The Royal Regiment of Artillery

Organization

By Mike Partridge


The basic units were the battalion and the company. Both were administrative units, not tactical. Officers and men were detached from the compaines for specific tasks, often in very small numbers.

In 1754, when hostilities began in practice, the Regiment had ten companies (plus the Cadet Company) stationed around widespread British possessions. Five were at Woolwich or Greenwich, one at Gibralter, one at Minorca, one at Halifax, Nova Scotia, one at Perth, and one at St. Johns', Newfoundland. Detachments from these served at various stations in the locality. Other small detachments served the mortars on the Navy's bomb vessels.

When forces were sent on expeditions, artillery officers and men were sent with them on detachment from available companies. A detachment under Captain-Lieutenant Hislop of 6 officers, 12 cadets, and 54 other ranks was sent with the 39th Foot to India in the Spring of 1754, and a similar detachment under Captain-Lieutenant Hind of 6 officers and cadets and 60 other ranks crossed the Atlantic early in 1755 to Join Braddock's forces. From 1755 a steady increase in the number of companies began as hostilities started in earnest. In 1757, there were 24 companies, and they were divided into 2 Battalions. A third battalion was formed in 1759, reaching a maximum of 46 companies in 1763. There was also a company raised on the Irish Establishment as well, but this doesn't seem to have served overseas.

The Regiment was responsible for two other types of technical troops as well: miners and pontonniers. In 1756, a company of miners was raised under Captain Phillips by sending recruiting parties to Cornwall for tin miners and Newcastle-on-Tyne for coal miners. 114 and 115 men respectively were brought back. The company was intended for the defense of St. Philip's Castle at Minorca, but only reached Gibralter too late to save it from the French. These men were distributed among the other companies and appear wherever their skills were required; at Louisbourg, Belle-Isle, and Havana, among other places.

Another miner company was raised in 1760 specifically to destroy Louisbourg. The pontonniers marched with the artillery train, but their exact relationship is not clear to me. The men were like the miners recruited from already skilled workers, such as Thames watermen.

The British Royal Regiment of Artillery


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© Copyright 2001 by James J. Mitchell

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