Hierarchical structure. Social mixing. Shared camaraderie.

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (66) opens a sequence about the town’s Volunteer Rifle Corps, an exercise in social mixing. This appeared to play an important part in shaping and maintaining the identity of the unit. Although its command structure reflected the country’s social hierarchy, the unit’s activities created a commonality shared by affluent and working people. In turn, this may have reflected Victorian Bournemouth’s society.

Victorian Bournemouth (66): rank

Officers

Soon after Lord Malmesbury agreed to Bournemouth’s having its own volunteer unit, the officers received their appointments. C. A. King, Esq., became commandant, perhaps always the first choice. Once a solicitor, by 1861 his listing as a gentleman indicated his social qualifications for the commander. The Rifles had two officers, Christopher Creeke, lieutenant, and Augustus Parken, ensign, both architects. The former played an extensive role in Victorian Bournemouth’s built environment. Also, he served for many years as Surveyor to the Improvement Commission. For much of that time, he had to manage problems associated with the town’s drainage system, involving him in several public controversies. Parken, at this period, worked as Creeke’s partner in their architectural practice. He did not, however, participate in civics to the same extent as Creeke. Both men appear to have come from comfortable backgrounds, thereby in congruence with the social requirements for the command structure.

NCOs

W.E. Rebbeck, estate agent, another leading member of Bournemouth’s civic group, had featured in the original arrangements for establishing local volunteers. A gardener at Bournemouth in 1841, having close links with the Tregonwells, Rebbeck later in the decade established his firm, which lasted for the rest of the Victorian period. Corporal Candy kept the Royal Arms, where the Rifle Corps sometimes had celebratory dinners. He came from a rural labouring family, serving for a while as a footman. Two additional NCOs, the quartermaster sergeant and the colour-sergeant also had extended civic lives based around the Improvement Commission. The former, W. B. Rogers, kept one of the town’s leading draperies, the latter, James McWilliam, a builder-developer, belonged to the Tuck kinship group. Rogers, from Dorset, once a blacksmith, like his father, arrived to sell silk in Bournemouth by 1859. The NCOs, therefore, had different social backgrounds to the officers.

Victorian Bournemouth (66): file

Chosen men

Identification of the serving men poses problems, since, in several cases, the individuals had names in common with others listed in the census. Those having firm identifications appear to fall into three main occupational groups: builders, tailors, and gardeners. Hence, this section of Bournemouth’s Rifle Corps, consisted of working people, though, perhaps, more having skilled than unskilled occupations. They tended not to have prominent civic lives. Patriotism will have provided a recruiting motive for some of the serving men, but some had a very valuable skill within the context of a Rifle Corps. They had shooting ability. A series of rifle competitions involving the Bournemouth contingent occurred during the 1860s, sometimes against other units, sometimes against each other. Contestants had a will to win, on occasion shooting in high winds or rain so bad that it obscured the targets. Prizes consisted of cups, money, or even rifles.

Exclusion

Despite the uneven identification of the private ranks, it seems possible that recruitment did not reach beyond artisans and retailers. The 1861 census lists enough labourers for their own unit, but they may not have participated. In part, recruitment may have run through networks belonging to the NCOs. The noted number of tailors and builders could have come through the influence of the two sergeants: Rogers (draper) and McWilliam (builder). Some self-funding applied in the volunteers, though accounts show that Bournemouth received a government grant as well as gifts from the commandant. Those at the lowest economic level, therefore, may not have had enough funds to participate. Nevertheless, civic pride may also have excluded unskilled workers, often permanent migrants. Bournemouth people had fought to have their own unit. They may have wanted in their corps only those committed to stay, excluding those who might emigrate in search of work.

Victorian Bournemouth (66): commingling and camaraderie

Commingling

Social reformers welcoming the volunteer movement to induce social commingling would have approved of Bournemouth’s Rifle Corps. Lieutenant Creeke recognised this aspect of his unit’s identity. ‘They were a corps composed principally of artisans, and England was proud to know that the great body of the volunteers were artisans.’ So said Creeke before a dinner held to award the shooting prizes. In fact, however, since the winners, artisans for the most part, shook hands with and ate in the company of the officers, the event showcased social commingling. In this respect, it differed from that where the Stour and Avon Farmers’ Club celebrated agricultural skill contests. Not the winners attended these dinners, but their employers. This event, therefore, appeared to apply social distancing, a retrospective picture of English society no doubt valued by Lord Malmesbury, the erstwhile Bournemouth Corps commander, who often participated and spoke.

Camaraderie

That dinner, held at the Belle Vue, demonstrated a camaraderie amongst all ranks comprising Bournemouth’s Rifle Corps. Not only did Private Watts, a winner, attend to collect his prize, but he addressed the audience at some length. ‘ … and when he had finished speaking Colonel Moody [a guest] warmly shook him [Watts] by the hand and expressed his approval of his soldierly qualities.’ The traditional world of deference, where social inferiors kow-towed to their superiors, seems far from the unit. Indeed, Creeke made a point of apologising for any curtness that occurred in their interpersonal relations. ‘ … they must not attribute it to any personal feeling, but to the fact that he was the officer in command’. It seems possible, therefore, that the society found in its Rifle Corps, may, to some extent, reflect that of Bournemouth, a town not thirty years old.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (66) reports events that, no doubt, that occurred amongst other Rifle Corps, across the country. Nevertheless, in a town not thirty years old, much of which created and managed by artisans, without centuries of social continuity, the camaraderie of its Rifle Corps may have reflected to some extent the tone of Bournemouth’s society.

References

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