Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or
laborers
A laborer (or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor types in the construction industry workforce. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries e ...
. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are usually permanent buildings for
military accommodation. The word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes, and the plural form often refers to a single structure and may be
singular in construction.
The main object of barracks is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training, and ''esprit de corps''. They have been called "discipline factories for soldiers". Like industrial factories, some are considered to be shoddy or dull buildings, although others are known for their magnificent architecture such as
Collins Barracks
Collins Barracks ( ga, Dún Uí Choileáin) is a former military barracks in the Arbour Hill area of Dublin, Ireland. The buildings now house the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History.
Previously housing both British Arm ...
in
Dublin and others in Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, or London. From the rough barracks of 19th-century
conscript armies, filled with
hazing
Hazing (American English), initiation, beasting (British English), bastardisation (Australian English), ragging (South Asian English) or deposition refers to any activity expected of someone in joining or participating in a group that humiliates, ...
and illness and barely differentiated from the livestock pens that housed the
draft animal
A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks instead of being slaughtered to harvest animal products. Some are used for their physical strength (e.g. oxen and draft horses) or for t ...
s, to the clean and Internet-connected barracks of modern
all-volunteer militaries, the word can have a variety of connotations.
History
Early barracks such as those of the Roman
Praetorian Guard were built to maintain elite forces. There are a number of remains of
Roman army
The Roman army (Latin: ) was the armed forces deployed by the Romans throughout the duration of Ancient Rome, from the Roman Kingdom (c. 500 BC) to the Roman Republic (500–31 BC) and the Roman Empire (31 BC–395 AD), and its medieval continu ...
barracks in frontier forts such as
Vercovicium and
Vindolanda. From these and from contemporary Roman sources we can see that the basics of life in a
military camp have remained constant for thousands of years.
In the
Early Modern Period, they formed part of the
Military Revolution
The Military Revolution is the theory that a series of radical changes in military strategy and tactics during the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in major lasting changes in governments and society. The theory was introduced by Michael Roberts i ...
that scholars believe contributed decisively to the formation of the
nation state by increasing the expense of maintaining
standing armies
A standing army is a permanent, often professional, army. It is composed of full-time soldiers who may be either career soldiers or conscripts. It differs from army reserves, who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during wars or na ...
. Large, permanent barracks were developed in the 18th century by the two dominant states of the period, France the "caserne" and Spain the "cuartel". The English term 'barrack', on the other hand, derives from the Spanish word for a temporary shelter erected by soldiers on
campaign
Campaign or The Campaign may refer to:
Types of campaigns
* Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed
* Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme
* B ...
, ''barraca''; (because of fears that a standing army in barracks would be a threat to the constitution, barracks were not generally built in Great Britain until 1790, on the eve of the
Napoleonic Wars).
Early barracks were multi-story blocks, often grouped in a quadrangle around a
courtyard or
parade ground. A good example is
Berwick Barracks, which was among the first in England to be purpose-built and begun in 1717 to the design of the distinguished architect
Nicholas Hawksmoor. During the 18th century, the increasing sophistication of military life led to separate housing for different ranks (officers always had larger rooms) and married quarters; as well as the provision of specialized buildings such as dining rooms and cook houses, bath houses, mess rooms, schools, hospitals, armories, gymnasia, riding schools and stables. The
pavilion plan
In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings:
* It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...
concept of hospital design was influential in barrack planning after the
Crimean War.
The first large-scale training camps were built in the
Kingdom of France and the
Germany during the early 18th century. The British Army built
Aldershot camps from 1854.
By the First World War,
infantry,
artillery, and
cavalry
Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry ...
regiments had separate barracks. The first naval barracks were
hulk
The Hulk is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of ''The Incredible Hulk (comic book), The Incredible Hulk' ...
s, old wooden sailing vessels; but these insanitary lodgings were replaced with large
naval
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...
barracks at the major dockyard towns of Europe and the United States, usually with
hammocks instead of beds.
These were inadequate for the enormous armies mobilized after 1914. Hut camps were developed using variations of the eponymous
Nissen hut, made from timber or corrugated iron.
Military
In many military forces, both NCO and SNCO personnel will frequently be housed in barracks for service or training. Officers are often charged with ensuring the barracks and personnel are maintained in an orderly fashion. Junior enlisted and sometimes junior NCOs will often receive less space and may be housed in bays, while senior NCOs and officers may share or have their own room. Junior enlisted personnel are typically tasked with the cleanliness of the barracks.
The term "
Garrison
A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...
town" is a common expression for any town that has military barracks, i.e., a permanent military presence nearby.
