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OF VOL. I

PAGE

PREFACE v

CHAPTER

ROYAL HORSE ARTILLERY,

FIFTH BATTALION,

SEVENTH BATTALION 393

APPENDICES 426

HISTORY

Of THE

ROYAL REGIMENT OF ARTILLERY.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

IN the summer of 1682, for the space of nearly three months, an old man might have been seen pacing daily up and down near the Ordnance Offices in the Tower of London, growing shabbier day by day, more hopeless and purposeless in his gait, yet seeming bound to the place either by expectation or command.

At last with trembling hand he prepared for the Honourable Board of Ordnance the following quaint petition:--

"The humble Petition of John Hawling, Master Gunner of His Majesty's Castle of Chester."

"SHEWETH:--

"That y^e Petitioner being commanded up by special order from the office hath remained here y^e space of 13 weeks to his great cost and charges, he being a very poor and ancient man, not having wherewithal to subsist in so chargeable a place.

"He therefor most humbly implores y^r Hon^ to take his sad condition into your Honours' consideration, and to restore him to his place again, y^t he may return to his habitation with such commands as your Hon^ shall think fitt to lay upon him.

"And your Petitioner as in duty bound shall ever pray."

To which Petition the Honourable Board returned the following peremptory answer:--

"Let y^e Petitioner return back to Chester Castle, and there submit himself to Sir Jeoffrey Shakerley, Governor, in y^e presence of Sir Peter Pindar and Mr. Anderton, and obey y^e orders of y^e Governor and Lieut.-Governor of y^e said castle, and upon his said submission and obedience, let him continue and enjoy his former employment of Master Gunner there, so long as he shall so behave himselfe accordingly."

John Hawling, this poor and ancient man, was one of the small class of Master Gunners, and Gunners of Garrisons, who with the few fee'd Gunners at the Tower, represented the only permanent force of Artillery in those days in England. Their scientific attainments as Artillerists were small, and their sense of discipline was feeble. To take a very superficial charge of Ordnance Stores, and to resent any military interference, such as at Chester seems to have driven John Hawling into mutiny, but at the same time to cringe to the Board, which was the source of their annual income, represented in their minds the sum and substance of their duties. And taking into consideration John Hawling's offence, his advanced years, and his petition, we do not err in taking him as a representative man.

In the House of Commons, on the 22nd of February, 1872, the Secretary of State for War rose to move the Army Estimates for the ensuing year. These included provision for a Regiment of Artillery, numbering-- including those serving in India--34,943 officers, non-commissioned officers, and men.

Although divided into Horse, Field, and Garrison Artillery, and including no less than twenty-nine Brigades, besides a large Dep?t, this large force, representing the permanent Artillery Force of Great Britain, was one vast regiment--the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

To trace the growth, from so small an acorn, of so noble a tree, is a task which would inspire the boldest author with diffidence: and when the duty is undertaken by one who has had no experience in historical writing, he is bound to justify himself to his readers for his temerity.

When the writer of the following pages assumed, in January, 1871, the duties of Superintendent of the Royal Artillery Regimental Records, he found a method and order established by his predecessor, Major R. Oldfield, R.A., all the more remarkable when compared with the chaos too often prevailing in Record offices. The idea immediately occurred to him that if ever a History of the Regiment were to be written--a book greatly wanted, and yet becoming every day more difficult to write--here, in this office, could it most easily be done. This feeling became so strong in his mind, that it overcame the reluctance he felt to step into an arena for which he had received no special training.

