History
The roots of the present Royal Military College (RMC) lie in three separate institutions. A Military College was established at Woolwich (a district now absorbed into south-east London) in 1720 to train cadets for commissions in the Royal Artillery, being granted Royal status in 1841 and moving to a permanent location at Woolwich Common in 1806, subsequently known as the "Shop". At this time, the Royal Military College also took on the training of Royal Engineers officer cadets and, later, Royal Signals cadets. Secondly, in 1799, a school for staff officers was established at High Wycombe and in 1801 it became the Senior Department of the Royal Military College.
The concept of the Royal Military College was the brainchild of John Le Marchant. He opened the Junior Department of the College at West Street in Marlow in 1802., to train "Gentleman Cadets" for the infantry, cavalry and Indian Army. (Coincidentally, this was the same year as both Saint-Cyr and West Point were founded.) The Junior Department moved from Marlow in 1813, into the present buildings designed by James Wyatt at Sandhurst. A few years later, the Junior Department was joined at Sandhurst from High Wycombe by the Senior Department, which in 1858 became a separate institution, the Staff College.
On the outbreak of the Second World War, Sandhurst became the home of 161 Infantry Officer Cadet Training Unit (RMC), which moved to Mons Barracks, Aldershot in 1942; for the rest of the war Sandhurst was used as a Royal Armoured Corps Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU).
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst was formed in 1947 on the site of the former Royal Military College at Sandhurst from a merger between the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich (which trained officers for the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers from 1741 to 1939) and the Royal Military College (1802 to 1939). Following the ending of National Service in the UK and the closing of the Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot (which had trained Short Service Commissioned Officers) in 1972, the RMAS became the sole establishment for male initial officer training in the British Army. In 1984, the Women's Officer Training College Bagshot moved to Sandhurst and in 1992 a new Commissioning Course finally unified the training of male, female and foreign cadets.
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Collection shows the history of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, The Royal Military College and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. The collection includes the Royal Military Academy's Gentlemen Cadet registers, historic archive, uniforms, paintings, photographs and other artefacts.
For the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, the Academy hosted the running part of the modern pentathlon competition.
Training at Sandhurst was the subject of a three part television series, first broadcast by the BBC in October, 2011 (rebroadcast in April 2012).
Read more about this topic: Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
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