King's shilling

Last updated
A shilling of George III, king at the turn of the 19th century. GREAT BRITAIN, GEORGE III 1787 -SHILLING b - Flickr - woody1778a.jpg
A shilling of George III, king at the turn of the 19th century.

The King's shilling, sometimes called the Queen's shilling when the Sovereign is female, [1] is a historical slang term referring to the earnest payment of one shilling given to recruits to the Armed forces of the United Kingdom in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, although the practice dates back to the end of the English Civil War. [2] [3] To "take the King's shilling" was to agree to serve as a sailor or soldier in the Royal Navy or the British Army. [3] It is closely related to the act of impressment. [4] The practice officially stopped in 1879, although the term is still used informally and there are some cases of it being used still in the early 20th century, albeit largely symbolically. [5] [6]

Contents

British Army

A recruit was still entitled to return the shilling until becoming subject to military law upon formal attestation before a Justice of the Peace. [3] [7] At this point, a more substantial bounty was paid to the new recruit, which fluctuated from two guineas to a high of £23/17/6d in 1812. [5] [8] [9] However, this payment generally was quickly lost to various duties and dues, such as uniform. The monetary amount of this bounty, which might be equivalent to half a year's wages for the average unskilled worker, [9] was enough to persuade most potential recruits to join. [7] Those who hesitated were often won over by making them intoxicated with strong drink. [7] The bounty was lucrative enough for some to repeatedly desert, then re-enlist. One man was hanged in 1787 for 47 repeat offences. [5]

The pay for a private in the English Army was originally one shilling a day. [10] A soldier was expected to pay for food and clothing out of their wages after using the initial sign-up bounty to purchase their initial equipment. It was not until 1847 that a limit was placed on deductions, ensuring that each soldier was paid at least one penny (a twelfth of a shilling) a day, after deductions. [3]

Novel incentives were sometimes used to persuade soldiers to enlist in the army. Jane Gordon, Duchess of Gordon, was known to tour Scotland with a shilling in her lips for anyone wishing to join up to take. [5] [11]

The 1914 song "I'll Make a Man of You" posits a "new recruiting scheme" in which the female singer states: "On Saturday I'm willing, if you'll only take the shilling, to make a man of any one of you." [12]

Royal Navy

Press gangs had the power to compel British seamen into the Royal Navy. A man forced unwillingly into the Navy in this way was given the King's shilling, but was often offered a chance to volunteer: a volunteer would be eligible for an advance of two months' wages and would be treated more favourably than their pressed counterparts. [4] [13] Clothes and equipment, such as a hammock, had to be bought from the ship's purser out of the advance. Volunteers were also protected from creditors, up to the value of £20. [14]

There are recurring tales of sailors being pressed after a shilling was slipped into their drink, [5] leading to glass-bottomed tankards. However, this is likely to be a myth, for the Navy could press by force, rendering deception unnecessary. [4]

Present day

Joining the British Army is still unofficially described as "taking the King's shilling". [15] [16] This includes non-British and Commonwealth soldiers who join the British Army. [17] At least one airman was given the King's shilling upon attestation into the Royal Air Force in 1948. [2] The phrase has been used [18] [ unreliable source ] to refer to other modern practices, for instance to a member of the British House of Commons accepting an office of profit under the Crown, such as the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, in order to vacate their seats, as resigning is not permitted. [19] It has also been used to describe pay and expenses of Members of Parliament. [20]

It has been used metaphorically for other activities paid for by the British Government. Employees of post offices that were bailed out have been referred to as taking the shilling, [21] as have Conservative MPs accused of lobbying, [22] unionist militia in Northern Ireland, [23] and judges upon taking office. [24]

The term was mentioned in D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers. [25]

The term was also mentioned in the BBC drama, Our Girl .

The phrase is used in the 1968 song "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)" by the British band The Zombies, which is written from the perspective of a butcher serving on the front lines in the First World War.

The term is used in the BBC television series Peaky Blinders (Episode 3.6) by the character Thomas Shelby. Addressing subordinates he says, "When you take the King's shilling, the King expects you to kill.", in reference to killings that he had ordered.

The term is used in the ITV television series Sharpe (TV series) , which takes place in the 1800s during the Napoleonic Wars.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Army</span> Land warfare force of the United Kingdom

The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Naval Service and the Royal Air Force. As of 1 January 2024, the British Army comprises 75,166 regular full-time personnel, 4,062 Gurkhas, 26,244 volunteer reserve personnel and 4,557 "other personnel", for a total of 110,029.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Armed Forces</span> Combined military forces of the United Kingdom

The British Armed Forces are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, support international peacekeeping efforts and provide humanitarian aid.

