Defining Soldiers: Britain’s Military, c. 1740-1815

This article offers a critique of the methodology of military history. The question of what constitutes a ‘soldier’ is usually taken for granted, but history of Britain’s military between the wars of the 1740s and the end of the Napoleonic Wars suggests that current definitions are inadequate. This is a period when Britain’s armed forces expanded and diversified, with a particular emphasis upon irregular forces, so the experience of soldiering was both widespread and complex. By focusing on the themes of language, law and citizenship, lifecycles, masculinity and collective identity, this article proposes new ways of thinking about ‘the soldier’. In so doing, it suggests that military historians should rethink the relationship between the military and society, and engage further with the methodologies of social and cultural history.