Staff College Camberley

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Staff College building on an old print

The Staff College was a higher educational institution ( General Staff Academy ) for officers of the British Army and existed from 1858 to 1997.

history

The forerunner of the Staff College was the senior department of the "Royal Military College" founded by John Gaspard Le Marchant in 1800 (now the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst ). It was located first in High Wycombe , later in Farnham and finally from 1821 in Sandhurst , the seat of the Royal Military College. In 1858, as part of the army reforms following the Crimean War and the Indian Uprising , the Department formed the Staff College , which in 1862 took its new seat in neighboring Camberley , Surrey .

The subjects taught during the two-year course included military history, administration, law, fortifications, military reconnaissance and surveying, as well as foreign languages ​​(French, German and Hindi), math and science. Admission was granted after passing the entrance examination according to a distribution key. In 1870 a class consisted of 20 officers, in 1886 of 32. Since 1876 three officers of the British Indian Army have been allowed to attend the college every year . Graduates were allowed to carry the title psc ( passed staff college ).

Staff College was closed during the Second Boer War 1899–1902 and later during World War I. A real (Empire) general staff was only introduced in Great Britain in the course of the Haldane reforms. After the Boer War, Staff College became accessible to Dominion officers . In 1905, a separate staff college for the British Indian Army was established in Deolali (later Quetta ). During the First World War, numerous senior posts in the British Army were filled with graduates from Staff College.

In the 1920s, JFC Fuller was a temporary chief instructor at Staff College. Nevertheless, his and Basil Liddell Hart's military theoretical works received less resonance in Great Britain than in Germany, for example. During the tenure of Charles William Gwynn as Commanding Officer , the doctrine of Imperial Policing flowed into the training program of the Staff College. In 1927, the Imperial Defense College was established as a center for higher studies. On the eve of the Second World War , efforts were made under Secretary of War Leslie Hore-Belisha to put general staff training and officer training in general on a broader basis.

After the Second World War, students from allied states were also admitted to the training. In 1997 the Staff College was merged with the Royal Naval College , the RAF Staff College and the Joint Service Defense College to form the Joint Services Command and Staff College .

Commanders

Commandant, Staff College, Sandhurst

  • Colonel Patrick Leonard MacDougall (1858–1861)
  • Colonel William Craig Emilius Napier (1861–1864)
  • Colonel Thomas Edgar Lacy (1865–1870)
  • Major-General Edward Bruce Hamley (1870–1877)
  • Major-General Archibald Alison (1878)
  • Major-General Charles Creagh-Osborne (1878-1885)

Commandant, Staff College, Camberley

  • Major-General Edward Clive (1885-1888)
  • Colonel Francis Clery (1888-1893)
  • Colonel HJT Hildyard (1893–1898)
  • Colonel Herbert Miles (1898-1903)
  • Colonel Henry Rawlinson (1903-1906)
  • Brigadier-General Henry Hughes Wilson (1907-1910)
  • Major-General William Robertson (1910-1913)
  • Brigadier-General Launcelot Kiggell (1913-1914)
  • Major-General Hastings Anderson (1919-1922)
  • Major-General Edmund Ironside (1922-1926)
  • Major-General Charles Gwynn (1926–1931)
  • Major-General John Dill (1931-1934)
  • Major-General Clement Armitage (1934-1936)
  • Major-General John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort (1936–1937)
  • Major-General Ronald Adam (1937-1938)
  • Major-General Bernard Paget (1938-1939)
  • Major-General Robert Collins (1939-1941)
  • Major-General Montagu Stopford (1941-1942)
  • Major-General Alan Cunningham (1942–1943)
  • Major-General Douglas Wimberley (1943-1944)
  • Major-General Philip Gregson-Ellis (1944–1946)
  • Major-General Richard Hull (1946–1948)
  • Major-General Alfred Dudley Ward (1948–1951)
  • Major-General Gerald Lathbury (1951-1954)
  • Major-General Charles Jones (1954–1956)
  • Major-General Nigel Poett (1957-1958)
  • Major-General Reginald Hewetson (1958–1961)
  • Major-General Charles Harington (1961–1963)
  • Major-General John Worsley (1963–1966)
  • Major-General Mervyn Butler (1966-1967)
  • Major-General John Sharp (1967-1970)
  • Major-General Allan Taylor (1970–1972)
  • Major-General Patrick Howard-Dobson (1972–1974)
  • Major-General Hugh Beach (1974-1975)
  • Major-General John Stanier (1975–1978)
  • Major-General Frank Kitson (1978–1980)
  • Major-General David Alexander-Sinclair (1980–1982)
  • Major-General John Akehurst (1982-1984)
  • Major-General Patrick Palmer (1984–1986)
  • Major-General John Waters (1986–1988)
  • Major-General John Learmont (1988–1989)
  • Major-General Jeremy Mackenzie (1989)
  • Major-General William Rous (1989–1991)
  • Major-General Michael Rose (1991–1993)
  • Major-General Christopher Wallace (1993-1994)
  • Major-General Anthony Pigott (1994–1996)

literature

  • Brian Bond : The Victorian Army and the Staff College, 1854-1914. London 1972.
  • David French, Brian Holden Reid (Eds.): The British General Staff: Reform and Innovation 1890-1939. Cass, London 2002, ISBN 0-7146-5325-X .
  • Frederick Walter Young: The story of the Staff College, 1858-1958. Gale & Polden, 1958.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The History of RMA Sandhurst , army.mod.uk (PDF; 210 KB)
  2. ^ "Camberley, Staff College", in: Harold E. Raugh: The Victorians at War, 1815-1914: An Encyclopedia of British Military History , ABC-CLIO, 2004, ISBN 1-57607-926-0 , p. 75.
  3. ^ Brigadier J. Nazareth: Creative Thinking in Warfare , Casemate, 2008, ISBN 978-81-7062-035-8 , passim.

Coordinates: 51 ° 20'26.9 "  N , 0 ° 44'54.6"  W.