Northern Division, Royal Artillery

The Northern Division, Royal Artillery, was an administrative grouping of garrison units of the Royal Artillery, Artillery Militia and Artillery Volunteers within the British Army's Northern District from 1882 to 1889.

Northern Division, RA
Cap Badge of the Royal Regiment of Artillery
Active4 April 1882–1 July 1889
Country United Kingdom
Branch British Army
TypeAdministrative division
Part ofRoyal Artillery
Garrison/HQNewcastle upon Tyne

Organisation

Under General Order 72 of 4 April 1882 the Royal Artillery (RA) broke up its existing administrative brigades[lower-alpha 1] of garrison artillery (7th–11th Brigades, RA) and assigned the individual batteries to 11 new territorial divisions. These divisions were purely administrative and recruiting organisations, not field formations. Most were formed within the existing military districts into which the United Kingdom was divided, and for the first time associated the part-time Artillery Militia with the regulars. Shortly afterwards the Artillery Volunteers were also added to the territorial divisions. The Regular Army batteries were grouped into one brigade, usually of nine sequentially-numbered batteries and a depot battery. For these units the divisions represented recruiting districts – batteries could be serving anywhere in the British Empire and their only connection to brigade headquarters (HQ) was for the supply of drafts and recruits. The artillery militia units (sometimes referred to as regiments) already comprised a number of batteries, and were redesignated as brigades, losing their county titles in the process. The artillery volunteers, which had previously consisted of numerous independent Artillery Volunteer Corps (AVC) of various sizes, sometimes grouped into administrative brigades, had been consolidated into larger AVCs in 1881, which were now affiliated to the appropriate territorial division.[1][2][3][4]

Composition

Northern Division, RA, listed as first in order of precedence, was organised within Northern District with the following composition:[1][2][3][5][6][7][8]

Disbandment

In 1889 the garrison artillery was reorganised again into three large divisions of garrison artillery and one of mountain artillery. Although the names of the garrison divisions were still territorial (Eastern, Southern and Western) the assignment of units to them was geographically arbitrary, with the militia and volunteer units formerly in Northern Division being grouped in the Southern and Western Divisions (where there were the most coast defences to be manned in time of war), while the regular batteries were distributed across all four divisions and completely renumbered.[1][2][3][6][8][9][10][11]

See also

Footnotes
  1. In RA terminology, a 'brigade' was a group of independent batteries grouped together for administrative rather than tactical purposes, the officer in command being usually a lieutenant-colonel rather than a brigadier-general or major-general, the ranks usually associated with command of an infantry or cavalry brigade.

Notes
  1. Frederick, pp. 567–73, 985.
  2. Litchfield, Militia Artillery, pp. 4–6; Appendix 5.
  3. Litchfield & Westlake, pp. 4–6.
  4. Maurice-Jones, p. 150.
  5. Hart's Army List, 1883.
  6. Lawes, Vol II, Index.
  7. Maurice-Jones, p. 162.
  8. Monthly Army Lists.
  9. Frederick, pp. 574–9, 891–2.
  10. Hart's Army List, 1890.
  11. Maurice-Jones, p. 151.

References
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