Has "1854" written in pencil on title page and "3/6" written on back cover

Alfred Bate Richards (1820–1876) was an English journalist and author. He turned from law to literature and was the author of a number of popular dramas, volumes of poems, and essays. He was the first editor of the Daily Telegraph, and afterwards of the Morning Advertiser. He was one of the leading advocates for the volunteer movement.

Richards was an advocate of enrolling of rifle corps throughout United Kingdom as a precaution against invasion; and while editor of the Daily Telegraph he publicised the subject. In 1858 he was appointed secretary of the National and Constitutional Defence Association, which was formed to give effect to the scheme. A public meeting was held, through his efforts, in St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre, on 16 April 1859; Admiral Sir Charles Napier presided, and, as a result, the War Office issued, on 12 May 1859, a circular which authorised the enrolling of rifle volunteers.[1][5]

Richards then hired rooms in the City of London, and enlisted 1000 men to form the 'Workmen's Volunteer Brigade'.[1][6][7] Although the unit began holding parades at the City of London's Guildhall in the autumn of 1860,[8] the first officers' commissions were not issued until 26 April 1861, when the unit was formally adopted as the 3rd City of London Rifle Volunteer Corps. The men were generally less well-off than some other London corps recruited from the professions and middle classes, but the unit received some financial support from the City of London and the Livery Companies. It adopted the motto LABOR OMNIA VINCIT (Work conquers everything) derived from Virgil.[9][10][11][12]

Richards invited Maj-Gen William Ferguson Beatson of the Bengal Army to be the 3rd London RVC's Honorary Colonel. Beatson was a friend of Richard Francis Burton and was in London in connection with a court case. He had previously been supported by Richards and the Radicals in a series of high-profile disagreements with the War Office. Beatson took the salute at a parade in the Guildhall on 22 September 1860, but was under orders to return to India and was unable to accept the role permanently.[8]

The 3rd London RVC needed a wealthy patron, and Richards next persuaded Sir William de Bathe, Bt to become the Lieutenant-Colonel commandant, with Richards his second-in-command, ranked as a Major. In 1861 Bathe and Richards became Honorary Colonel and Lt-Col Commandant respectively. Richards retired from the position in 1867, but the unit continued without him, becoming the 7th (City of London) Battalion London Regiment in 1908.[13] The Standards and Colours of these units are still on display at Grove Park Army Reserve Centre and can be viewed by appointment.

At the same time that he was raising the 3rd London RVC, Richards was also a member of the Garibaldi Special Fund, along with the journalist George Holyoake. The Committee raised money to send a force of volunteers, the 'British Legion', to assist Giuseppe Garibaldi in his campaign to liberate the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from its Bourbon overlords. Many of the 'Garibaldi Excursionists', as the Legion was nicknamed, were members of the new Rifle Volunteer Corps.[14]