ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Britain's regular army was raised in the eighteenth century, surveying both why and how officers and men came to be in its ranks. Officers and men were often viewed as belonging to two separate spheres, and this was not always the reality, noting the fact that the seeming chasm was often crossed. The Royal Military Academy at Woolwich was founded in 1741 to train officers of the artillery and engineers. Once there was a vacancy among the regiment's officers, the officer below the rank of vacancy would usually be offered first refusal, so if he had the funds available, he could buy it and then offer his now more junior commission to the next man on the ladder. Men were persuaded by recruiting parties to enlist, though in times of war and rebellion, prisoners awaiting trial could be enlisted as well. Prisoners taken after the Jacobite rebellions also sometimes volunteered for military service, while facing transportation.
