[46]. Browne, now Bandmaster of the Royal Horse Artillery.
[47]. Cust.
[48]. Lee.
[49]. Kane's List.
[50]. Kane's List.
[51]. It may be interesting to state here that on the 5th October, 1783, the first Committee was chosen to establish a regular Regimental Mess in the new barracks on the Common. The entrance subscription was fixed at 1l. 1s. Hitherto the officers had messed in two public-houses in Woolwich, known jocularly as the "Bastion," and "Redan." The new mess-room—afterwards a chapel—was where the Recreation Rooms now are.
CHAPTER XXX.
History, Succession of Captains, and Present Designation
of the Troops and Companies belonging to the Royal
Horse Artillery, the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Battalions.
Although the Royal Horse Artillery, and the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Battalions were formed subsequently to the Peace of 1783, it has been considered desirable to insert a summary of the services of the troops and companies in this volume, without prejudice to a more detailed statement which will be given in the succeeding volume, when their formation will be notified in due chronological order. The Seventh Battalion brings the reader to the commencement of the present century, later than which time it has not been deemed necessary, in this volume, to go.
Commencing with the Royal Horse Artillery, it may be mentioned, shortly, that it was formed on the 1st January, 1793, and at first consisted of two Troops, A and B. On the 1st November in the same year C and D Troops were added, followed, on the 1st November, 1794, by E and F Troops. In September 1801, G Troop was formed, in Ireland, out of some detachments serving in that country; and in June, 1804, H Troop was raised at Woolwich. On 1st February, 1805, I Troop was formed at Colchester, and K Troop at Ballinasloe; L Troop at Woolwich in July of the same year, and M Troop also in 1805, although there is a little uncertainty as to the month. There were also two Rocket Troops, but there is considerable difficulty in tracing their exact history. According to the records of the Royal Horse Artillery, the Second Rocket Troop was formed before the First; but in this particular, as in another presently to be mentioned, these records are inaccurate. The following would appear to be the true statement of the case. In June 1813, some Rocket detachments, under Captain R. Bogue, were ordered to Germany, and were present at the Battle of Leipsic. In 1814 a Rocket Troop was formed at Woolwich, under the command of Captain W. G. Elliot; and on the same day Captain E. C. Whinyates was appointed to the command of the Second Rocket Troop vice Bogue, killed at Leipsic. Now, the Battle of Leipsic was fought in October—1813, and Captain Whinyates' appointment was dated the 2nd March 1814. It would appear, therefore, that the two Rocket Troops were formed together, out of existing detachments, and that the one formed at Woolwich was named the First, while that formed out of the detachments on the Continent was called the Second. Although the detachments present at Leipsic became the Second Rocket Troop, they were present at that battle not as a troop, but as detachments; and as the troop was reduced on 31st July 1816, their Leipsic services, by some mistake, were afterwards credited to the First Rocket Troop, which would actually appear to have received permission to wear "Leipsic" on its appointments in commemoration of the services, not of itself, but of the defunct troop.
In 1847 rocket carriages were given to all the troops, and the remaining Rocket Troop became I Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery.