Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/625

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POLITICAL HISTORY mentioned is the Sussex Fencible Cavalry, who were formed in April 1794. By the end of June there were 112 rank and file under Sir George Thomas, and in December 1795 they numbered 350. In January 1798 they were at Plymouth, and in the early summer of the same year they marched to Carlisle, and afterwards to Dumfries. Sir George Thomas was superseded in June 1799 by Major-General Garth, who was succeeded in August by Major-General Sir James Erskine, who was still in command when the troop was disbanded at Beverley, in April 1800/ Infantry volunteer corps were formed in, or slightly before, 1798 at Arundel, Petworth, Seaford and Selsey, and others at Hastings, Rye and Winchelsea, which in 1803 amalgamated as the Cinque Ports Volunteers. In 1803 corps were also formed for Angmering, Bramber rape (North and South), Chichester, Hastings rape, Lewes rape (North and South), Littlehampton and Pevensey rape (North and South). Artillery corps also existed at Blatchington (1798 ; united with New- haven in 1803), Brighton (1803, 'The Prince of Wales's' : the corps of ' Sea Fencibles ' are also mentioned as doing some fine practice shooting at Brighton battery in 1803°), Eastbourne (1803 ; ' a set of fine spirited fellows'^), and Rye (1804^). The county regiment of militia alone survived the great war ; and received the prefix of ' royal ' in 1830, when its strength was ten companies. Of yeomanry, the Lewes corps was raised by Sir George ShifFner in 1795, and the Stanmer and Petworth troops about the same time. There were also troops at East Grinstead, Henfield, Midhurst and Parham, as well as at Ashburnham, where Lord St. Asaph had raised a troop in 1803. The corps with the greatest local reputation was that of the Sussex Guides ; and there was also a corps of horse artillery, commanded by the Duke of Richmond, whose services were confined to the district west of the Arun ; they served without pay and consisted of some sixty rank and file with two 3-pounder curricle guns and two 4|-inch howitzers.^ All these corps were disbanded after the great war ; but in the troublous winter of i 830-1 the Arundel and Bramber corps of three troops was raised by the Earl of Surrey, and the Petworth troop by Col. George Wyndham. Before the South African war the only yeomanry in Sussex formed part of the Duke of Cambridge's Own Middlesex regiment, but the county has now its own regiment of Imperial Yeomanry. In 1805 Sussex for the first time gave its name to a regiment of the line. The 35th Foot was originally raised in Ireland in 1 701, by an officer of William III, to which fact it ovv^ed its orange facings. In 1782, while serving in the West Indies, it received the title of the Dorsetshire regiment. It was recruited by a considerable contingent from the Sussex militia in 1799, when it served at Bergen and Alkmaer; and was at Malta in 1800. In 1805 it became the Sussex regiment, > W. O. Pay Lists. 2 Parry, op. cit. p. 73. ^ Ibid, p 202. « W. O. Pay Lists. 6 Ibid. 535