Question from a Reader: Who or what does the term “Lord Lieutenant of the County” mean?

Answer: Simply speaking, the Lord-Lieutenant represents His Majesty The King or Her Majesty The Queen in his respective county/shire. They were not just in the Georgian era.

“The office of the Lord-Lieutenant, the permanent representative of The Crown in a county, dates from Tudor times. Its holder was originally concerned mainly with supporting the monarch, protecting the county, being responsible for maintenance of order and for defence through the county militia. The first Lord-Lieutenants were appointed by King Henry VIII in the 1540s. The King was concerned about invasion from England’s enemies, which included at various times Scotland, France and Spain. He appointed Lord-Lieutenants in the counties who could raise and be responsible for militia within their respective counties. The militia not only included standing armies but also yeomen and volunteers.

“The title ‘lieutenant’ originated during the time of Henry VIII; the Lord-Lieutenant’s role was literally to ‘stand in for’ The King, in the battlefield and elsewhere. Important parts of the role were to act as an unpaid recruiting sergeant for The King and to play a major part in keeping law and order by both appointing and managing magistrates. The Lord-Lieutenant was also responsible for looking after state documents in their county and informing The King of what was going on.

“The fact that throughout 150 years the role was dominated by military men and in Oxfordshire by the Dukes of Marlborough says much about what was long thought to be an appropriate CV. In the 18th century, all but one Lord-Lieutenant was a peer and in the 19th century all were peers. Today, and with a changed role, Lord-Lieutenants are increasingly drawn from a widening variety of different backgrounds.” [Oxfordshire County Council]

In Regency stories, we often refer to the Lord Lieutenant when speaking of the militia and its oversight. I have done so in regarding to Mr. George Wickham’s antics in several of my Austen-inspired books. The Lord Lieutenant oversaw the militia of the county and was responsible for calling out the militia in cases of riot.

There are a couple of references with which I am familiar which might help a person find what he/she seeks regarding the role of Lord Lieutenant.

The first is The New British Traveller by James Dugdale. Though it was sold as a “travel” book, it is presented county by county and includes information about each local government. It was published as a four volume set in 1819, but the author had spent a number of years compiling it. And, governments change very slowly, so the details provided for Herefordshire or Hertfordshire or Oxfordshire, etc., should be fairly accurate for the Regency period.

One may find a review of the book at  https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/the-new-british-traveller-by-james-dugdale/

This particular post also includes a link to a page on the Internet Archive where a person can download all four volumes in digital format. Fortunately, it was NOT scanned by Google, so the pages are all clean and legible.

Each town, borough village had its own governing body. The civic parish was often the same as the church parish and was often governed by the same group of men. The county was administered by the justices at the Quarter sessions, and the Lord Lieutenant of the county and the man in charge of the court rolls who was often the same man. The Lord Lieutenant was most often a high ranking peer. He had to approve and recommend the local JP’s or Justice of the Peace, who was a person holding a commission from the Crown to exercise certain judicial functions for a particular commission area. JPs are appointed on behalf of and in the name of the Queen/King by the Lord Chancellor and may be removed from office in the same way. (JP’s were appointed to serve in a specific county)

There is a  book about the Lord Lieutenants. He could be mayor of a town, but the way most got involved was as a JP and then in attending Quarter Sessions.