2-995-577 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Volunteer Camp, on Crosby Sands, near Liverpool - from a drawing by William Woods, 1860. Training camp for the 1st battalion of Lancashire Rifles, '...under the personal supervision and command of Lieutenant-Colonel Bousfield...The tents were pitched for the purpose of inuring the volunteers to the hardship of camp life, as well as to bring them near the shooting-ground on the shore, where they might, by constant practice morning and evening, learn to become expert marksmen...Altogether there were forty-one tents, including the "canteen establishment," where refreshments were supplied according to a fixed tariff... The men rose at five in the morning and then prepared for drill, rifle-shooting, skirmishing, &c, which generally began at six o'clock. Breakfast was afterwards had, and the majority of the volunteers returned to town...to engage in the business of the day...The same routine of training was observed in the evening. On every alternate Wednesday there was a battalion drill, when the "campaigning" was enlivened by two or three bands of music from Liverpool'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.