ABSTRACT
The regimental representative can make only a tentative offer; it is confirmed after the candidate has been interviewed by a panel of the regiment’s senior officers, who will normally include a number of serving or retired generals. What ensured the new regiments’ assumption of a genuinely County character, which the earlier allocation of titles had not done, was the location of each regimental depot in the region from which it was supposed to recruit; and the affiliation to the regiment of the local Militia and Volunteer battalions, the citizen soldiers of the area. The unfavourable effect that this sort of gadfly careerism exerted on regimental efficiency and on the poorer officers’ morale had long been a cause of scandal. But to imply that the late Victorian or Edwardian officer became, through the abolition of purchase, a mere paper chaser would be altogether to misrepresent his approach to regimental life.
