It is usual to date the beginning of the great volunteer movement from 1859, when General Peel, then Minister of War, sanctioned the acceptance by the authorities of those who offered themselves to take part in the national defence, but the way had been long before prepared by the formation of local associations, amongst which that of Wimbledon, founded in 1799, was the first. A corps of cavalry and one of infantry were quickly formed, in which all the leading gentlemen of the parish were enrolled. The example thus set was eagerly followed, and in 1798 George III. reviewed on Wimbledon Common a regiment more than six hundred strong. By 1803 the volunteers numbered no less than 355,307, and there can be no doubt that had Napoleon realised the expectations of the people of England by invasion, the self-constituted army would have proved itself fully equal to the emergency. After the battle of Waterloo the volunteer force was disbanded; but the spirit which had animated it was not extinct, and when {207} some years later a new war with France seemed imminent, a single spark was all that was needed to kindle anew the patriotic enthusiasm of the whole nation, which resulted in the formation of a new volunteer army, in many respects superior to its predecessor. In June 1860 Queen Victoria reviewed that army in Hyde Park, and a month later took place on Wimbledon Common the inauguration of the National Rifle Association, Her Majesty firing the first shot. From that time to 1887, when the meetings were transferred to Bisley, the volunteers encamped on the beautiful common every summer, representative teams from every part of the United Kingdom and some of the colonies taking part in the various competitions, which, with the reviews that terminated the operations, attracted thousands of spectators. Wimbledon Common is now comparatively deserted, but the memory of the volunteers is kept green by the fine flagstaff, the loftiest in England, that rises up a short distance from the windmill, and consists of the trunk of a single Californian pine that was towed across the Atlantic by a liner, and was the gift of a Canadian corps in acknowledgment of the hospitality received during a visit to the camp. Now and then, as when in 1906 the London companies of the Royal Volunteer Army Medical Corps and a party of Electrical Royal Engineers rehearsed first aid to the wounded after a fight supposed to have taken place in the night, the common is still turned to account as a practising-ground, but it is at present chiefly noted as being the headquarters of the {208} London and Scottish Golf and the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Clubs. [Sidenote: Merton]