Description
[002856] [East-Riding Yeomanry Cavalry Broadside]. Articles of Enrolment for the Corps of Cavalry to be Raised in Holderness. No Place: No Publisher, First Edition. Elephant Folio. Unbound. Broadside. Good. Printed single sided broadside, approximately 380mm x 465mm in size, n.d. but probably 1794.
Slightly creased, small scuff to head with small amount of loss, otherwise quite bright and clean.
“Thomas Grimston, of Kilnwick and Grimston, offered to raise a cavalry force in Holderness and he set about his task with characteristic thoroughness. He issued the articles of enrolment, based on those of the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, and then travelled round the Holderness villages explaining his plans to the farmers. The response was very poor, and he followed up his visits with letters to the Clergy suggesting that parish meetings be called so that the importance and purpose of the proposed corps could be explained to all the parishioners. Once more the results were disappointing. A letter received from the Vicar of Sproatley partly explains why this was so. “The sentiments of the People here are not changed, I apprehend, since you conversed with them. What they object to is the smallness of the pay, from which circumstances one may r think infer two things, First they are aware of the Necessity of the Measure and Secondly in return for their Services they expect a valuable consideration adequate at least to the Profits arising from Labour”. Several letters were written in similar tenus and some also pointed out that volunteers were unlikely to come forward during harvest time. A letter from Grimston himself to the Lord Lieutenant, dated 8th July, 1794, gives another reason why the men of Holderness were reluctant to join his troops. He wrote :-“Though I doubt not if necessary they will go beyond the limits of the Riding, yet I found them particularly desirous that they should not bind themselves to do it, and to please them I was obliged to change the name of the corps from East York Yeomanry Cavalry, which I wished to have called it, to the East Riding Yeomanry Cavalry”. Once the clause in the articles of enrolment, binding the members to serve outside the Riding, had been deleted, and the name of the unit changed, he was soon able to recruit up to establishment both with men and horses” (R.W.S. Norfolk, Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteer Forces of the East Riding 1689-1908, pages 15-16).
Not found in ESTC