<i>Hansard</i> Transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries

Hansard is the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printer to the Parliament at Westminster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pound sterling</span> Currency of the United Kingdom

Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of sterling, and the word pound is also used to refer to the British currency generally, often qualified in international contexts as the British pound or the pound sterling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impressment</span> Forced naval service with or without notice

Impressment, colloquially "the press" or the "press gang", is the forced conscription of men into a military force, especially a naval force, via intimidation and physical coercion, conducted by an organized group. European navies of several nations used forced recruitment by various means. The large size of the British Royal Navy in the Age of Sail meant impressment was most commonly associated with Great Britain and Ireland. It was used by the Royal Navy in wartime, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice can be traced back to the time of Edward I of England. The Royal Navy impressed many merchant sailors, as well as some sailors from other, mostly European, nations. People liable to impressment were "eligible men of seafaring habits between the ages of 18 and 55 years". Non-seamen were sometimes impressed as well, though rarely. In addition to the Royal Navy's use of impressment, the British Army also experimented with impressment from 1778 to 1780.

The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970, with a comparatively short existence ending in 1992. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements, their official role was the "defence of life or property in Northern Ireland against armed attack or sabotage" but unlike troops from Great Britain they were never used for "crowd control or riot duties in cities". At the time the UDR was the largest infantry regiment in the British Army, formed with seven battalions plus another four added within two years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Anglian Regiment</span> Infantry regiment of the British Army

The Royal Anglian Regiment is an infantry regiment of the British Army. It consists of two Regular battalions and one Reserve battalion. The modern regiment was formed in 1964, making it the oldest of the Line Regiments now operating in the British Army, and can trace its history back to 1685. The regiment was the first of the large infantry regiments and is one of the three regiments of the Queen's Division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards</span> Regiment of the British Army

1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards (QDG) is a regiment in the Royal Armoured Corps of the British Army. Nicknamed The Welsh Cavalry, the regiment recruits from Wales and the bordering English counties of Cheshire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire, and is the senior cavalry regiment, and therefore senior regiment of the line of the British Army.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auxiliaries</span> An organized group supplementing the military or law enforcement

Auxiliaries are support personnel that assist the military or police but are organised differently from regular forces. Auxiliary may be military volunteers undertaking support functions or performing certain duties such as garrison troops, usually on a part-time basis. Unlike a military reserve force, an auxiliary force does not necessarily have the same degree of training or ranking structure as regular soldiers, and it may or may not be integrated into a fighting force. Some auxiliaries, however, are militias composed of former active duty military personnel and actually have better training and combat experience than their regular counterparts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Recruitment in the British Army</span>

The British Army came into being with the unification of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England and Scotland. The Army has traditionally relied on volunteer recruits, the only exceptions to this being during the latter part of the First World War until 1919, and then again during the Second World War when conscription was brought in during the war and stayed until 1960.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military recruitment</span> Recruitment for military positions

Military recruitment refers to the activity of attracting people to, and selecting them for, military training and employment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Regiment of Scotland</span> Infantry regiment of the British Army

The Royal Regiment of Scotland (SCOTS) is the senior and only current Scottish line infantry regiment of the British Army Infantry. It consists of three regular and two reserve battalions, plus an incremental company, each formerly an individual regiment. However, three regular battalions maintain their former regimental pipes and drums to carry on the traditions of their antecedent regiments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Recruiting sergeant</span>

A recruiting sergeant is a British or American soldier of the rank of sergeant who is tasked to enlist recruits. The term originated in the British army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volunteer Force</span> Former citizen army of the British Empire

The Volunteer Force was a citizen army of part-time rifle, artillery and engineer corps, created as a popular movement throughout the British Empire in 1859. Originally highly autonomous, the units of volunteers became increasingly integrated with the British Army after the Childers Reforms in 1881, before forming part of the Territorial Force in 1908. Most of the regiments of the present Army Reserves Infantry, Artillery, Engineers and Signals units are directly descended from Volunteer Force units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1982 British Army Gazelle friendly fire incident</span> Accidental downing of a helicopter in the Falklands War

On 6 June 1982, during the Falklands War, the British Royal Navy Type 42 destroyer HMS Cardiff engaged and destroyed a British Army Gazelle helicopter, serial number XX377, in a friendly fire incident, killing all four occupants. Cardiff, on the lookout for aircraft flying supplies to the Argentine forces occupying the Falkland Islands, had misidentified the helicopter as an enemy C-130 Hercules. Although the helicopter's loss was initially blamed on enemy action, a subsequent inquiry found Cardiff's missile to be the cause.

