In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was the task of recruiting sergeants to go about the country, each accompanied, as a rule by a drummer boy and sometimes a fifer. When a likely recruit was found, the sergeant on enlisting him, would pay him a shilling as his enrolment bounty. Once the shilling was taken, the young man was deemed in the law to be a soldier. There were many occasions when a possible recruit was still expressing doubts and a common way to overcome them was for the recruiting sergeant to drop a shilling into a pot of beer and press it on the hesitant man. Even a sip at the beer was then construed as taken, or drinking, the King’s Shilling. In Victoria’s day it was of course known as the Queen’s Shilling.

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