Kent Militia Artillery
The Kent Militia Artillery was a part-time reserve unit of Britain's Royal Artillery based at Dover in Kent, from 1853 to 1909. Background The long-standing national Militia of Great Britain was greatly expanded during the French Revolutionary Wars, and one of the new regiments was an artillery unit in the county of Kent, raised at Dover in 1798. It was embodied for full-time service from 1803 to 1815 during the Napoleonic Wars. Thereafter it disappeared from the Army List. The militia was revived by the Militia Act 1852, enacted during a period of international tension. As before, units were raised and administered on a county basis, and filled by voluntary enlistment (although conscription by means of the Militia Ballot might be used if the counties failed to meet their quotas). Training was for 56 days on enlistment, then for 21–28 days per year, during which the men received full army pay. Under the Act, Militia units could be embodied by Royal Proclamation for full-time home defence service in three circumstances: 'Whenever a state of war exists between Her Majesty and any foreign power'. 'In all cases of invasion or upon imminent danger thereof'. 'In all cases of rebellion or insurrection'. The 1852 Act introduced a number of Militia Artillery units in addition to the traditional infantry regiments. Their role was to man coastal defences and fortifications, relieving the Royal Artillery (RA) for active service. History The unit was raised in Kent in May 1853 with six batteries under the title of Kent Militia Artillery with headquarters at Dover. The colonel was John Townshend, 3rd Viscount Sydney and the first commandant was Lieutenant-Colonel John Farnaby Cator, a Half-pay Captain in the RA, who later changed his surname to Lennard and was created a Baronet. Several of the other early officers were half-pay or retired officers of the Royal Engineers or Brigade of Guards or were prominent personages in Kent, including Major the Hon. Charles Stewart Hardinge, MP, son of the Commander-in-Chief.<ref>Burke's, Hardinge', 'Lennard', 'Townshend'.</ref> Captain Walter G. Stirling, RA, (later 3rd Baronet) was appointed Lt-Col on 24 April 1876, having been the major since 5 December 1871. Following the Cardwell Reforms a mobilisation scheme began to appear in the Army List from December 1875. This assigned places in an order of battle of the 'Garrison Army' to Militia Artillery units: the Kent Artillery's war station was at Dover, including Dover Castle, Drop Redoubt, the Western Heights and Breakwater batteries, and the forts and batteries from Dymchurch to Ramsgate. The Artillery Militia was reorganised into 11 divisions of garrison artillery in 1882, and the Kent unit became the senior Militia unit in the new Cinque Ports Division, taking the title of 2nd Brigade, Cinque Ports Division, RA (the 1st Brigade comprised the Regular RA units of the division). When the Cinque Ports Division was abolished in 1889 its militia were transferred to the Eastern Division and the unit's title was altered to Kent Artillery (Eastern Division) RA.Spiers, Late Victorian Army, pp. 63–4.