Southampton Corporation: Defence

<p>All the later records are amongst the Page and Moody archives (ref. D/PM 7)</p>

The militia under various names has a history stretching back to before the Norman Conquest. From the sixteenth century onwards the organisation of this form of conscription was in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant. Although Southampton was a separate county it only had deputy lieutenants and the borough was treated as one of the divisions of Hampshire. The deputy lieutenants arranged for the wealthier inhabitants of the town to provide equipment and men. In the late eighteenth century under the pressure of foreign wars the militia came to include all able-bodied men. Recruits were chosen by ballot, but could provide a substitute or prove an exemption. After the Napoleonic wars the ballot was suspended and the militia was superseded by the volunteers in the mid-nineteenth century.