Worldwide
Canada
Barracks were used to house troops in forts during the
Upper Canadian period. Leading up to and during the
War of 1812,
Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe and
Major-General Isaac Brock oversaw the construction of
Fort York on the shores of
Lake Ontario in present-day
Toronto. There are several surviving British Army barracks built between 1814 and 1815 at that site today. Multiple limestone barracks were built half a mile west of Fort York in 1840, only one of which survives. The British Army handed over "
New Fort York
New Fort York, later the Stanley Barracks, is a former British and Canadian military base in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It was built in 1840–1841 to replace Toronto's original Fort York at the mouth of Ga ...
", as the second fort was called, to the
Canadian Militia in 1870 after
Confederation.
The
Stone Frigate, completed in 1820, served as barracks briefly in 1837–38, and was refitted as a
dormitory
A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...
and classrooms to house the
Royal Military College of Canada by 1876. The Stone frigate is a large stone building originally designed to hold gear and rigging from British warships dismantled to comply with the
Rush–Bagot Treaty.
Poland
In Poland barracks are represented usually as a complex of buildings, each consisting of a separate entity or an administrative or business premises. As an example, the
Barracks Complex in Września.
Portugal
Each of the
Portuguese Army
The Portuguese Army ( pt, Exército Português) is the land component of the Armed Forces of Portugal and is also its largest branch. It is charged with the defence of Portugal, in co-operation with other branches of the Armed Forces. With its ...
bases is referred as a ''quartel'' (barracks). In a barracks, each of the dormitory buildings is referred as a ''caserna'' (
casern
A casern, also spelled cazern or caserne, is a military barracks in a garrison town.Les gens de guerre à Saint-Julien-du-Sault, J Crédé, Imprimerie Fostier, 1976 In French-speaking countries, a ''caserne de pompier'' is a fire station.
In fort ...
). Most of them are regimental barracks, constituting the fixed component of the Army system of forces and being responsible for the training, sustenance and general support to the Army. In addition to the regimental administrative, logistic and training bodies, each barracks can lodge one or more operational units (operational battalions, independent companies or equivalent units). Although there are housing blocks within the perimeter of some regimental barracks, the Portuguese usual practice is for the members of the Armed Forces to live outside the military bases with their families, inserted in the local civilian communities.
Many of the Portuguese regimental barracks are of a model developed by the old Administrative Commission for the New Infrastructures of the Armed Forces (CANIFA). Because of this, they are commonly referred as "CANIFA type barracks". These types of barracks were built in the 1950s and 1960s, following a standardized architectural model, usually with an area of between 100,000 and 200,000 square metres, including a headquarters building, a guard house, a general mess building, an infirmary building, a workshop and garage building, an officer house building, a sergeant house building, three to ten rank and file caserns, fire ranges and sports facilities. In average each CANIFA type barracks was intended to lodge around 1000 soldiers and their respective armament, vehicles and other equipment.
Russia
Until the end of the
18th century
The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 ( MDCCI) to December 31, 1800 ( MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. During the century, slave trad ...
personnel of the
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...
were
billeted with civilians homes or accommodated in
sloboda
A sloboda ( rus, слобода́, p=sləbɐˈda) was a kind of settlement in the history of the Old Russian regions Povolzhye, Central Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for "freedom" and may be loosely ...
s in a countryside. First barracks were built during the reign of Emperor
Paul I. For these purposes, Paul I established a one-time land tax based on the amount of land owned by citizen. This tax was not mandatory, but person who paid it was permanently exempted from billets.
From the end of 1882, the money collected for exemption from
billet was transferred to the military ministry. This has made it possible to step up the construction of barracks for the army. By 1 January 1900, 19015 barracks had been built, which accommodated 94% of the troops.
United Kingdom
In the 17th and 18th centuries there were concerns around the idea of a standing army housed in barracks; instead, the law provided for troops routinely to be
billeted in small groups in inns and other locations.
(The concerns were various: political, ideological and constitutional, provoked by memories of
Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
's
New Model Army
The New Model Army was a standing army formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians during the First English Civil War, then disbanded after the Stuart Restoration in 1660. It differed from other armies employed in the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Th ...
and of the use of troops in reign of
James II James II may refer to:
* James II of Avesnes (died c. 1205), knight of the Fourth Crusade
* James II of Majorca (died 1311), Lord of Montpellier
* James II of Aragon (1267–1327), King of Sicily
* James II, Count of La Marche (1370–1438), King C ...
to intimidate areas of civil society. Furthermore, grand urban barracks were associated with absolutist monarchies, where they could be seen as emblematic of power sustained through military might; and there was an ongoing suspicion that gathering soldiers together in barracks might encourage sedition.)
Nevertheless, some "soldiers' lodgings" were built in Britain at this time, usually attached to coastal fortifications or royal palaces. The first recorded use of the word 'barracks' in this context was for the Irish Barracks, built in the precinct of the
Tower of London in 1669. At the
Ordnance Office
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its primary responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots and forts required for the defence ...
