You want to be a Grenadier, cira 1737

So you want to be a Grenadier in British Army in 1737, and wear a red coat.

So, on the march you carry: Coat, 5lbs, flintlock and sing, 11 lbs, pack with 2 shirts, 2 stocks, 1 pair of stockings, 1 pair summer breeches, 1 pair of shoes, brushes and blackball, 7lbs 10 oz.

Other items and 6 days provisions 39lbs 7 oz, total about 63 lbs.

We certainly have not improved with carrying weights.

For which you are paid 3 shilling and 6 pence per week as a private. You get 3 quid, your Captain the 6 pence to deduct for shoes, stockings, gaiters, medicines, shaving band mending kit, losses by exchange: but nothing else except such things as may be lost or spoiled by soldier’s negligence.

The change would be a tidy sum in the Captain’s pocket taken over the company strength.

Sounds a bit like 2 cans per man per day perhaps.

There were no barracks – you were billeted out in inn’s and private homes, and the average Englishman thought you would be better off in some god-forsaken country fighting wars, but not at home.

 

Submitted by Rod Gallagher
Reference: A History of the British Army – VOL II (1714 -1763)

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