The authorship of this piece is uncertain and it may be by either Harriet Martineau (to whom it is ascribed in the Household Words office book) or by James Payn.

Anne Lohrli comments: 'In contrast with the didactic heaviness of Miss Martineau's stories of confirmed authorship, "The Rampshire Militia" is lively writing. It recounts, in a series of letters, the formation and training of a volunteer military unit of country "bumpkins," who at the end of their several periods of drill acquire soldierly bearing and efficiency. Ned Barry, a farm labourer, is one of the Rampshire militia-men selected "for the regulars" from the hundreds who volunteer for that service in the autumn of 1853; six months later he embarks for the East from "Rampling Harbour." What is to become of "the Rampshire as a regiment" Ned does not know; perhaps there "may be drafts from it, from time to time, for the line"; or perhaps some of the men will be sent to garrison duty abroad to relieve the regulars. "Some think that if the way lasts long, the Rampshire may even see fighting."

The "Rampshire" military unit appears in two of Payn's H.W. papers: "Back from the Crimea," March 3, 1855, and "Embarkation," May 12, 1855. "Embarkation" describes the embarking of "R.R.R." -- the Royal Rampshire Regiment -- on H.M.S. Obstinate; the regiment -- the first that "volunteered in England for foreign service" -- is made up of labourers and artisans who had not intended to enter the army, but had enlisted merely to pass "six weeks' holiday in playing at soldiers"; it is "a regiment of very young men "for the flower of the corps volunteered long since from the Royal Rampshire into the line)." "Back from the Crimea" mentions the Royal Rampshire militiamen assembled at the dockyard to help bear sick and wounded Crimea soldiers from the transport; it mentions the Royal Rampshire officers as writing letters for the soldiers in the hospital.

It is unlikely that two contributors should each have devised a "Rampshire" military unit. "The Rampshire Militia" seems to be by Payn.' (Anne Lohrli, Household Words: A Weekly Journal 1850-59 Conducted by Charles Dickens (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), pp. 359-60.