Cardwell Reforms - Other Reforms

Other Reforms

In addition to his two major pieces of legislation, Cardwell also introduced a number of reforms through Orders in Council or other Statutory Instruments.

• An Order of 1871 abolished some little-used disciplinary practices such as branding;
• The sale of commissions was abolished, as were the subaltern ranks of cavalry Cornet and infantry Ensign, replaced with Second Lieutenant. (In practice, the style "Cornet" is still used for Second Lieutenants in the Blues and Royals and the Queen's Royal Hussars, and the term "Ensign" is still used by the Foot Guards regiments, for instance during the ceremony of Trooping the Colour.)

• Units were placed on the same establishment whether serving at home or overseas. (To an extent, this was made possible by steamship transport and the Suez Canal.) Units serving overseas had previously had a larger establishment, to cater for losses to disease or climate which would be hard to replace, but this left the units at home chronically understrength as they were stripped of soldiers to bring units departing overseas up to their authorised strength. With the separate establishments removed, the home units could now be used to form an effective expeditionary force.

Cardwell also reformed the administration of the War Office, preventing infighting and bickering between the various departments and abolishing the separate administration of the Reserves and Volunteers. The defence policy of Canada, Australia and New Zealand was devolved to those dominions, and several small garrisons were replaced by locally-raised units.

These reforms started to turn British forces into an effective Imperial force. A change of government put Cardwell out of office in 1874, but his reforms stayed in place despite attempts from the Regular Army to abolish them and return to the comfortable and familiar old post-1815 situation.