Families in Arms: British Army Officers, Military Families and the Shared Experience of War, 1793-1815

This thesis examines the experience of war of British army officers and their parents
and siblings during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815). Challenging an
enduring tendency to treat military and civilian experiences of these conflicts as essentially distinct, this thesis brings into dialogue front and home and shows how war emerges as a shared and affective experience between British officers overseas and their families in Britain. It emphasises in particular the experience of mourning and memorialisation, integral components of wartime experience still overlooked in the historiography, and provides the first sustained study of epitaphs to the fallen during these wars.
Chapter one considers how becoming an officer was a ‘family affair’, and highlights
how the military and the family, as formative institutions of the British masculine elite,
intersected much more than has been previously appreciated. Chapter two argues for the
centrality of relationships between officers and their parents in the experience of war,
exploring how the military and filial identities of officers were co-constructed. Chapter
three suggests how sibling relationships provide a neglected but fruitful framework for
investigating the intersection of the front and home, and explores how military brothers
remained involved in their siblings’ lives. Chapter four addresses the experiences of
bereaved families as they mourned both a loved one and a soldier, often in the absence of a body, making mourning an experience mediated between the front and home. Chapter five turns to the memorialisation of the fallen by their families, locating their experiences within public discourses on the wars, and highlighting their roles in the democratization of the figure of the military hero.