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Let me know in the comments which invention or section you'd turn to first...

I see a thumbnail with Simmerson, and I immediately clicked. That's my style, sir.

Of course Purchase didn't not apply to the Artillery and the Engineers. Like they navy you actually need talent to serve in those branches.

I love how Flashman is basically every douchebag officer from Sharpe.😂😂

I always forget that before criticizing the choices of others, figure out what problem they were trying to solve. No one has ever explained to me the problems that purchasing a commission was intended to solve. Thanks for that.

IIRC, the greatest catalyst for bringing about a mass sale of commissions was frequently that a regiment, during peacetime, was being shipped to "foreign parts." Mainly this meant, as a general rule, India, widely acknowledged as uncomfortably hot and pestilential, but as the example of one Beau Brummell attests, "foreign parts" could also mean somewhere outside of London or the south-east of England. In Brummell's case, this was Manchester, so he immediately resigned his commission in the 10th Light Dragoons. One suspects that if his outfit was being sent to, say, Bath, he might have stayed.

A regiment's posting to India, however, was also an opportunity for any officers who were ambitious, capable, but lacking somewhat in funds, to advance relatively cheaply. Even if the regiment concerned was considered to be a "fashionable" Line Regiment, the threat of being sent to India often had many officers who did not want to go to India to cast about for some way to stay in England and remain in the Army. So, you would get, quite often, officers who, as mentioned above, were capable, ambitious and lacking in funds, actually exchanging their commissions in their regiment that was staying at home for commissions in the regiment heading overseas, and sometimes actually gaining rank in the process. And, although India was indeed uncomfortably hot and pestilential, it had another advantage: it was well known that you could live on your pay in India, and not need any outside income. Plus, although service, especially on the North-West Frontier could be hazardous, there was opportunity, in addition for the possibility of "advancement into dead man's shoes",  for, shall we say, acquiring items that could later be sold for some profit. And, if an officer found India much to their liking, they would frequently exchange into a regiment that was coming out to India, which had the additional happy result of the army in India retaining the services of a body of experienced, capable officers.

I was warned off a commission with a Guards Regiment, given my lack of family wealth.  That was in the late 90's.

I forget where I read it, but the view was that South Africans were ideal officer material during WWII. The basis for this was that they were used to command, from having to manage the estates in SA. You might take the same view of officer material in Napoleonic times. The concept of "command" needs clarification, having to do with the oversight of the welfare of the men under command, and the provision of their needs, and well as planning for and ordering their use. all the petty details later made doctrinal by Staff College. The sort of thing that Black Jack had to put in his manual.

Came for the Sharpe memes, stayed for the genuinely fascinating presentation.

What was the old adage? The first son got the property, the second was sent to the colonies, the third went to the navy or Army and the church got the fourth.

Didn’t no less an authority than Wellington say that his officers were brave and reliable under fire, but lazy about the things had to be attended to in between battles, like discipline and logistics? A complex picture indeed, and no one understood the importance of the unglamorous things like supply like him.

There is another thing that should make one think twice about critisizing the systems of the time.  And that's the fact that they won a lot of wars.

It is only now that I realise the Class Distinction that existed at the Royal Military College 'Duntroon' back in 1978, here in Australia - most cadets of the 'Corps of Staff Cadets' (unlike those attending Officer Cadet School Portsea, at the time) were from Private Schools in Australia, and Army Families, (including Melbourne High School which despite the name was no ordinary High School) and not like me, from a rural outer-suburban High School and Middle Class family.  The only real prejudice was from Upper Classmen in my time - many of my peers remaining close friends for many years afterwards.....

The fictional Harry Flashman made a comment in one of his early volumes about the change from the purchase system to the modern-ish.  IIRC, he said something along the lines of "It's fashoinable now to deplore the purchase system but, in my experience, the leaders after it were just as bad as before, so it's a wash".

Absolutely fascinating video , kept my full attention throughout especially the realisation that “ the aristocracy “ was not the major source of Officers who actually mainly came the rural gentry and commercial middle class was eye opening ..👍

John Shipp's regiment the 65th, went on to be the longest serving Imperial regiment in New Zealand, serving nearly 20 years here during the NZ Wars! They served in all the major North Island campaigns, Rangiriri and the Waikato, the Gate Pa and Taranaki. Two VCs were awarded! The Māori called them the Hickety-Pips! Many pensioned off here having also served 20 years in India - The Royal Tigers!

Like every other military, the NCOs took up the slack of the incompetent officers.

Major Lennox answered with this life!

A bit of family history: My great grandfather Frederick was awarded a free commission as an Ensign in the 88th Regiment of Foot in March 1855 at the age of 19 after his elder brother who was a Captain in the Royal Artillery was KIA at the battle of the Al'ma, which meant that Frederick got free entry as it were. His military career went like this: Rank          Regt          Date of full pay     Date of half pay

                                                         Ensign       88th Regt   16.  March/55
                                                         Lieut.        88th Regt    21.  Sept/55
                                                         Capt.         37th Regt    21.  Aug/66
                                                         (selection)
                                                         80th Regt.   16.  Oct/66                               15. Jan/71
                                                         (exchange)
                                                         Major      1st H.R.        12. Sep/78
                                                          V Corps   Retired by sale of commission on 22 July 1877
                                                          Appointed Adj.  of 1st H.R. V.  Corps on 1st June 1871
During the Crimean War he was a staff officer in charge of a PoW camp on an island in the Sea of Marmora (now a weekend spot for the Istanbul trendy crowd). We still have his sword used in anger in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny and a Russian Imperial Army bugle which looks rather like it was ridden over by the charge of the Light Brigade!! His son, my grandfather, also joined the (Indian) Army and ended as a Lt-Col in the Loyal Corps of Guides before transferring to the Indian Civil Service and serving mainly on the NW frontier. He finally retired as Assistant  to the Governor General for Baluchistan which meant basically he was governor of Baluchistan, where my mother was born.

The thumbnail made me jump to the scene in Sharpe from both the book, and film both of which do an impressive job of conveying Wellington's displeasure at Simmerson for losing the Kings Colours.