The Dublin City Artillery Militia was a part-time reserve unit of Britain's

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

based in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, from 1854 to 1909.

Background

The long-standing national

Militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

was revived by the Militia Act 1852, enacted during a period of international tension. As before, units were raised and administered on a county basis, and filled by voluntary enlistment (although conscription by means of the Militia Ballot might be used if the counties failed to meet their quotas). Training was for 56 days on enlistment, then for 21–28 days per year, during which the men received full army pay. Under the Act, Militia units could be embodied by Royal Proclamation for full-time home defence service in three circumstances:Litchfield, pp. 1–7.Dunlop, pp. 42–5. # 'Whenever a state of war exists between Her Majesty and any foreign power'. # 'In all cases of invasion or upon imminent danger thereof'. # 'In all cases of rebellion or insurrection'. The 1852 Act introduced Militia Artillery units in addition to the traditional infantry regiments. Their role was to man coastal defences and fortifications, relieving the

(RA) for active service.

History

The unit was raised in Dublin in December 1854 under the title of Dublin City Artillery Militia. The first commanding officer (CO), appointed on 17 November 1854, was

Lieutenant-Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

-Commandant the Hon. Robert French Handcock, son of Lord Castelmaine and a

Half-pay Half-pay (h.p.) was a term used in the British Army and Royal Navy of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to the pay or allowance an officer received when in retirement or not in actual service. Past usage United Kingdom In the Eng ...

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

.Frederick, p. 983.Hay, p. 203.Litchfield, p. 70.''Army List'', various dates. At first the headquarters (HQ) was at

Lucan, Dublin Lucan ( ; ga, Leamhcán) is a town in Ireland, located 12 km west of Dublin city centre on the River Liffey. It is near the Strawberry Beds and Lucan Weir, and at the confluence of the River Griffeen. It is mostly under the jurisdiction o ...

, transferring to Dublin City in 1861. Training of the Irish Militia was suspended in 1866. When training resumed in 1871 the acting CO following Handcock's death was

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

Francis de Burgh, who was promoted to Lt-Col on 17 December that year. Longstanding officers of the unit continued to be promoted to the command: Lt-Col W.J.N. Magill on 31 August 1878, Lt-Col W.C. Dickenson on 18 November 1896, and Lt-Col William L. Smythe on 14 February 1903. Following 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 ...

a mobilisation scheme began to appear in the ''Army List'' from December 1875. This assigned places in an order of battle of the 'Garrison Army' to Militia Artillery units: the Dublin City Artillery's war station was in the

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

defences.

The_Royal_Artillery_in_the_Pre-wwi_Period_Q69801

The Artillery Militia was reorganised into 11 divisions of garrison artillery in 1882, and the Dublin City unit became the 4th Brigade, North Irish Division, RA. When the North Irish Division was abolished in 1889 the title was altered to Dublin City Artillery (Southern Division) RA. In 1898 the unit was reorganised, with three companies becoming field artillery batteries armed with 12-pounder RBL guns, the other two companies becoming 'position artillery' (semi-mobile heavy field artillery) armed with 40-pounder RBL guns. From 1902 most units of the Militia artillery formally became part of the

Royal Garrison Artillery The Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) was formed in 1899 as a distinct arm of the British Army's Royal Regiment of Artillery serving alongside the other two arms of the Regiment, the Royal Field Artillery (RFA) and the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) ...

, the Dublin unit taking the title of 'Dublin City RGA (M).

Embodiments

RBL_40_pounder_gun_Tasmania_1902_AWM_A04785

The unit was embodied for home defence three times: *

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

: February 1855 to September 1856 *

Indian Mutiny The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

: 2 April 1859 to 29 November 1860. The unit was embodied at Dublin and then crossed to England, first being stationed at

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

, then at Shorncliffe before returning to Colchester and then moving to

for the winter. Early in 1860 the corps returned to Colchester before moving to

Woolwich Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained throu ...

and then being stationed in the

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

area including

Gosport Gosport ( ) is a town and non-metropolitan borough on the south coast of Hampshire, South East England. At the 2011 Census, its population was 82,662. Gosport is situated on a peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, opposite t ...