In the United Kingdom, confidence motions are a means of testing the support of the government (executive) in a legislative body, and for the legislature to remove the government from office. A confidence motion may take the form of either a vote of confidence, usually put forward by the government, or a vote of no confidence, usually proposed by the opposition. When such a motion is put to a vote in the legislature, if a vote of confidence is defeated, or a vote of no confidence is passed, then the incumbent government must resign, or call a general election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glencorse Barracks</span>

Glencorse Barracks is a British Army barracks situated in Glencorse just outside the town of Penicuik in Midlothian, Scotland. It is one of the three barracks which make up the City of Edinburgh Garrison, with Dreghorn and Redford Barracks. It has been the home for The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland since 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shite-hawk</span> Slang term for the black kite and other scavenging birds of prey

Shite-hawk or shit-hawk or shitty hawk is a slang name applied to various birds of prey that exhibit scavenging behaviour, originally and primarily the black kite, although the term has also been applied to other birds such as the herring gull. It is also a slang derogatory term for an unpleasant person.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen Elizabeth Barracks, Strensall</span> British Army location in Yorkshire

Queen Elizabeth Barracks is a British Army installation in Strensall, North Yorkshire, England. It opened in the 1880s, and since 2016, it has been under threat of closure, but was reprieved in 2024.

References

  1. ↑ "Queen's shilling". Collins English Dictionary. 2011-10-26. Archived from the original on 2014-05-13. Retrieved 2014-05-13.
  2. 1 2 BBC Radio 4 (20 May 2003). Making History (Radio broadcast). 23 minutes in. Retrieved 2014-05-18.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. 1 2 3 4 "The King's Shilling". BBC History - Fact files. BBC. 2005-01-28. Archived from the original on 2013-01-22. Retrieved 2009-03-30.
  4. 1 2 3 Paul Gooddy. "The Impress Service". Archived from the original on 2014-05-12. Retrieved 2014-05-13.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Making History". BBC Beyond the Broadcast. Archived from the original on 2005-03-15.
  6. ↑ Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, Pvt Frank Proctor, Reel 1, CAT16801
  7. 1 2 3 Robert Henderson (2001). "Taking the King's Shilling: Recruitment for the British Army, 1812". The Discriminating General. Archived from the original on 2014-05-12. Retrieved 2014-05-13.
  8. ↑ "To take the King's shilling". Upper Canada Military Re-enactment Society. 2004-01-20. Archived from the original on 2014-05-13.
  9. 1 2 Coss, Edward (2010). All for the king's shilling the British soldier under Wellington, 1808-1814 (PDF). University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN   9780806185453.
  10. ↑ Francis Grose (1786). Military antiquities respecting a history of the English Army, from the conquest to the present time. Bavarian State Library. p. 413. OCLC   21135023.
  11. ↑ Nicholas Fairbairn (October 15, 1991). "Orders of the Day – Defence". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
  12. ↑ "I'll Make a Man of You (Recruiting Song)," words by Arthur Wimperis; music by Herman Finck. Francis, Day and Hunter, 1914.
  13. ↑ Rottman, Gordon L. (2007). FUBAR : soldier slang of World War II. Botley, Oxford, U.K.: Osprey Publishing. ISBN   978-1846031755.
  14. ↑ "Impressment". Royal Naval Museum. Archived from the original on 10 November 2014. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
  15. ↑ Gee, David (2007-01-07). "Selling the Queen's shilling". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 2014-05-13. Retrieved 2014-05-13.
  16. ↑ Taylor, Matthew; Audrey Gillan (13 January 2009). "Racist slur or army banter? What the soldiers say". The Guardian . Retrieved 14 May 2014. When I took the oath of allegiance the man said to me, here's the king's shilling for a cup of tea and a chapati
  17. ↑ Nick Squares (2003-11-13). "Fighting Fijians flock to take the Queen's shilling". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2014-05-18.
  18. ↑ "The King's shilling". 24 February 2011. Archived from the original on 19 May 2014. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  19. ↑ "The Chiltern Hundreds" (PDF). Factsheet P11 Procedure Series. House of Commons Information Office. August 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  20. ↑ Michael White (2008-08-08). "Removing the oath of allegiance to the Queen would just be window dressing". The Guardian . Retrieved 2014-05-19.
  21. ↑ Michael Connarty (January 12, 2011). https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110112/debtext/110112-0001.htm#11011258002774. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . House of Commons. col. 298.{{cite book}}: |chapter-url= missing title (help)
  22. ↑ Barry Sheerman (July 6, 1992). https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1992-07-06a.119.0&s=%22king%27s+shilling%22#g125.5. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . House of Commons.{{cite book}}: |chapter-url= missing title (help)
  23. ↑ http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/takes/dail1934020700033?opendocument. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . Republic of Ireland: Dáil Éireann. 7 February 1934.{{cite book}}: |chapter-url= missing title (help)
  24. ↑ Atlay, J.B. (1908). "Book Reviews". American Law Review. 42: 935.
  25. ↑ Lawrence, D.H. (1913). "8". Sons and Lovers  . London: Duckworth. LCCN   50048147. I have taken the King's shilling, but perhaps if you came for me they would let me go back with you.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.