Photographs and history of the Army Service
Corps,
during the reign of Queen Victoria
The supply of an army in the field was, in the last century, usually
organised solely for the duration of a war, and partook largely of the
civilian element. The first well-considered effort to provide a
reliable force for these important duties was made in the Peninsula,
when the "Royal Wagon Train" was formed. This was
revived in 1854 as the "Land Transport Corps" ; but it was not
very successful, and was reorganised after the wasr as the
"Military Train".
It next appears as the "Control Department", of which the
"Commissariat and Transport", and a "Military Store
Department", were sub-branches; but this machinery proved cumbrous,
and it disappeared in 1875, to be followed by the "Army Transport
Corps", which was finally given its present name.
The disposition of the Transport in an English army is at the rate of
one Transport company to each division, and one for the corps'
headquarters in the first line, four others being relegated to the
second line, chiefly for hospital needs. Each company has four
sections, one of which carries staff baggage and provisions for the
"details"; one section is told off to assist the medical
department, and the other two convey staff baggage and provisions.
It has shared necessarily in the campaigns in which the army has
taken part; and at Rorke's Drift in 1879, Acting-Assistant Commissary
J.L. Dalton won the Cross for Valour. During the Mutiny, in the
pursuit of Koer Singh from Azimghur, the men did good service as
cavalry; and in one of the sharp skirmishes Michael Murphy and Samuel
Morley, of the Military Train, gained the Victoria Cross.
There are thirty seven companies in the "Army List", with
one supply and two remount companies. The blue uniform has white
facings.
Extract from "The British Army and Auxiliary Forces" Colonel
C. Cooper King, R.M.A. , 1894
