On a n old SFI post, Robert Wilkinson-Latham wrote this about Yokohama Mounted Volunteers:
Some details of the Volunteers in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokahama.
Hong Kong
Danger is always a stimulusto volunteer efforts and the first Volunteers owed their origin toa foreign 'scare' occurring at a time of war with Russia and imagined insecurity in Hong Kong. This led the colonial au-
thorities in June 1854 to take the initiative in calling for a corps
of Volunteers for the defence of the lives and properties of
themselves and their families in the temporary absence of a
naval force sufficient to deal with an emergency. (It is interesting
that Government called for an Auxiliary Police Force at the
same time.) This call lost its magic when the emergency did not
materialise and naval protection was restored, and for a few
years there were no Volunteers in being.
Attempts to form a new Corps in 1857 proved an utter failure',
the subject was mooted in the press in 1860 without result, and
the eventual establishment of a new body of Volunteers on 7
April 1862 can be traced to an enthusiast, Captain Frederick Brine,
Royal Engineers, a regular officer who had formed the Shanghai
Volunteers in 1861 and went on to form other corps at Hankow
and Yokohama.
From: A SHORT HISTORY OF MILITARY
VOLUNTEERS IN HONG KONG
JAMES HAYES
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