Category: Rifle Volunteers

Volunteers’ Drill At Warminster

From The Wiltshire Times, Saturday 11th April 1874:

Volunteer Drill.
On Easter Monday a drill of the 1st Battalion, Wiltshire Rifle Volunteers, was held at Warminster. Corps from Salisbury, Trowbridge, Bradford, Westbury and Warminster took part. On arrival the company, numbering between 300 and 400, marched to Greenhill. After refreshments of sandwiches and ale, which the officers had surprisingly provided, a call to arms was sounded, and the afternoon was spent skirmishing and firing blank cartridges, etc.

Rifle Volunteers At Afternoon Service

From The Warminster Parish Magazine And Church Register, March 1868:

On Septuagesima Sunday our Rifle Volunteers attended the afternoon service in the Parish Church [St. Denys], where a sermon from Genesis ii, 15, was preached to them by their chaplain the Vicar. They mustered seventy, a better attendance than there has been for some time at a church parade. We must hope that the proposal to hold a Camp during the summer on our downs may be carried out. Few things are more calculated to add to the general efficiency of the force than their thus embarking for a few days in a soldier’s life.