(responsible for construction and upkeep of barracks)
Bernard de Gomme played a key role in developing a 'domestic' style of barrack design in the latter half of the 17th century: he provided barrack blocks for such locations as
Plymouth Citadel and
Tilbury Fort, each with rows of square rooms arranged in pairs on two stories, accommodating a
Company
A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...
of some sixty men, four to a room, two to a bed. Standard furnishings were provided, and each room had a grate used for heating and cooking.
In England, this domestic style continued to be used through the first half of the eighteenth century; most new barracks of this period were more or less hidden within the precincts of medieval castles and
Henrician forts. In Scotland, however, a more demonstrative style was employed following the
Jacobite rising of 1715 (as at
Ruthven Barracks) and
that of 1745 (as seen in the monumental
Fort George). This bolder approach gradually began to be adopted south of the border during the eighteenth century (beginning with nearby
Berwick, 1717). There was much building in and around the
Royal Dockyard
Royal Navy Dockyards (more usually termed Royal Dockyards) were state-owned harbour facilities where ships of the Royal Navy were built, based, repaired and refitted. Until the mid-19th century the Royal Dockyards were the largest industrial ...
s at this time: during the
Seven Years' War, fears of a land attack led to defensive '
lines
Line most often refers to:
* Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity
* Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system
Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to:
Arts ...
' being built around the dockyard towns, and infantry barracks were established within them (e.g. at Chatham, Upper and Lower Barracks, 1756, and Plymouth, six defensible square barracks, 1758–63). The newly constituted
Royal Marines
The Corps of Royal Marines (RM), also known as the Royal Marines Commandos, are the UK's special operations capable commando force, amphibious light infantry and also one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy. The Corps of Royal Marine ...
were also provided with accommodation in the vicinity of the Dockyards (e.g.
Stonehouse Barracks
Stonehouse Barracks is a military installation at Stonehouse, Plymouth. It is the home of 3 Commando Brigade and referred to by commandos as 'the spiritual home of the Royal Marines'.
Origins
Since the Corps' foundation in 1664, Marines have bee ...
, 1779) becoming the first Corps in Britain to be fully provided with its own accommodation. Large urban barracks were still a rarity, though. In London there was a fair amount of barrack accommodation, but most of it was within the precincts of various royal palaces (as at
Horse Guards, 1753). The prominent
Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich (1776) was one exception (but significantly the Artillery were under the command of the
Board of Ordnance
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its primary responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots and forts required for the defence ...
rather than of the Army).
In the aftermath of the
French Revolution, though, things changed. The size of the army grew from 40,000 to 225,000 between 1790 and 1814 (with the
Militia adding a further 100,000).
Barrack accommodation at the time was provided for a mere 20,000. To deal with the situation, responsibility for building barracks was transferred in 1792 from the
Board of Ordnance
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its primary responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots and forts required for the defence ...
to a specialist Barracks Department overseen by the War Office. With a view to dealing with sedition, and perhaps quelling thoughts of revolution, several large cavalry barracks were built in the 1790s: first at
Knightsbridge (close to the royal palaces), then in several provincial towns and cities: Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester, Norwich, Nottingham and Sheffield (as well as
Hounslow Barracks
Cavalry Barracks is a former British Army installation located north of Hounslow Heath in Hounslow, west London. Hounslow was one of 40 new barracks established around the country in the wake of the French Revolution, to guard against the dual t ...
just west of London). Several smaller cavalry and artillery barracks were established around this time, but very little was built for the infantry; instead, a number of large camps (with wooden huts) were set up, including at Chelmsford,
Colchester and
Sunderland
Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
, as well as at various locations along the south coast.
Barrack-masters were appointed, one such was Captain
George Manby at the Royal Barracks,
Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...
. Coincidentally his father, Captain Matthew Manby, had been barrack-master at
Limerick.
It was not until some years after the end of the
Napoleonic Wars (and post-war
recession) that barrack-building began again.
John Nash built four as part of his London improvements:
Regent's Park and
St John's Wood for the Cavalry,
Wellington Barracks for the Guards, and
St George's Barracks (since demolished) behind the
National Gallery. In several instances elsewhere, buildings were converted rather than newly built (or a mixture of the two, as at
Cambridge Barracks, Portsmouth where a new frontage, housing officers, was built in front of a range of warehouses converted to house the men). In response to the
Chartist riots three barracks were established in north-west England in the 1840s,
Ladysmith Barracks at Ashton-under-Lyne,
Wellington Barracks at Bury and
Fulwood Barracks at Preston.
A review conducted following the demise of the Board of Ordnance in 1855 noted that only seven barracks outside London had accommodation for more than 1,000.
