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, to train gentleman cadets for the infantry and cavalry regiments of the
British Army and for the
presidency armies of
British India. 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. In 1947, a new
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst was formed on the site of the Royal Military College, merging the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich (which had trained officers for the
Royal Artillery and
Royal Engineers from 1741 to 1939) and the Royal Military College (1802 to 1942), with the objective of providing officer training for all arms and services. ==Governors and commandants==