The “serious evil of marching regiments”: The families of the British garrison of Gibraltar

Abstract

This study investigates the lives of the women and children who accompanied the soldiers to the British garrison at Gibraltar during the last decades of the 19th century. Marriage in the army was controversial, and officials were divided on the subject: some saw the benefits of married life and realized the large amount of unpaid labor contributed by the women of the regiments; others believed that marriage was the “serious evil of marching regiments.” This study uses a military census taken in 1878 to analyze the age and sex structure of the military population at Gibraltar. Its structure is distinctive with no elderly individuals and few children in their teens. This pattern was the result of army directives, such as those governing the age of dependents and controlling marriage among the troops.

Keywords:

• Regimental wives
• Victorian army
• Gibraltar
• Garrison society
• Military marriage

Notes

1 One notable exception is the work of Myna Trustram (1984), who surmounted some of these obstacles to describe the lives of the women attached to the regiments stationed in the UK. Trustram limited her work to the experiences of women whose husbands were stationed at the home garrisons, while urging study of the lives of the women who accompanied the troops overseas.

2 India had more troops, but they were spread over many smaller garrisons. Malta was a less populous garrison until the late 19th century, when its average strength exceeded that of Gibraltar.

3 I am indebted to L.A. (Larry) Sawchuk for allowing me access to his copy of the 1878 military census at Gibraltar.

4 The reason for taking this additional census does not survive. Censuses done in 1871 and 1881 concentrated on the civilians in the colony and did not detail each individual in the military population. The 1878 census included only the military and collected information about most individuals.