Few figures were as familiar across the colonies of Australia and New Zealand, or as likely to turn up at any place across the globe in the nineteenth century, than the British redcoat soldier or the Royal Navy sailor. The scale of Britain’s reach was everywhere conspicuous in these emblematic figures. Focusing on the men rather than the hierarchy, the cultures and economies of the garrison world rather than military engagements, the paper is concerned with the connections – and disconnections – between settler colonialism and martial power, and their respective histories.

Between 1830s and 1870 the greater portion of Britain’s imperial regiments were stationed abroad. Many men’s service spanned India, Caribbean, North America as well as Australasia. Few institutions rivalled the army and navy for mobility, and few currents of 19thC mobility were as well resourced as those underwritten by the Admiralty and the War Office. How did obedience and opportunity, a sequestered masculinity, and ultimately, the imposition of an unpopular ‘self-reliant’ policy on ‘self-governing’ colonies in 1870, test the scale and nature of imperial authority? The paper will reference the big data – microhistory tensions within the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Settler: Garrison and Empire in the 19thC project.