The Stafford Street drill hall is a former military installation in
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunian ...
,
West Midlands
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
.
History
The building was designed as the headquarters of the 3rd Volunteer Battalion, the
South Staffordshire Regiment
The South Staffordshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence for only 68 years. The regiment was created in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot an ...
and was completed in 1890.
This unit evolved to become the 6th Battalion, the South Staffordshire Regiment in 1908.
The battalion was mobilised for the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
at the drill hall in August 1914 before being deployed to the
Western Front.
The drill hall was also the home of D Squadron,
Staffordshire Yeomanry
The Staffordshire Yeomanry (Queen's Own Royal Regiment) was a unit of the British Army. Raised in 1794 following Prime Minister William Pitt's order to raise volunteer bodies of men to defend Great Britain from foreign invasion, the Staffordshir ...
.
[
The battalion amalgamated with the 5th Battalion to form the 5th/6th (Territorial) Battalion, The ]Staffordshire Regiment
The Staffordshire Regiment (Prince of Wales') (or simply "Staffords" for short) was an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Prince of Wales' Division. The regiment was formed in 1959 by the amalgamation of the South Staffordshire Reg ...
(The Prince of Wales's) with its headquarters in Wolverhampton in 1967. After the battalion moved to Wolseley House in Wolverhampton, the Stafford Street drill hall was decommissioned and acquired by the University of Wolverhampton
The University of Wolverhampton is a public university located on four campuses across the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire in England. The roots of the university lie in the Wolverhampton Tradesmen's and Mech ...
.[ It has since been converted by Liam Wordley, a developer, into ]student accommodation
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 ...
.
References
{{reflist
Drill halls in England
Buildings and structures in Wolverhampton