Abstract: Cardwell and Childers hoped to raise the status of the regular soldier by rooting each regiment in its own local community, and using the depot and its linked militia and volunteer units as bridges between civilian society and the regular army. This chapter explores the paradox that while the regular army continued to be shunned by much of ‘respectable’ society, the soldier in the abstract became an icon standing for all that was best in British society.

Keywords: civil-military relations, Cardwell-Childers reforms, militia, volunteers, civilian society,