It has been said above that the writing of this History has been every year becoming more difficult. The statement requires explanation, as the difficulty is not caused so much by the accumulation--continually going on--of modern records, which might bury the old ones out of sight, as by a change in the organization of the Regiment which took place some years ago, and which sadly dislocated its history, although possibly improving its efficiency. In the year 1859, the old system which divided the Regiment into Companies and Battalions, with permanent Battalion Headquarters at Woolwich, was abolished; and Companies serving in different parts of the Empire were linked together in Brigades, on grounds of Geography, instead of History. Companies of different Battalions serving on the same station were christened Batteries of the same Brigade, and the old Battalion staff at Woolwich became the staff, at various stations, of the Brigades newly created. The old Companies, in donning their new titles, lost their old history and began their life anew. Every year as it passed made the wall which had been built between the present and the past of the Regiment more nearly approach the student's horizon, and the day seemed imminent when it would be impossible to make the existing Batteries know and realize that the glorious History of the old Companies was their own legitimate property.

This first volume will give the present designation, the past history, and the succession of Captains of the whole of the Companies of the seven Battalions formed during the last century and of the old troops of the Royal Horse Artillery. In the succeeding volumes, the same course will be pursued with regard to the later Battalions.

These stories will be all the more precious now, as the importance of the Battery as a tactical unit has been so distinctly recognized by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge within the last few months, and its responsibility and value as a command have been so recently and generously marked by the present Secretary of State for War.

Of the many to whom he is indebted for assistance he feels called upon to mention specially the Secretary of State for War, by whose permission he had unlimited access to the Ordnance Library in the Tower; Colonel Middleton, C.B., Deputy Adjutant-General of the Royal Artillery; General McDowell, commanding the troops in New York; Lieutenant A. B. Gardner, of the United States Artillery; and the Committees of the Royal Artillery and United Service Institutions.

The works which the author has consulted are too numerous to mention, but among those which were most useful to him were Drinkwater's 'Siege of Gibraltar,' Murdoch's 'History of Nova Scotia,' Browne's 'England's Artillerymen,' Clode's 'Military Forces of the Crown,' the Reports of the House of Commons, the Records of the Royal Military Academy, Kirke's 'Conquest of Canada,' Rameau's 'La France aux Colonies,' Cust's 'Annals of the Wars.'

Among the mass of MSS. through which he had to wade, the valuable manuscript notes connected with the 'History of the Royal Artillery,' arranged by the late Colonel Cleaveland, deserve special mention. The skeleton of this work, however, was furnished by the old Record Books of the Battalions, deposited in the office of which the author is Superintendent.

In the succeeding volumes, the advantage of being able to use the old letter-books of the head-quarter offices of the Royal Artillery will be apparent. But there was no head-quarter staff for the Regiment up to the time where this volume finishes; so that the student has, up to that date, to depend greatly on men like General James Pattison and Forbes Macbean, who placed on record, in their diaries and letter-books, valuable and interesting information connected with the Regiment during their service, which would otherwise have been hopelessly unattainable.

And whatever objections may be urged against the Board of Ordnance, the Royal Artillery, save in one particular, has always had abundant and special reason for regarding it with affection and gratitude. The almost fatherly care, even to the minutest details, which the Board showed to that corps over which their Master presided, was such as to awaken the jealousy of the other arms of the service. Had their government not been of that description which attempts to govern too much, not a word could be said by an Artilleryman, save in deprecation of the day when the Board of Ordnance was abolished. Unfortunately, like a parent who has failed to realize that his children have become men, the Board invariably interfered with the duties of the Artillery under whatever circumstances its officers might be situated. No amount of individual experience, no success, no distance from England, could save unhappy Artillerymen from perpetual worry and incessant legislation. The piteous protests and appeals which meet the student at every turn give some idea of the torture to which the miserable writers had been exposed. The way, also, in which the Board expressed its parental affection was often such as to neutralize its aim. It was rare indeed that any General Officer commanding an army on service made an appointment of however temporary or trivial a nature, which had to come under the approval of the Board, without having it peremptorily cancelled. Even in time of peace, the presence in every garrison of that band of conspirators, known as the Respective Officers--who represented the obstructive Board, and whose opinion carried far more weight than that of the General commanding--was enough to irritate that unhappy officer into detestation of the Honourable Board and all connected with it.

