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Royal Regiment of Artillery/Corps of Royal Engineers

This year marks the tercentenary of the formation of my regiment, the Royal Regiment of Artillery, as well as the 90th birthday of our Captain General, Her Majesty the Queen. It also marks the tercentenary of the formation of the Corps of Royal Engineers, with which we Gunners have had a long sibling rivalry. We share much with the Royal Engineers: our mottos, our patron saint, even the red and blue of our rugby kits and regimental ties. I am pleased to say that a Gunner and a Sapper will share tonight’s Adjournment debate. As my hon. Friend the Minister is no doubt more knowledgeable than I am about the history of his corps, I hope that you will forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I focus on my own regiment, and give him an opportunity to fill in any details about the history of the Royal Engineers that I might miss.

The use of artillery pre-dates Roman times, when slings, catapults, ballistas and trebuchets were used to project missiles in times of war. Records indicate that Edward III may have used cannon against the Scots in 1327, but there is no doubt that he used five primitive guns against the French at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. Taking pot shots at the Scots and the French: what a way to start a career! In those days, the guns were fired from fortified gun pits dug by the Sappers and miners who were the forefathers of modern military engineers. I bet those early Gunners and Sappers slated each other back then just as vigorously as their modern counterparts do today.

It was on 26 May 1716 that the first two permanent companies of Royal Artillery were formed by royal warrant in the reign of George I. Those two companies numbered 100 men each, and were headquartered in Tower Place, which later became the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery is still quartered there, maintaining a 300-year unbroken connection with that part of south-east London. The Royal Artillery’s numbers rose to four companies in 1722, when it merged with two independent artillery companies based in Menorca and Gibraltar, once again establishing a long relationship with those islands. The new unit, formed in 1722, was renamed the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

A military academy was established in Woolwich in 1720 to provide training for Artillery and Engineer officers. Initially it was a gathering of “gentlemen cadets”, learning

“gunnery, fortification, mathematics and a little French”.

It produced

“good officers of Artillery and perfect Engineers”.

Perfect Engineers? Well, they may think that they are perfect, but I am yet to be convinced. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Minister indicates that he is indeed a perfect example of a perfect Engineer.

The Royal Horse Artillery was formed in 1793, and officers of other branches of Artillery have had to keep an eye out for their sisters and girlfriends ever since.

Artillery technology advanced throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, improving accuracy, range, mobility, reliability and lethality. That tradition of innovation is still alive and well today with the Gunners being at the cutting edge of surveillance, drone technology, communication technology and precision munitions. It was during the Napoleonic wars that British gunnery came into its own, and many gunner officers of that era are still famous in the regiment today and include the well-known names of Ramsay, Bull, Lawson, Mercer, and of course Napoleon himself. Napoleon had the great advantage in life of being a gunner but the great disadvantage of ultimately losing the Napoleonic wars—and of being French.

It was an incident in the oft-forgotten conflict between Great Britain and America in 1814, a few years before our centenary, that led to millions of Americans singing about my regiment every day. It is interesting that on 4 July—American independence day—we are reminded of that event. In the first verse of their national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” are the following lines, and if you will forgive me, I think it is only fair that I give them my best rendition:

“And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there”.

Now, I have been told that in order to sing in the Chamber one requires a music and entertainment licence, but as that was neither musical nor entertaining I think I got away with it. The rockets that provided the “red glare” immortalised in the American national anthem were the Congreve rockets fire by the Rocket Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery, and I think that is pretty cool.

Until 1855, the Royal Artillery was commanded through the Board of Ordnance rather than via the War Office, which meant that the Gunners had a completely separate chain of command from the gun line itself right up the monarch of the time, who was the Captain General. This separate chain of command led to the Gunners getting a reputation for being rather independent minded, which led to the following quote, attributed to Wellington:

“I despair of my army. I truly do. The infantry do not understand my orders, the cavalry do not obey my orders, and the artillery make up their own orders.”

Unfortunately, the bicentenary of the Gunners and the Sappers was not celebrated properly because it fell in the middle of the first world war. That conflict saw a huge increase in Royal Artillery numbers, and it is estimated that 800,000 men served as Gunners and 48,499 of those Gunners gave their lives in the conflict. The Great War was often known as the Gunners’ war.