualification for officers, who were commissioned by the lord lieutenant. An
adjutant and
drill sergeants were to be provided to each regiment from the Regular Army, and arms and accoutrements would be supplied when the county had secured 60 per cent of its quota of recruits. The legislation was unpopular, and there were anti-militia riots in Huntingdonshire in 1757, 1759 and again in 1761. The county was given a quota of 320 men to be raised, and as a small county, the property qualification for militia officers in Huntingdonshire was lowered in order to find enough of them. The issue of its weapons was authorised on 23 August 1759, and it was embodied for permanent service on 22 October the same year. Although the regiment had fewer than eight companies it was allowed the full establishment of field officers (colonel,
lieutenant-colonel and
major) because the
Lord Lieutenant (the
3rd Duke of Manchester) served as colonel himself. The militia were disembodied in 1762 as the war was coming to an end, and continued with their annual training thereafter.
American War of Independence The militia was embodied in March 1778 during the
War of American Independence when the country was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain. Huntingdonshire was commended for the rapidity with which its new men were trained. That year the regiment was stationed at
Portsmouth, where together with the
Buckinghamshires they were put to constructing fortifications. The officers of the two regiments complained that this work was demeaning for a citizen force intended for use only in emergencies. However, militiamen engaged in skilled work were paid extra, and the real objection seems to have been the additional work for the officers. In the summer of 1779 the Huntingdons were on coast defence in
Northumberland. It is reported that in August a detachment at
Alnwick heard the sound of guns and were told that there were French
frigates off the coast at nearby
Alnmouth. The detachment reached the threatened spot just over two hours after the first alarm, having sent word to their commanding officer (Capt
Thomas Apreece) who soon had the whole regiment on the march. It turned out that two frigates had attacked a British
whaler off the coast, but had sailed away when others came up. The local commander,
Lord Adam Gordon thought the whole affair a silly alarm. In the summer of 1780 the Huntingdons were in camp at
Tiptree Heath in Essex, with two regular and six other militia regiments. In September Capt Apreece in temporary command of the regiment absented himself from the camp because of his wife's illness, then prolonged his absence with spurious excuses.
Lieutenant-General George Lane Parker, in command, considered that Apreece deserved to be
court-martialed, but he was simply kept in arrest for some time and his behaviour reported to the
Commander-in-Chief. In November 1781 the Huntingdons were quartered for the winter in
King's Lynn, where the authorities wanted one of the four companies to be removed from the town because of the shortage of
billets. Hostilities ended with the
Treaty of Paris and the militia could be stood down. From 1784 to 1792 they were kept up to strength by the ballot and were supposed to assemble for 28 days' training annually, even though to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually called out each year.
French Revolutionary War The militia had already been embodied in December 1792 before
Revolutionary France declared war on Britain on 1 February 1793. The
5th Duke of Manchester was appointed colonel of the Huntingdonshire Militia on 8 May. The
French Revolutionary Wars saw a new phase for the English militia: they were embodied for a whole generation, and became regiments of full-time professional soldiers (though restricted to service in the
British Isles), which the regular army increasingly saw as a prime source of recruits. They served in coast defences, manned garrisons, guarded
prisoners of war, and carried out internal security duties, while their traditional local defence duties were taken over by the
Volunteers and mounted
Yeomanry. In the summer of 1793 the Huntingdons were camped at
Warley in
Essex, with the
Cambridgeshires as their neighbours. There was resentment among the Cambridgeshires that they had to keep strict order in the evenings and retire to their tents at 20.00 or 21.00, while the Huntingdons were under no such restrictions. There was a riot, which was only suppressed with difficulty. Late in 1795 the Huntingdons were at Yarmouth Barracks with the South Lincolnshire Militia. The whole force was under the command of the strict colonel of the South Lincolns, who imposed a curfew because of trouble caused by the militiamen in town. The Huntingdons rioted and devastated their quarters. For a time it looked as if they might have to be put down by force, but in the end they were sent away and replaced by the Cambridgeshires, who complained bitterly about having to move into the barracks wrecked by the Huntingdon 'banditti'. The Huntingdons' version was that they had been corrupted by the South Lincolns. In an attempt to have as many men as possible under arms for home defence in order to release regulars, the Government created the Supplementary Militia in 1796, a compulsory levy of men to be trained in their spare time, and to be incorporated in the Militia in emergency, but uniquely Huntingdonshire was given no additional quota to raise. Indeed, after the supplementaries had been stood down and surplus militiamen encouraged to transfer to the Regular Army, the county's normal militia quota was reduced to just 159 men when the
Treaty of Amiens was signed and the militia disembodied in 1802.
Napoleonic Wars The Peace of Amiens proving short-lived, the militia were re-embodied in March 1803 and resumed their normal duties. Increasingly, they were seen as a source of trained men for the Regulars and were encouraged to transfer, for a bounty, and the militia was replenished by use of the ballot and voluntary recruitment.
Huntingdonshire Local Militia While the Regular Militia were the mainstay of national defence during the Napoleonic Wars, they were supplemented from 1808 by the Local Militia, which were part-time and only to be used within their own districts. These were raised to counter the declining numbers of Volunteers, and if their ranks could not be filled voluntarily the militia ballot was employed. They were to be trained once a year. Huntingdonshire was to raise a single battalion. On 24 September the vice- and deputy-lieutenants (the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Manchester, being absent as
Governor of Jamaica) commissioned
Viscount Hinchinbrooke and John Heathcote to be Lt-Col Commandant and Lt-Col respectively: they had been Colonel and Lt-Col of the former Huntingdon Volunteers. Most of the other officers had also transferred from the volunteers. All the militia regiments were disembodied by the end of 1816, following Napoleon's final defeat at the
Battle of Waterloo, and the Local Militia was disbanded.
Long Peace After Waterloo there was another long peace. Although ballots were still held, the regular militia regiments were rarely assembled for training and their permanent staffs of sergeants and drummers (who were occasionally used to maintain public order) were progressively reduced. Officers continued to be commissioned sporadically. The 5th Duke of Manchester resigned the colonelcy of the Huntingdonshire Militia in 1827, recommending Thomas Vaughan as his successor, commenting that Vaughan had effectively been the commanding officer since 1818. Vaughan, who had been a Regular officer in the French Revolutionary War and then served in the Yeomanry and the Peterborough Volunteers, was duly appointed, and remained major-commandant (with the personal rank of colonel) until 1852. The
6th Duke of Manchester, by then lord lieutenant, commissioned his younger son
Lord Robert Montagu as captain in the regiment in 1846. By 1850 Vaughan, Montagu and one lieutenant commissioned as far back as 1808 were the only officers remaining apart from the former Regular adjutant and the surgeon. ==1852 Reforms==