Royal Military College, Sandhurst
Royal Military College, Sandhurst
Main page
2224604

Royal Military College, Sandhurst

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Royal Military College, Sandhurst

The Royal Military College (RMC) was a British military academy for training infantry and cavalry officers of the British and Indian Armies. It was founded in 1801 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire.

The RMC was reorganised at the outbreak of the Second World War, but some of its units remained operational at Sandhurst and Aldershot. In 1947, the Royal Military College was merged with the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, to form the present-day all-purpose Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Pre-dating the college, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, had been established in 1741 to train artillery and engineer officers, but there was no such provision for training infantry and cavalry officers.

The Royal Military College was conceived by Colonel John Le Marchant, whose scheme for establishing schools for the military instruction of officers at High Wycombe and Great Marlow first met strong resistance on the grounds of cost.

There were already some small private military academies for aspiring infantry and cavalry officers in existence, notably one which had been operated at Chelsea by Lewis Lochée from about 1770 until he closed the academy in 1790, but none of them had any formal approval by the British government.

In 1799, Le Marchant established a school for staff officers at High Wycombe. In 1801, Parliament voted a grant of £30,000 for his more ambitious proposals, and in 1801 the school for staff officers at High Wycombe became the Senior Department of the new Military College. In 1802, having been appointed as the first Lieutenant Governor of the College, Le Marchant opened its Junior Department at a large house called Remnantz in West Street, Great Marlow, to train gentleman cadets for the infantry and cavalry regiments of the British Army and for the presidency armies of British India. 1802 was the same year as the founding of the French Army's Saint-Cyr and of West Point in the United States. General Sir William Harcourt was appointed as the first Governor of the Royal Military College at Great Marlow and continued in post until 1811.

In January 1809, the East India Company established its own East India Military Seminary at Addiscombe to train officers for its armies.

In 1812, the College's Junior Department moved from Great Marlow into purpose-built buildings at Sandhurst designed by James Wyatt, and was soon joined there by the Senior Department, migrating from High Wycombe. In 1858 this became a separate institution, the Staff College.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.