A staff clerk is a professional specialist

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

who is a member of an administrative

corps Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was first named as such in 1805. The size of a corps varies great ...

, as opposed to a unit clerk, who is a member of the corps or

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation. In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripted ...

in which he or she works and is trained first and foremost in the duties of that unit (as an

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

man, for instance). Staff clerks predominantly work in headquarters units alongside

staff officer A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military un ...

s, hence the name. Clerks working in headquarters were consolidated into the Army Service Corps (later

Royal Army Service Corps The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and dom ...

) during the

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 Sou ...

.Colonel R. H. Beadon, ''The Royal Army Service Corps'', Vol.II, Cambridge University Press, 1931, p.16 In the

McLeod Reorganisation of Army Logistics The McLeod Reorganisation of Army Logistics was a major reorganisation of the British Army in the 1960s, principally affecting the Royal Engineers (RE), Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) and Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC). Its principal outcome wa ...

, staff clerks were transferred to the

Royal Army Ordnance Corps The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) was a corps of the British Army. At its renaming as a Royal Corps in 1918 it was both a supply and repair corps. In the supply area it had responsibility for weapons, armoured vehicles and other military equip ...

in 1965. In 1992 they again transferred, to the Staff and Personnel Support Branch of the

Adjutant General's Corps The Adjutant General's Corps is a corps in the British Army responsible for many of its general administrative services, named for the Adjutant-General to the Forces (now the Commander Home Command). As of 2002, the AGC had a staff of 7,000 peopl ...

and were merged with unit clerks.

Footnotes

British Army specialisms

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