Catalogue description The Recruitment of Private Soldiers

The East India Company recruiting in Great Britain was confined to private soldiers for its artillery and infantry units apart from a short period during the Mutiny, when special European cavalry regiments were raised.

The enlistment, training and embarkation of these recruits are covered in three sub-sub-series: L/MIL/9/1-28 Registers of Recruits, 1817-1860.

L/MIL/9/29-84 Military Depots, 1801-1861.

L/MIL/9/85-106 Embarkation Lists, 1753-1861.

Recruiting methods were amongst the first subjects discussed between the Company and the newly created Board of Control in 1784. The Company's efforts had long been hampered by Parliamentary feeling against standing armies - indeed an act of 1781 limited the number of recruits who could be held in England awaiting embarkation to 2000 in time of war and 1000 in peace time (endnote reference: 21 Geo III c65 s32) - and it was forced to recruit by acting upon Royal Warrants issued for each specific occasion, which authorised a named individual to enlist a stated number of men (endnote reference: for an example see IOR:H/24 p113, special commission to Robert Millagan to raise recruits in any part of Great Britain, 30 Sep 1757). The earliest Embarkation Lists provide evidence of attempts to enlarge the numbers by sending agents abroad to enlist 'North European Protestants' (endnote reference: see 'Deutsche and Schweizer Rekruten fur die englische Ostindien-Gesellschaft 1753-1762' Anthony Farrington, Genealogie 20 (Bruhl, 1971) pp 693-701), while existing legislation against the recruitment of Roman Catholics was a further handicap. Although such recruits as were obtained were inspected by a Company's officer and surgeon, and the then by a Crown officer, there were frequent complaints from India about the quality of the men provided.(endnote reference: For instance, Cornwallis to the Court of Directors, 16 Nov 1787, in IOR:H/85 p 845 - "But what shall I say of the Company's Europeans? I did not think Britain could have furnished such a set of wretched objects. For God's sake lose no time in taking up this business in the most serious manner").

After a long agitation, it ws agreed in the 1790s that the Company ought to be allowed to follow the same pattern as the Crown's forces, and in 1799 came an Act for better recruiting the forces of the East India Company.(endnote reference: 39 Geo III c109). This permitted the Company to train, array, exercise and discipline recruits in England, and also to subject them to martial law prior to embarkation and during the voyage to India.

As a result of the act, full-time recruiting officers, each with a staff of NCOs, were stationed in London, Liverpool, Dublin and Edinburgh, with additional officers at Cork from 1822, and at Bristol and Newry from 1846. The actual numbers of recruiting sergeants employed varied according to the urgency of the demand. Considering the parallel needs of the British Army, it is hardly surprising that the Company always had great difficulty in obtaining sufficient men. For instance, during the season 1819/1820, 1354 were embarked, against an estimated deficiency of 4009, and a good proportion of those who initially enlisted in the various districts were either rejected at the depot on medical grounds, deserted before joining the depot, or bought themselves out.

A permanent training depot was first established at Newport on the Isle of Wight in 1801. It was moved to Brompton Barracks at Chatham in March 1815, and finally to Warley, near Brentwood in Essex, in May 1843.

Open