Presidency Armies - Regimental Organisation

Regimental Organisation

In 1757, Robert Clive came up with the idea of sepoy battalions for the Bengal Presidency, which were to be armed, dressed and trained as the red coats and commanded by a nucleus of British officers. The Madras Army followed suit with six battalions in 1759 followed by the Bombay Army in 1767. Recruitment in all cases was done locally amongst single castes, from specific communities, villages and families. Regular cavalry regiments were raised in 1784 of which only three survived the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Irregular cavalry were raised based on the indigenous system of raising cavalry by rulers of Indian states called the "silladar" system. Irregular cavalry regiments had very few British officers. In addition, native artillery and pioneers (referred to later as sappers and miners) were also raised. Between 1796 and 1804, a regimental system on two battalion basis was introduced. The battalions were only theoretically linked together and shared no esprit-de-corps. The number of British officers went up to 22 per battalion which led to the diminished importance of native officers. The control by the Regimental commander was excessive and exasperating to its battalions and the system was reverted in 1824 with units being formed into single battalion regiments with numbering as per their seniority of raising.