School of Arms.
To the latter institution a word is now due. Ever since the Headquarters had been opened, the athletic youth of the public offices in London had been attracted to this excellent training school in their midst. During the winter months the building was thronged to overflowing on “School” nights with perspiring youth in flannels, as class after class followed each other in unceasing relays for hours. Organising, directing and instructing this untiring energy were Danter, Brett, W. H. D. Clarke, Whitehurst, Weeks, Bell, Kirkby and others, ably supported, of course, by the most skilled instructors that the Guards and Aldershot could supply.
The result had now become apparent in the wonderful series of successes the School achieved, not only in the Home District Tournaments, but at the Royal Military Tournaments in competition with the Navy and Army.
A list of winners of Challenge cups and championship and silver medallists is given in Appendix No. V.
In addition to these successes, the School of Arms obtained 39 second and 18 third prizes at the R.M. Tournament, and an even greater number of prizes at the competitions of the Metropolitan Territorial School of Arms Association.
The most successful period for the Regimental School was during the first decade of the present century, when those fine all-round athletes Hobbins, Marsh and Chalke were in the hey-day of their prowess, and Major Brett, the oldest man in the competitions of 1907, won the Officers’ Bayonet Challenge Cup.
In the previous year the Regimental Officers’ Team won the Inter-Regimental Bayonet Fighting Cup, beating the R.M.A., with its large complement of officers to select from, in the final. This was the only occasion on which the Cup was wrested from the Regulars or Navy.
The Light-Weight Tug-of-War Team in 1904 became the permanent possessors of the R.M.T. Cup, which they had won three times in four years.