Page 168 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
After the War, King George VI asked that the firing of the Royal Salutes on State Occasions be continued by the Royal Horse Artillery, usually stationed in St John’s Wood. The Barracks there being almost completely self-supporting with everything housed between four walls: a riding school, a manège, all the stables, married and single living accommodation and the various internal services.
Within the Barracks it houses three Sections, each divided into two Subsections, each responsible for providing one complete gun team of six horses and a 13-pounder gun and limber. Each Subsection probably has seventeen horses and the same number of gunners. The latter are allocated various tasks, from maintaining the gun, to grooming the horses, trumpet duties and cleaning the harnesses.
As well as the soldiers who work in the ‘Lines’ there are those known as the ‘Staff Employed’. This group includes the tradesmen – farriers, the saddlers, the tailors and the clerks, storemen, and drivers. They are all vital to the day to day running of The Troop.
There are also a group of ‘outsiders’ whose privilege is to join The Troop for a short time these include: the Artificer Staff Sergeant or ‘Tiffy’ (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) who maintains the guns, then you have the cooks and, of course, the most important of all, the two members of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the VO and his assistant.
The horses are the most important part of The King’s Troop. There are one hundred and twenty or so at The Troop, thirteen of which are Officer’s Chargers. The gun team horses come mainly from the Irish Republic and are described as ‘Light Irish Draught’. Their colours range from light bay through brown to black and are 15.2 to 16 hands tall. They are usually bought at three or four years old and, if all goes well, usually leave service at sixteen, for retirement. The chargers are usually purchased in the UK, a larger type of horse; they must stand at least 16.3 tall. They may be any colour, except grey or coloured and there must be at least one black as the ‘funeral charger’. There are many characters among the horses and tales abound of their exploits. The duties of The King’s Troop RHA are laid down in its charter. These include:
Firing Royal Salutes for Royal Birthdays and Anniversaries, State Openings of Parliament and State Visits both at Windsor and in London.
Relieving the Household Cavalry Regiment as The Queen’s Life Guard during the summer leave period.
Providing a Gun Carriage and team for the funerals of members of the Royal Family and distinguished military officers and firing Minute Guns during such ceremonies.
Participating in the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremonial.
Whenever possible The Troop also performs at the Royal Tournament, the Lord Mayor’s Show, agricul- tural and similar shows and also takes part in equestrian and related competitions.
Horses and men of The Troop regularly event and show jump to a high standard, as well as take part in tent pegging, dressage, team chasing and point to pointing.
Ceremonial duties and competitions go on throughout the year; training of horses and men at ‘The Wood’ and Wormwood Scrubs takes place during the ‘quiet’ winter months and the show season and displays run from May to September. The displays usually consist of the Musical Drive, which is a series of complicated manoeuvres by the gun teams at the gallop, set to music.
At some time during the summer months, normally a couple of weeks are set aside for the horses and men to go away for a well-earned break at the seaside. To see The Troop at work is a marvellous sight. Please do visit The Troop if you are in London because there is much more of interest to discover than I have been able to pen in these few short paragraphs.”10
Home and tradition
The modern barracks complex in London’s fashionable St John’s Wood, that the King’s Troop calls home, is, it has been written: “a likely beneficiary of some of the best kept rose gardens in NW 8 – thanks to the dawn exercise each day by any of the Troop’s one hundred-plus horses clattering through quiet nearby Regency-style streets.” And that is how it has been for most of the years since 1804 at “The Wood” when, in those formative years, three hundred cattle grazed in meadows near St John’s Wood Farm as horses and riders from the Brigade of Artillery moved in from St James’s Park. Six years later, the whole Brigade move there into small barracks which were later to be vacated for several years at the end of the Napoleonic wars.
Today, the King’s Troop performs its duties as part of the Household Division Troops from new barracks occupied in April 1972. It followed the demolition of the old barracks in 1969 but all the links, many with the past, are never far away. For instance, when on parade with its guns the KT RHA takes the ‘Right of Line’ and marches ahead of the British Army, and this has been the rule of etiquette since 1793 when “A” Battery RHA (Now the Chestnut Troop) was formed. The origin of the word “troop” in the RHA is derived from the days when ‘galloper guns’ formed part of a Cavalry regiment. Tradition is outstandingly present in the
10 Chiron Calling Issue 8th December 1991.
160