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Law and Honour Among Eighteenth-Century British Army Officers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Arthur N. Gilbert
Arthur N. Gilbert
Affiliation:
University of Denver
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Extract

There can be no doubt that those who joined the officers corps in the eighteenth century became members of an exclusive club with its own distinctive values. These values were imposed on all members of the corps and, as is the case with most exclusive organizations, only a very few individuals were confident or perverse enough to challenge the group standards. The officers corps had an honour code; a set of principles which was informally enforced to ensure that each member soon learned proper from improper behaviour. When there were violations of the code the subaltern officers would bring peer group sanctions to bear in the form of social and professional ostracism until the offender cleared his name by removing the blot on his honour.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 1976 , pp. 75 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 Janowitz, MorrisThe Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960), p. 216.Google Scholar

2 In preparing this article I have examined The Court Martial Records (Series W.O. 71)with special emphasis on Courts Martials for ‘conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman’ between 1755 and 1775. It is safe to assume that most disputes involving the honour code and the law were settled out of court but that they were similar in nature to those discussed below.

3 Rules and Articles for the Better Government of His Majesty's Horse and Foot Guards, etc.(London, 1778), section XV, art. XXIII. Officers were rarely dismissed from the army when found guilty of this offence.Google Scholar

4 Articles of War, 1789, section XVI, art. XXII.

5 W.O. 71/45; Campbell Court Martial, July 1759.

6 Ibid.

7 W.O. 81/9, Gould to Barrington, 9 August 1759.

8 Ibid., 25 September 1759.

9 W.O. 81/19, Morgan to Townshnd, 12 September 1797.

10 It had long been held that the Court Martial was a direct descendant of the Court of Chivalry. This view has been challenged by Squibb, G. D.The High Court of Chivalry (London: Oxford University Press, 1959).Google Scholar Further, as Nichols, D. B. ‘The Devil's Article’, Military Law Review, XXII (10. 1963), 116–17, points out ‘conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman’ emerged independently as a specific crime between 1700 and 1765. The use of Courts Martials as honour courts for officers seems to have been a response to specific eighteenth-century conditions.Google Scholar

11 Tytler, AlexanderAn Essay on Military Law and the Practice of Courts Martial (Edinburgh, 1800), p. 117.Google Scholar

12 W.O. 71/70, Lt. Hopson Court Martial, August 1760.

13 W.O. 71/72, Ens. Cockey Court Martial, June 1762.

14 For example, an enlisted man could be charged with desertion or neglect of duty, depending on how his officers wanted him punished. Most of these cases occurred abroad where the army had jurisdiction for crimes which would have been tried in the civil courts at home.

15 W.O. 71/68, Major Correy Court Martial, May 1761.

16 W.O. 71/65, Ens. Nethercoat Court Martial, March 1758.

17 W.O. 71/79, Ens. McDermott Court Martial, October 1773.

18 W.O. 71/80, Ens. Murray Court Martial, March 1775.

19 Ibid.

20 Rules and Articles for the Better Government of his Majesty's Horse and Foot Guards, and all others his land-forces in Great Britain and Ireland and dominions beyond the sea (London, 1737).Google Scholar

21 Ibid.

22 The Duke of Wellington, for example, tried to encourage officers to apologize for honour violations: ‘The Officers of the army should recollect, that it is not only no degradation, but that it is meritorious in him who is in the wrong to acknowledge and atone for his error, and that the momentary humiliation which every man may feel upon making such an acknowledgement is more than atoned for by the subsequent satisfaction which it affords him, and by avoiding a trial and conviction of conduct unbecoming an officer.’ Simmons, ThomasRemarks on the Constitution and Practice of Court Martial (London: Parker, Furnall and Parker, 1852), p. 320.Google Scholar

23 Scott, DavidThe Military Law of England (London, 1810), p. 30.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., pp. 31–5.

25 W.O. 71/50, Beilby Court Martial, September 1766.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 W.O. 81/11 Gould to Barrington.

31 W.O. 71/74, Lt. Ormsby Court Martial, August 1764.

32 W.O. 71/69. It is interesting to note how close the two men were to each other when they fired - ten paces. Most of the duelling cases involved pistols and one has the feeling that the reason was that they were safer than swords. Of course, one had to train harder to master the sword as well.

33 Ibid.

34 W.O.71/71, Lt. Strode Court Martial, July 1762.

35 Ibid.

36 W.O. 71/69, Lt. Orpen Court Martial, September 1761.

37 W.O. 71/77, Lt. Dalrymple and Ens. Gaskell Court Martial, September 1768.

38 W.O. 71/68, Lt. Watson Court Martial, July 1761.

39 Ibid.

40 W.O. 71/75, Ens. Cole Court Martial, March 1766.

41 Ibid.

42 W.O. 71/71, Lt. Sherwin et al. Court Martial, July 1761.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., I.t. Rose Court Martial, April 1762.

45 W.O. 71/47, Lt. Hill Court Martial, September 1760.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 For a discussion of the nature of the officers corps in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries see Huntington, Samuel P.The Soldier and the State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), chapter 2, ‘The Rise of the Military Profession’.Google Scholar

50 For an example, see Considerations on the Act for Punishing Mutiny and Desertion (London, 1722), p. 36.Google Scholar For a discussion of the problems posed by ‘the general article’ in modern times, ‘Conduct to the Prejudice of Good Order and Discipline’, see Nichols, , op. cit.Google Scholar, and Hagan, J. A.‘The General Article: Elemental Confusion’, Military Law Review, vol. X (1960). One of the major difficulties centres around the fact that it is an undefined crime – like the eighteenth-century ‘conduct’ offence.Google Scholar