army
Long before the Norman Conquest, military obligation seems to have divided into two basic forms. One was an obligation for service by all adult males, established in English law as the militia by the ...
decline of smallholders
The decline, and in many places the disappearance, of smallholders has been hotly debated since the early years of the 20th century, when Gilbert Slater, The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of ...
dual economy
An economy in which modern industries, mines, or plantation agriculture exist side-by-side with backward sectors, with little interaction between them. This situation may occur in less developed ...
farmer
1 A collector of taxes, who paid the Crown an agreed sum and made a profit on the collection.2 In its modern sense, conveying no idea of acreage farmed ...
fencibles
British volunteer soldiers, with commissions commonly awarded to deserving officers on half pay. They were a sort of early Home Guard, dating back to the 15th century, and were open ...
gentry
Technically the gentry consists of four separately defined groups, socially inferior only to the ranks of the peerage. The senior rank is that of baronet, a position founded in 1611 by James I giving ...
husbandman
The old word for a farmer below the rank of yeoman. A husbandman usually held his land by copyhold or leasehold tenure and may be regarded as the ‘average farmer in his locality’. The words ‘yeoman’ ...
militia
The British regionally based volunteer armed forces (from the Latin miles, a soldier). Of Anglo‐Saxon origin or earlier, the militia was established as an obligation for all freemen by the Assize of ...
Orange Order
An Irish protestant organization dedicated to the preservation of the protestant constitution and the ‘glorious and immortal memory’ of King William III, the victor of the Boyne (1690). The order was ...
Peterloo massacre
An attack by Manchester yeomanry on 16 August 1819 against a large but peaceable crowd. Sent to arrest the speaker at a rally of supporters of political reform in St Peter's Field, Manchester, the ...
reserve forces
Persons engaged in part-time or continuous full-time service in the Australian Defence Force, either active or standby. See Defence Act 1903 (Cth) ss 32A, 50 and 50D and Defence (Personnel) ...
Tithe War
A campaign during 1830–3 against the levy on agricultural produce payable to the Church of Ireland [see Protestantism] which began as a movement of passive resistance, but Government attempts to ...
Volunteer movement
(Ireland). After France and Spain had entered the American War of Independence, many Irish volunteered to defend their country against invasion. By 1780, 40,000 were under arms. This also gave them ...
volunteers
Since from time immemorial it had been regarded as the duty of free men to defend their country, governments could scarcely object if, in moments of crisis, volunteers came forward to offer their ...
wool
The woollen industry was pre-eminent in the economy of the British Isles during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The manufacture of cloth was unrivalled as England's principal ...