This changed with the establishment of large-scale Army Camps such as
Aldershot (1854), and the expansion of Garrison towns such as
Colchester; over time in these locations temporary huts were replaced with more permanent barracks buildings. Large-scale camps were not the only way forward, however; from the 1870s, the localisation agenda of the
Cardwell Reforms
The Cardwell Reforms were a series of reforms of the British Army undertaken by Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell between 1868 and 1874 with the support of Liberal prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone paid little attention ...
saw new and old barracks established as
depots for regional or County brigades and regiments. The latter part of the 19th century also saw the establishment of a number of Naval barracks (an innovation long resisted by the Royal Navy, which had tended to accommodate its sailors afloat either on their ships or else in
hulks moored in its harbours). The first of these, Keyham Barracks in Devonport (later
HMS Drake
Nineteen ships and a shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been named HMS ''Drake'' after Sir Francis Drake or after the drake:
* was a 16-gun sixth rate launched in 1653 and sold in 1691.
* was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1694 and wrec ...
), was begun in 1879, and only completed in 1907.
During the 20th century, activity ranged from the need for speedy expansion during the First World War (when large camps such as
Catterick were established), to the closure of many barracks in the
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
. Many of those that remained were rebuilt in the 1960s, either substantially (as happened at Woolwich, behind the facade) or entirely (as at
Hyde Park
Hyde Park may refer to:
Places
England
* Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London
* Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds
* Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield
* Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester
Austra ...
and at
Chelsea - built 1863, demolished and rebuilt 1963, closed 2008). There has been an ongoing focus on improving the quality of barracks accommodation; since the 1970s several
former RAF bases have been converted to serve as Army barracks, in place of some of the more cramped urban sites. Today, generally, only single and unmarried personnel or those who choose not to move their families nearby live in barracks. Most British military barracks are named after battles, military figures or the locality.
United States
In basic training, and sometimes follow-on training, service members live in barracks. Formerly, the
U.S. Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through comb ...
had gender-separate basic training units. Currently, all services have training where male and female recruits share barracks, but are separated during personal time and lights out. All the services integrate male and female members following
boot camp Boot camp may refer to:
Training programs
* Boot camp (correctional), a type of correctional facility for adolescents, especially in the U.S. penal system
* Boot camp, a training camp for learning various types of skills
** Dev bootcamp, a de ...
and first assignment.
After training, unmarried junior enlisted members will typically reside in barracks. In the 21st century, these service members are generally housed in individual rooms conforming to the
DoD's
''Dods Parliamentary Companion'' (formerly "Dod's Parliamentary Companion") is an annual politics reference book published in the United Kingdom.
It provides biographies and contact information on members of the Houses of Parliament and the C ...
"1+1 standard", though exceptions still exist. During unaccompanied, dependent-restricted assignments, non-commissioned and commissioned officer ranks may also be required to live in barracks. Amenities in these barracks increase with the rank of the occupant.
Unlike the other services, the U.S. Air Force officially uses the term "
dormitory
A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...
" to refer to its unaccompanied housing.
During World War II, many U.S. barracks were made of inexpensive, sturdy and easy to assemble
Quonset huts that resembled
Native American long houses (having a rounded roof but made out of metal).
See also
*
Cantonment
A cantonment (, , or ) is a military quarters. In Bangladesh, India and other parts of South Asia, a ''cantonment'' refers to a permanent military station (a term from the British India, colonial-era). In military of the United States, United Stat ...
, a temporary or semi-permanent military quarters.
*
B hut
B Hut is an abbreviation for "Barracks Hut", used in the US military to refer to temporary billets.
The British Army commonly used the term "Barracks Hut" to refer to temporary billets as far back as the 1800s. Barracks Hut was almost always used ...
*
Barkas, Hyderabad
Barkas is a neighborhood in Hyderabad, India, located in the old city area of Hyderabad. The name "Barkas" is believed to be derived from the English word "barracks". Before Indian independence, Barkas served as the military Barracks of the Niz ...
Notes
References
* Black, Jeremy, ''A Military Revolution?: Military Change and European Society, 1550-1800'' (London, 1991)
* Dallemagne, François, ''Les casernes françaises'', (1990)
* Douet, James, ''British Barracks, their social and architectural importance, 1660-1914'' (London, 1997)
* Roberts, Michael ''The Military Revolution, 1560-1660'' (Belfast, 1956); reprinted with some amendments in Rogers, Clifford, ed., ''The Military Revolution Debate'' Rogers, Clifford, ed., ''The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe'' (Boulder, 1995)
* 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica''
External links
*
Royal Engineers MuseumMilitary Works (Barrack construction)
{{Authority control
Military units and formations by type
Human habitats
Total institutions