The eighteenth-century British Army relied on a range of non-combatant support personnel who operated alongside its formal military establishment. For the 78th Regiment of Foot (Fraser’s Highlanders), the surviving evidence demonstrates the presence of officers’ servants as a recognized and funded component of regimental life. By contrast, there is no contemporary documentation supporting the use of enlisted soldiers as personal attendants within the regiment. An examination of financial records, comparative administrative evidence, and embarkation returns suggests that servants—not batmen—constitute the only demonstrable category of personal support associated with the 78th.
Servants as an Authorized and Funded Role
Per diem schedules for the 78th Regiment of Foot explicitly authorize servants for commissioned officers, including captains, lieutenants, ensigns, and the quartermaster. These allowances indicate that the British Army formally anticipated the expense of maintaining servants and incorporated that cost into regimental financial planning. The allowance was paid to the officer rather than to the servant and was intended to offset the cost of subsistence and upkeep, not to provide wages in the military sense.
Whether every officer actually employed a servant in practice cannot be demonstrated from the records. Officers may have shared servants, forgone them entirely, or made alternative arrangements. Nevertheless, the existence of the allowance establishes that servants were institutionally recognized as a normal and legitimate expense within the regiment.
Servants as a Distinct Administrative Category
Early administrative evidence confirms that servants were understood as a functional category distinct from both soldiers and dependents. A survey of the state of the garrison of Tangier ordered by Charles II on 30 December 1676 enumerates servants separately from wives and children, with no overlap between the categories. This demonstrates that, by the late seventeenth century, military administrators did not treat servants as children or dependents by default, but as individuals attached for service (Williams, ch. 1, p. 8, Appendix A).
Although the Tangier survey predates the Seven Years’ War by several decades, it is valuable for what it reveals about administrative logic rather than numerical equivalence. It shows that servants were expected members of military communities and were counted separately when total population and provisioning were at issue. This conceptual framework did not need to be reinvented in the mid-eighteenth century.
Servants and Embarkation Returns
The treatment of servants in embarkation returns reflects this same administrative logic. Returns listing women and children were concerned with identifying those for whom the Crown assumed direct responsibility for transport and subsistence. Army wives and children therefore required enumeration, as their presence created immediate logistical and financial obligations.
Servants, by contrast, were privately maintained by officers, even when their upkeep was subsidized through per diem allowances. The allowance represented an indirect subsidy to the officer rather than a direct obligation toward a named individual. As a result, servants did not constitute Crown dependents and did not require enumeration in embarkation returns submitted to higher command, such as those made at Halifax Harbour to Lord Loudoun’s staff.
This distinction explains why one return might enumerate women and children while omitting servants entirely. The omission should be understood as intentional and functional rather than as evidence of absence.
The Absence of Evidence for Batmen
While later military practice employed enlisted soldiers as personal attendants—commonly referred to as batmen—there is no contemporary evidence that such arrangements existed within the 78th Regiment of Foot. No muster rolls, pay records, correspondence, or orders identify enlisted soldiers as personal attendants, nor is there any financial or administrative provision for such a role within the regiment.
Given the operational context of the Seven Years’ War, this absence is unsurprising. The 78th was raised rapidly for active service, and the demands of campaigning likely required the full employment of enlisted manpower. In contrast to servants, who were funded externally to the regimental establishment, the diversion of enlisted soldiers to personal service would have reduced fighting strength without leaving a documentary trace.
In the absence of evidence, it is therefore methodologically unsound to assume the presence of batmen within the regiment.
Conclusion
The surviving evidence relating to the 78th Regiment of Foot supports a clear and defensible conclusion. Officers’ servants were formally authorized, financially subsidized, and understood as a distinct functional category within the regiment’s administrative framework. Their presence explains both the allocation of per diem allowances and the selective visibility of non-combatants in embarkation returns.
By contrast, there is no documentary support for the use of enlisted soldiers as personal attendants within the 78th. While such practices existed elsewhere and later in British Army history, they cannot be demonstrated for this regiment and should not be assumed. Focusing on servants rather than batmen allows the historical record to speak on its own terms and avoids imposing later practice on an earlier and more demanding operational context.
Works Consulted
Williams, Noel St. John. Judy O’Grady & The Colonel’s Lady: The Army Wife and Camp Follower Since 1660 (1988). Chapter 1, p. 8, Appendix A.
Williams, Noel St. John. Judy O’Grady & The Colonel’s Lady: The Army Wife and Camp Follower Since 1660 (1988). Chapter 1, p. 8, Appendix A.
Per Diem Rates for a Highland Battalion of Foot (77th and 78th Regiments). TNA, W.O. 24/326/003.