and

Haslar Haslar is on the south coast of England, at the southern tip of Alverstoke, on the Gosport peninsula, Hampshire. It takes its name from the Old English , meaning " hazel-landing place". It may have been named after a bank of hazel strewn on ma ...

until it returned to Dublin to be disembodied. *

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

: 9 May to 6 November 1900

Disbandment

After the Boer War, the future of the Militia was called into question. There were moves to reform the Auxiliary Forces (Militia,

Yeomanry Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units or sub-units of the British Army, British Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Army Reserve, descended from volunteer British Cavalry, cavalry regiments. Today, Yeomanry units serve in a variety of ...

and

Volunteers Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

) to take their place in the six Army Corps proposed by

St John Brodrick William St John Fremantle Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton, KP, PC, DL (14 December 185613 February 1942), styled as St John Brodrick until 1907 and as Viscount Midleton between 1907 and 1920, was a British Conservative and Irish Unionist Alli ...

Secretary of State for War The Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, which existed from 1794 to 1801 and from 1854 to 1964. The Secretary of State for War headed the War Office and ...

. Some batteries of Militia Artillery were to be converted to field artillery. However, little of Brodrick's scheme was carried out. Under the sweeping

Haldane Reforms The Haldane Reforms were a series of far-ranging reforms of the British Army made from 1906 to 1912, and named after the Secretary of State for War, Richard Burdon Haldane. They were the first major reforms since the " Childers Reforms" of the ...

of 1908, the Militia was replaced by the

Special Reserve The Special Reserve was established on 1 April 1908 with the function of maintaining a reservoir of manpower for the British Army and training replacement drafts in times of war. Its formation was part of the Haldane Reforms, military reforms im ...

, a semi-professional force whose role was to provide reinforcement drafts for Regular units serving overseas in wartime. Although the majority of the officers and men of the Dublin City RGA (M) accepted transfer to the Special Reserve

Royal Field Artillery The Royal Field Artillery (RFA) of the British Army provided close artillery support for the infantry. It came into being when created as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery on 1 July 1899, serving alongside the other two arms of t ...

, becoming the Dublin City Royal Field Reserve Artillery on 30 August 1908, all these units were scrapped in 1909, the Dublin unit disbanding on 11 December. Instead the men of the RFA Special Reserve would form Brigade Ammunition Columns for the Regular RFA brigades on the outbreak of war.Edmonds, p. 5.

Honorary Colonels

Edward Guinness, Viscount Iveagh, KP, was appointed as Honorary Colonel of the unit on 10 May 1899.

Notes

References

* ''Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage,'' 100th Edn, London, 1953. * Col John K. Dunlop, ''The Development of the British Army 1899–1914'', London: Methuen, 1938. * Brig-Gen Sir

James E. Edmonds Brigadier (United Kingdom), Brigadier-General Sir James Edward Edmonds (25 December 1861 – 2 August 1956) was an commissioned officer, officer of the Royal Engineers in the late-Victorian era British Army who worked in the Intelligence Corps ...

, ''History of the Great War: Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1914'', Vol I, 3rd Edn, London: Macmillan,1933/Woking: Shearer, 1986, . * J.B.M. Frederick, ''Lineage Book of British Land Forces 1660–1978'', Vol II, Wakefield: Microform Academic, 1984, . * Lt-Col James Moncrieff Grierson (Col Peter S. Walton, ed.), ''Scarlet into Khaki: The British Army on the Eve of the Boer War'', London: Sampson Low, 1899/London: Greenhill, 1988, .
Col George Jackson Hay, ''An Epitomized History of the Militia (The Constitutional Force)'', London:United Service Gazette, 1905/Ray Westlake Military Books, 1987
ISBN 0-9508530-7-0. * Norman E.H. Litchfield, ''The Militia Artillery 1852–1909 (Their Lineage, Uniforms and Badges)'', Nottingham: Sherwood Press, 1987, . * Edward M. Spiers, ''The Army and Society 1815–1914'', London: Longmans, 1980, . * Edward M. Spiers, ''The Late Victorian Army 1868–1902'', Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992/Sandpiper Books, 1999, .

External links

Gazette Online
{{British Militia Regiments Irish Militia regiments Military units and formations established in 1854

History of Dublin (city) 1854 establishments in Ireland