Description:Many of Earl Gower’s papers as Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire and High Steward of Stafford relate to his direction of the Staffordshire Militia.
A printed document amongst these papers details the outcomes of a meeting held on Saturday 11th November 1786 ‘before the most Noble Granville Leveson Gower Marquis of the County of Stafford, Lord Lieutenant of the said County’.
The meeting was held to in order to obtain current information about the number of men who could be deployed as Staffordshire’s Militia and to plan a schedule for enrolling these men.
The meeting directed ‘the High Constables of the several Hundreds’ to command the relevant Petty Constables, Tithing Men, Headboroughs and other Officers ‘in every Parish, Tithing and Place’ to compile a present to ‘the Deputy Lieutenants’ within their respective Subdivisions’…fair and true Lists in Writing of the Names of all Men, usually and at this Time dwelling within their respective Parishes, Tithings and Places, between the Ages of eighteen and forty five Years’. The lists were also to include the men’s ‘respective Ranks and Occupations’.
The document includes a tabulated timetable of the dates and locations of subsequent meetings, where the lists would be heard, and meetings following this ‘for appointing the Numbers to Serve for each Parish’ and also for ‘balloting’ and ‘swearing and inrolling’.
The notice concludes stating that ‘a General Meeting of the Lieutenancy of the said County of Stafford’ would be held on Tuesday 5th December and the County Hall in Stafford ‘for proportioning the Numbers to serve, for the several Hundreds, and City, in the said County’.