It has been declared--and by many well able to judge, including the Duke of Wellington himself--that in many respects the Board of Ordnance was an excellent national institution and a source of economy to the country. It may be admitted that in its civil capacity this was the case, and the recent tendency to revive in the army something like the Civil Branch of the Ordnance proves that this opinion is general. But, if we take a more liberal view than that of mere Artillerymen, we must see that the military division of its duties was only saved from exposure and disgrace by the fact that the bodies of troops over which it had control were generally small and scattered. The command of the Royal Artillery, now that it has attained its present numbers, could not have remained vested in the hands of a Board constituted as the Board of Ordnance was. What General Officer could have hoped to weld the three arms of his division into any homogeneous shape, while one of them could quote special privileges, special orders, and sometimes positive prohibition, from a body to which they owed a very special obedience? The Royal Artillery may indeed have lost in little comforts and perquisites by the abolition of the Board of Ordnance, but in a military point of view, in proficiency, and in popularity, the Regiment has decidedly been a gainer.

While admitting, however, the advantages, nay, the necessity of the change which has taken place, the long roll of distinguished soldiers and statesmen who have successively held the office of Master-General of the Ordnance is too precious an heirloom in the eyes of an Artilleryman to let pass without special notice and congratulation.

From 1483, the earliest date when we can trace one by name, down to the days of the Crimean war, when the last Master-General died in harness, the brave, gentle Lord Raglan, the list sparkles with the names of men who have been first in Court and field, and who have deserved well of England.

His Lieutenant-General, Sir Henry Tichborne, has a hard place of it at this time. With so energetic a Master at the Board, his work hitherto has been of the lightest, and his head seems now to reel under the change. For a few weeks he holds out, but by the end of November in that eventful year matters came to a crisis with poor Sir Henry. He can no longer attend the meetings of the Board; a violent fit of the gout prevents him, which he carefully warns his colleagues will, in all likelihood, continue some time: and with a piteous prayer that, out of the small sum in hand, the Board will pay the salaries of the "poor gunners, as subsisting but from day to day," Sir Henry's name disappears from the Board's proceedings, and the History of the Ordnance knows him no more.

After this time the Honourable Board seems, when its Master was absent, to have enacted the part of the Unjust Steward, for we find various debts remitted to creditors who could not pay, and not a small issue of debentures to those whose friendship it was desirable to retain. All through the records of their proceedings at this time is to be traced, like a monotonous accompaniment in music, the work of that immovable being the permanent clerk. From the dull offices in the Tower issue the same solemn Warrants, appointing this man an Ordnance labourer at six- and-twenty pounds a year, and that man a gunner at twelve-pence a day, just as if no Revolution were at hand, and no foreign foe were menacing the very existence of their King and Honourable Board together. Lord Dartmouth may be guilty of curt and feverish memoranda, but the permanent clerk never moves out of his groove, nor shall posterity ever trace any uneasiness in his formal work.

And then comes the sudden gap in all the books; the blank pages more eloquent than words; the disappearance of the familiar signature of Dartmouth; and the student takes up a fresh set of books where England took up a fresh King.

In examining the individual, apart from the collective, duties of the principal officers of the Ordnance, we find that the Lieutenant-General had the supervision of the military branch, and acted as a sort of Adjutant to the Master, who looked to him for all information connected with the various trains of artillery at the Tower and elsewhere. These he was bound always to have fit and ready to march: he had to direct and superintend the practice of the Master-Gunner of England, Firemaster and his mates, Fireworkers and Gunners, and acquaint the Master with their proficiencies; and also to see that all officials connected with the Department did their several duties.

The Clerk of the Ordnance had, in addition to the ordinary correspondence of the department, to look after salaries, debts, debentures, and bills falling due, and generally to perform, on a large scale, the duties of a modern book-keeper. If we may judge by the correspondence on financial matters which is to be found among the Ordnance Records, there must have been many a Clerk of the Ordnance whose days and nights were haunted by visions of bills falling due which could not be paid. During the times of the Stuarts, the poverty of the office was sometimes as terrible as the shifts to which the Board had recourse were pitiable.

