
Luke Batterham
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The Rifle Corps had been established in 1859 during growing fears, exacerbated by the Crimean War, that the British army was overstretched by the Empire and amidst fears of a French invasion. At the time this letter was written they had been taken over by the War Department, having until then been local county establishments. They were finally to see active service in the Boer War. Darwin's eldest boys, along with his devoted valet Parslow, drilled with the High Elms Rifle Corps, established by their neighbours the Lubbocks (see E. Janet Brown, Charles Darwin: the Power of Place, 2003, p.458).