sufficient reason for the sovereign to call out the volunteers, in lieu of the old condition which required the actual appearance of the enemy. The volunteers were, when called out, bound to serve in Great Britain until released by a proclamation declaring the occasion to have passed. This was modified in 1900 during the South African War, a new enactment allowing the authorities to call them out at times of “imminent national danger and great emergency.” In 1871 the volunteers were removed from the control of the lords-lieutenant and placed under the War Office. In 1881 the infantry battalions were affiliated to the various line regiments.
The force thus brought into existence was composed of corps of light horse, mounted rifles, garrison and heavy artillery, engineers and rifle volunteers.[1] Later there existed also in connexion with the admiralty a corps of “Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers” for the coast defences. The terms of service and training liabilities underwent no alteration of principle during the forty-eight years of the force's existence. The property belonging to the corps was vested in the commanding officer and administered by a committee of officers under the rules of the corps. These rules were in the first instance agreed on at a general meeting of officers and men, and, having received the queen's approval, became legal, and could be enforced. The commanding officer could dismiss a man from the corps, and a volunteer not on actual service could terminate his engagement at fourteen days' notice. But, as it became the almost universal practice for the government or the regimental commander to issue clothing and equipment free, the volunteers contracted in return to serve for three, four or five years, and, if they exercised their statutory rights, were obliged to refund part of the cost. Further, when capitation grants were given for the maintenance of the corps, the volunteer had either to earn this by continued service or repay the sum lost to the corps by his resignation. These conditions materially modified the statute law in practice, and in fact the term of four years exacted from the Territorial to-day differs in little more than name from the requirements of the former “corps rules.” Military law was applicable to officers and men when training with regulars.
The formation of volunteer corps was so rapid that in the course of a few months in 1859-60 a force of 119,000 was created. More, however, remained to be done to put an end to the ever-recurring commercial panics. The government, which in the beginning had tolerated rather than encouraged the movement, and had required the volunteer to serve and to equip himself entirely at his own expense, now followed the lead of public opinion, and decided on maintaining the volunteer force as a part of the regular defensive system. The personnel of the volunteer corps (with a few exceptions) thereupon underwent a change. The wealthy and professional classes, who had at first joined the ranks in anticipation of war, cared no longer to bear arms. Their places were taken by the artisan class, which added materially to the number and permanence of the force. But, as contributions and subscriptions now flagged, it became evident that public grants would have to be voted for its maintenance, and a scale of capitation allowances, subject to regulation, was fixed, on the recommendation of a Royal Commission. This capitation allowance per efficient volunteer was thenceforward the basis of all regimental finance and administration.
The turning-point in the history of the volunteers was the South African War. In January 1900, and on several subsequent occasions, the volunteers were invited to supply service companies for South Africa, to be incorporated in the regular battalions to which the volunteer battalions were affiliated. About one-third of the whole force volunteered for service in South Africa, and some 20,000 served in the volunteer companies with the line and in the “City Imperial Volunteers,” besides a great number of volunteers whom the higher pay, easier conditions and better prospects of active employment in the mounted guerrilla warfare tempted into the ranks of the yeomanry. The return of these companies infused into the force a leaven of officers and men who had been through an experience of constant small skirmishes and prolonged marching and bivouacking. Meantime the force as a whole had been subjected to a more earnest and vigorous training than it had ever had before. The establishment was greatly increased, and 24 battalions were selected for special training and included with the regular home army in the field force. Various partial reorganizations followed in 1902-5, and at last, in 1907-8, the whole force was re-cast, re-enlisted upon somewhat different terms, and organized along with the yeomanry into the new Territorial Force (see United Kingdom: Army).
Strength of the Volunteer Force
(From the Territorial Year Book 1909).
| Year. | Establishment. | Strength. | Classed as Efficient. |
| 1861 | 211,961 | 161,239 | 140,100 |
| 1870 | 244,966 | 193,893 | 170,671 |
| 1880 | 243,546 | 206,537 | 196,938 |
| 1885 | 250,967 | 224,012 | 218,207 |
| 1890 | 260,310 | 221,048 | 212,293 |
| 1895 | 260,968 | 231,704 | 224,962 |
| 1899 | 263,416 | 229,854 | 223,921 |
| 1900 | 339,511 | 277,628 | 270,369 |
| 1901 | 342,003 | 288,476 | 281,062 |
| 1902 | 345,547 | 268,550 | 256,451 |
| 1903 | 346,171 | 253,281 | 242,104 |
| 1904 | 343,246 | 253,909 | 244,537 |
| 1905 | 341,283 | 249,611 | 241,549 |
| 1906 | 338,452 | 255,854 | 246,654 |
| 1907 | 335,849 | 252,791 | 244,212 |
FLORENTIUS VOLUSENUS Florence Wolson, or Wolsey, in later writers Wilson, though in letters in the vernacular he writes himself Volusene (c. 1504–c. 1547), Scottish humanist, was born near Elgin about 1504. He studied philosophy at Aberdeen, and in the dialogue De Animi Tranquillitate says that the description of the abode of tranquillity was based on a dream that came to him after a conversation with a fellow-student on the banks of his native Lossie. He was then a student of philosophy of four years’ standing. Proceeding to Paris, he became tutor to Thomas Wynter, reputed son of Cardinal Wolsey. He paid repeated visits to England, where he was well received by the king, and, after Wolsey's fall, he acted as one of Cromwell’s agents in Paris. He was in England as late as 1534, and appears to have been rector of Speldhurst in Kent. In Paris he knew George Buchanan, and found patrons in the cardinal Jean de Lorraine and Jean du Bellay. He was to have gone with du Bellay on his mission to Italy in 1535, but illness kept him in Paris. As soon as he recovered he set out on his journey, but at Avignon, by the advice of his friend Antonio Bonvisi (d. 1558), he sought the patronage of the bishop of the diocese, the learned and pious Paul Sadolet, who made him master in the school at Carpentras, with a salary of seventy crowns. Volusenus paid frequent visits to Lyons (where Conrad Gesner saw him, still a young man, in 1540), probably also to Italy, where he had many friends, perhaps even to Spain. A letter addressed to him by Sadolet from Rome in 1546 shows that he had then resolved to return to Scotland, and had asked advice on the attitude he should adopt in the religious dissensions of the time. He died on the journey, however, at Vienne in Dauphiné, in 1546, or early in the next year.
Volusenus's linguistic studies embraced Hebrew as well as Greek and Latin. His reputation, however, rests on the beautiful dialogue, De Animi Tranquillitate, first printed by S. Gryphius at Lyons in 1543. From internal evidence it appears to have been composed about that time, but the subject had exercised the writer for many years. The dialogue shows us Christian humanism at its best. Volusenus is a great admirer of Erasmus, but he criticizes the purity of his Latin and also his philosophy. His own philosophy is Christian and Biblical rather than classical or scholastic. He takes a fresh and independent view of Christian ethics, and he ultimately reaches a doctrine as to the witness of the Spirit and the
- ↑ The light horse and mounted rifles disappeared in the end, or else were converted into yeomanry. The “rifles” title was maintained even after the infantry had been assimilated in drill, uniform and other respects to the line battalions. For this reason even scarlet-clothed battalions had no colours, pouch-belts instead of sashes, &c.
