As many of you know I am a Garrison Engineer (Construction), which is basically a commissioned Clerk of Works (Construction). But what is the origin of the Garrison Engineer?
The general practise of the 1700s and early 1800s was to keep a small standing army and to increase the army’s size in times of war. Most of these troops would be billeted with the local population and then demobilised after the war. After Waterloo the army was reduced back down but was bigger than it had been prior to the peninsular war. The intention was that with this force they would build some barracks to accommodate the soldiers and therefore reduce the burden on the local population. The construction of these barracks was mainly put out to civilian contract.
In 1828 the Barracks question was raised in Parliament by Sir Henry Hardinge, the Clerk of the Ordinance who stated that he was not of the opinion that it was economical to employ Civil Architects rather than Military Engineers.
He considered that the construction and maintenance of barracks could be carried out more economically by Officers of the Royal Engineers than by any system of Civil Architects and (civilian) Clerk of Works.
The Royal Engineers were then tasked to build and supervise the construction of barracks across Britain. A system of District Engineers (Lt Colonels and Majors) was established and the view was that Engineer Officers that were stationed in Britain in RE battalions and companies should be tasked to work for the District Engineer, the view taken was that this would be an excellent opportunity for the Engineering Officer to learn the skills they would need on operations/ campaign when sent overseas.
The District Engineers would be assisted by Sapper Draughtsman and Engineer Clerks, later they would also be assisted by Military Foreman of Works (the forerunner to the Clerks of Works (construction) – The first course started in 1839 I believe, I aim to research into that a bit more).
An example of the type of work undertaken is that of the construction of Fulwood Barracks at Preston, this was designed and managed by the Royal Engineers using the District Engineer organisation. The Building works were commenced in July, 1842, and the first stone was laid on the 28th of August, 1843, and being completed by 1848. The entire cost was 137,921 pounds, 2 shillings and 10 pence. During my time at Fulwood it was always pointed out that the build was delivered on time but went £100 over budget. (by modern standards a 0.07% overspend seems a bit of a bargain to be honest!)
As we move forward it was felt that there was a need to increase the assistance to the District Engineers, which by the 1880’s were being referred to as the as CRE’s (Commander Royal Engineers) as they had command over the RE units in their districts.. A Royal Engineer review of 1885 made a recommendation to create and an additional 8 Quartermasters for the Corps of Royal Engineers.
At this point in time there was only 6 Quartermasters in the Royal Engineers, the additional 8 Quartermasters would see 2 become added to the existing Quartermasters while the other 6 would be promoted from Military Foreman of Works who were Warrant Officers. The selected Warrant Officers became “Quartermasters of Works Services” and they would be allocated to Districts to assist the CRE and Division Officers in the construction and maintenance of Barracks and Garrisons.
Quartermasters at this time were given honorary rank of Lieutenant on first appointment and then promoted Captain after 10 years of service, promotion to Major was by selection. A Quartermaster was required to retire at age 55.
After that first initial 6 Quartermaster of Work Services in 1885 they were increased in number to 49 by 1914.
While I still have more digging to do to see what the expansion was for the Quartermasters of Works Services and Military Foremen of Works was during the Great War.
The next part of the research is to understand how and when the QM of Works Services progressed onto become the Garrison Engineer. I have some articles and information that show Garrison Engineer appointments existed in India as part of the Military Engineering Services and also in the Salonika Campaign but these posts were for Senior RE Officers (Majors or Lt Colonels) or Senior Civilian Engineers. So more research needed and I have a feeling this is going to require looking in lots of RE Journal articles and perhaps contacting the Indian Army Sappers.