Formation to 1799 Artillery was used by English troops as early as the
Battle of Crécy in 1346, while
Henry VIII established it as a semi-permanent function in the 16th century. Similarly in Scotland, artillery such as the 15th century bombard
Mons Meg was kept in Edinburgh Castle. Until the
British Civil Wars, the majority of military units in Britain were raised for specific campaigns and disbanded when they were over. An exception were gunners based at the
Tower of London,
Portsmouth and other forts around Britain, who were controlled by the
Ordnance Office and stored and maintained equipment and provided personnel for field
artillery 'traynes' that were organised as needed. These personnel, responsible in peacetime for maintaining the forts with their
garrison artillery (or
coastal artillery), were the first regular artillerymen, organised in 1540 under the Master-General and Board of Ordnance, but paid directly by the
Exchequer. The regular artillerymen of the District Establishments were responsible for upkeep of the fort and maintenance of equipment, and would be brought up to strength in wartime with untrained personnel drafted in from the English Army or the Militia. The post of
Captain of Fort was replaced (at least in England, if not in its colonies) with that of
Governor following the
Restoration. When
Marlborough was restored as
Master-General of the Ordnance in 1714, he initiated a series of reforms, which included splitting the existing Ordnance Service into artillery and
sappers or engineers. The artillery were formed into two marching
companies, each of 100 men, in 1716. These marching companies were renamed the "Royal Artillery" in 1720. These were increased to four companies and on 1 April 1722 grouped with independent artillery units at
Gibraltar and
Menorca to form the Royal Regiment of Artillery; the first commander was Colonel
Albert Borgard, a Dane who served in the British army since 1698. Although the Royal Artillery increasingly involved itself with the coastal artillery in Britain, also, the District Establishments remained independent until February 1771, when the Royal Artillery formed eight Invalid Companies (made up of personnel no longer fit for expeditionary service) into which they were absorbed (although the District Establishments would still rely on drafts of sailors, British Army soldiers, Militia infantrymen, or Volunteers to bring the batteries up to wartime strength until the formation of
Militia Artillery and Volunteer Artillery in the 1850s). During the 18th century, the British regular military forces, including the Board of Ordnance's military corps (the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers and later the Royal Sappers and Miners) and the British Army (composed mostly of infantry and cavalry) became increasingly professional (various reserve, or
local, forces also existed, including: the Militia, or old Constitutional Force, normally made up of infantry units; the mounted Yeomanry; and Volunteer units of various types, normally raised only during wartime), particularly in the fields of artillery and engineering; Britain lagged behind others in this area, with
Vauban establishing the French
Corps royal des ingénieurs militaires as far back as 1690. units, Hyde Park, 1804 A cadet company was formed at the
Royal Military Academy or RMA Woolwich in 1741; this trained artillery and engineering officers for the regiment, the
East India Company and the
Royal Irish Artillery. Originally based in the Royal Arsenal, beginning in 1770 the regiment was rehoused in the
Royal Artillery Barracks on Woolwich Common. A major innovation in 1793 was the establishment of the
Royal Horse Artillery, designed to provide mobile fire support for cavalry units. Fixed
Coastal Artillery batteries were generally manned in peacetime by a handful of Royal Artillery personnel primarily responsible for maintenance, who were reinforced in wartime by drafts of infantrymen from the British Army or the Militia, or by temporarily raised Volunteer Artillery corps. This was to remain the case through the Naploeonic Wars.
1800–1899 , at
Scaur Hill Fort,
Bermuda The regiment was involved in all major campaigns of the
Napoleonic Wars; in 1804, naval artillery was transferred to the
Royal Marine Artillery, while the
Royal Irish Artillery lost its separate status in 1810 after the
1800 Union. This period also saw development of the
Congreve rocket; based on an existing Indian design, these were the first solid-fuel projectiles used by the British army and two rocket troops were established in 1814. Their use in the
War of 1812 is referenced in the line "rocket's red glare" which appears in
the Star-Spangled Banner. is in memory of Major General William Heape Kay of the Royal Artillery who began his Indian service at Mhow in 1896 and subsequently died in an accident there in 1929 The Militia, which had been a
paper tiger since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, was re-organised under the
Militia Act 1852 in response to the threat of invasion by France, changing it from a conscripted force to one made up of volunteers who engaged for terms of service. The force continued to be a reserve tasked with home defence, embodied for annual training, and for the duration of wars or emergencies. The Militia had been principally an infantry force to this date, The Royal Artillery (and also of the Royal Engineers, Royal Sappers and Miners, the Commissariat Department, and various barracks, ordnance stores, and transport departments) was transferred to the
British Army when the Board of Ordnance was abolished in 1855 (the administrative branches of the Board were absorbed by the
War Office) and the
War Office School of Gunnery established in
Shoeburyness in 1859. Although the Militia and the Volunteer Force remained separate forces, during the latter half of the Nineteenth Century they were re-organised through a succession of reforms, and increasingly integrated with the British Army. In 1882, the Militia Artillery units lost their individual identities, becoming numbered brigades organised within Royal Artillery territorial divisions (two brigades of horse artillery, four brigades of field artillery and eleven territorial divisions of garrison artillery). In 1889 the number of divisions was reduced to three, and the Militia Artillery brigades were renamed again, mostly regaining some variation of their original territorial names. Post 1881, militia artillery officers wore for a brief time five button serge foreign service frocks with ball buttons and silver lace. Post 1890, officers transitioned to pocketed examples, again with ball buttons but the frocks varying from pure blue serge to other examples with scarlet facings. Prior to 1882, each Militia Artillery unit in the United Kingdom wore a unique badge. Between 1882 and 1889, Militia Artillery brigades wore a divisional badge based on that of the Royal Artillery, except that the lower scroll and upper scroll, which on the Royal Artillery badge were inscribed "Quo Fas Et Gloria Ducunt" and "Ubique" (which indicated the regular Royal Artillery, like the Royal Engineers, served everywhere), were respectively inscribed with the name of the territorial division name (by example, North Irish Division) and left blank or covered in a spray of laurel (as the Militia and Volunteer Force were both home defence forces, the members of which could not be sent abroad on expedition without their consents).
1900 to present day of the Royal Garrison Artillery in a Casualty Clearing Station in July, 1916 On 1 July 1899, the Royal Artillery was divided into three groups: the Royal Horse Artillery of 21 batteries and the
Royal Field Artillery of 95 batteries composed one group, while the coastal defence, mountain, siege and heavy batteries were split off into another group named the
Royal Garrison Artillery of 91 companies. The remainder of the Special Reserve was re-designated as the Militia again after the First World War and permanently suspended. The Territorial Force was renamed the Territorial Army. The division of the Royal Regiment of Artillery lasted until 1924, when the RFA, RHA, and RGA amalgamated once more to become one regiment. In 1947 the Riding Troop RHA was renamed the
King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and, in 1951, the title of the regiment's colonel-in-chief became Captain General. , in action near
Fricourt in
World War I. The
Royal Horse Artillery, which has separate traditions, uniforms and insignia, still retains a distinct identity within the regiment. From its beginnings, the Royal Artillery has been based at
Woolwich, in south-east London. In 2003 it was decided to move the headquarters to
Larkhill in the
Salisbury Plain Training Area in Wiltshire (the RA's training ground, where the
Royal School of Artillery has been based since 1915). In 2012, however, the
King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery was relocated to Woolwich from their former headquarters in
St John's Wood. ==The Royal Artillery today==