The bill, in due course, reached the Tower, but only two-thirds of the amount were paid. Mr. Price naturally remonstrated; but as the proceeding seems not to have been unusual, the Board took no notice. So the injured gunner petitioned the Queen, and a courteous letter from the Treasury speedily reached the Tower, in which a nice distinction was drawn between Mr. Price's case and that of the merchants, who had been similarly treated, "who had been great gainers as well by the exchange as by the stores and provisions which they had sold." The Board admitted the force of the reasoning, and the creditor got his own again.

The duties of the storekeeper are expressed by his title, and involved close and frequent personal inspection of stores, as well as great clerical labour.

The Treasurer of the Ordnance, who had to find heavy personal securities, was one of the most important of the remaining officers attached to the Board.

This officialism was often rampant in the Ordnance; nor with the extinction of that Honourable Board can it be said to have vanished from England's administration.

As in the history of every corporation, there were at the Ordnance fits of economy and extravagance. The extravagance always began at the Tower, the centre of the Board's official centre and kingdom; the economy away at the circumference, among poor gunners at distant stations, among decaying barracks and fortifications crying out loudly for repair. It seems destined to be the motto of departments in every age, "Charity begins at home: economy abroad." After the peace of Utrecht, there was a determined resolution on the part of the Government to retrench,--a wise and praiseworthy resolution, if the method to be adopted were judicious. The Treasury communicated with the Ordnance: and the Tower having made plausible promises to Whitehall, the Honourable Board met to see what could be done. Starting with the official postulate, so characteristic of English departments, that their own salaries were to be untouched, the field of their labour was in proportion contracted. Ultimately they decided to economize in Scotland: they reduced all the stores there; voted no money for the repair of the fortifications or barracks; and, regardless of past services, they reduced the gunners in various garrisons.

From the far north a plaintive appeal meets the student's eye. It is from one John Murray, who had been Master-Gunner of Fort William for nineteen years, and who in this fit of economy had been ruthlessly struck off the establishment. Verily, ere many months be over, honest John shall have his revenge!

From Scotland, the Board turned to the Colonies, and reminded them that they must pay for their own engineers and gunners, if they wished to keep them. A committee sat to inquire how the American dependencies could be made to pay for themselves,--the beginning of that official irritation which culminated in the blaze in which we lost them altogether; and in the mean time demands for stores were neglected. One unhappy Governor wrote that he had under his command a company of troops which for fifteen years had received no fresh bedding: and "many of the soldiers were very ill, and in y^e winter ready to starve." A special messenger was sent to lay the matter before the Board; but, he having been recalled by domestic reasons before succeeding in his prayer, the Board adroitly pigeon-holed his petition for four years; and, in the language of a subsequent letter, "For want of bedding, many of y^e soldiers have since perished."

The principal gate of the fortress was so rotten and shattered that it could not be made use of, and was of no defence at all. There never had been any gate, the General wrote, to the port of the ravelin; and unless the platform could be renewed, it would be impossible to work the guns. "And," he adds in a well-rounded period, "the old timber houses in which the officers of the Garrison are lodged, and also the old timber chapell, are all in such a shattered pitifull condition, that neither the first can be lodged in one, nor the Garrison attend divine service in the other without being exposed to the inconvenience of all weathers."

As the guns of the Tower blazed out their welcome to the King, the smoke must have clouded over such an accumulation of testimony in the Ordnance offices hard by, proving that there may be an economy which is no economy at all, as might almost have penetrated the intelligence of a Board. This period in the history of the Ordnance is unsurpassed, even by the many blundering times which, in the course of these volumes, we shall have to examine, down to that day in the year of grace 1855 when, "from the first Cabinet at which Lord Palmerston ever sat as Premier, the Secretary at War brought home half a sheet of paper, containing a memorandum that the Ordnance--one of the oldest Constitutional departments of the Monarchy ... was to be abolished."

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