Suffolk, Correspondence and papers relating to the coastal militia, 1803-5

SUFFOLK

Correspondence and papers of Richard Frank, Rector of Alderton, Suffolk, relating to local militia, 1803-1805

c.75 items including letters to Frank (as Lieutenant of Division), by George, Earl of Euston (later 4th Duke of Grafton) and Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk, and others, as well as copy letters, printed orders and regulations, and other notes and papers, discussing preparations for French invasion, the establishment and management of sea fencibles, infantry militia, yeomen cavalry, and special constables, systems of beacons and other signals, the maintenance of a watch on the coast, the detention of aliens, the supply of arms and ammunition, requisitioning of horses, and related subjects, with index, 280 numbered pages, folio, March 1803 to 21 August 1805, contemporary half morocco 

Britain faced a serious and imminent threat of invasion following the resumption of war with France in 1803. Napoleon assembled a 200,000 strong Armée d'Angleterre in the Channel ports and ordered the construction of a flotilla of invasion barges. This volume of letters to an industrious Suffolk clergyman in the coastal village of Alderton reveals British preparations for invasion at a local level, from the installation of a system of warning beacons, to special constables concerned with possible spies. In the event, of course, these arrangements were never tested: Napoleon was unable to wrest control of the Channel from the Royal Navy, and victory at Trafalgar was decisive proof of British naval superiority.