Fit to Fight: A History of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps 1860–2015

By Nikolai Bogdanovic

Formed in 1860 as the Army Gymnastic Staff, the Royal Army Physical Training Corps (RAPTC) has been keeping the British Army in shape for just over 150 years. Drawn from every regiment in the army, prospective candidates undergo 30 weeks of intensive training before qualifying as a Royal Army Physical Training Corps Instructor. Based at the Army School of Physical Training in Aldershot, over the course of its history the RAPTC has trained countless instructors, including Olympic medallists Dame Kelly Holmes and Kriss Akabussi.

This is a complete history of the RAPTC from its formation to the present day, illustrated with stunning images from the regimental collection, including historical photographs, commissioned pictures of objects and fine art, and facsimile reproductions of documents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Dec 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781472824226

Nikolai Bogdanovic

Nikolai Bogdanovic is a highly experienced military history editor. Born in the UK in 1970, in 1998 he joined Osprey Publishing, one of the world's leading military history publishers. He has previously co-authored The British Army: The Definitive History of the Twentieth Century in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, London, and has a particular interest in 19th- and 20th-century conflicts. In addition to writing and research, Nikolai has edited hundreds of military history books for a wide range of publishers. He currently works as an independent publishing professional specializing in military history from his home in Devon.

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CONTENTS

Foreword

CHAPTER ONE: 1860–1914

CHAPTER TWO: 1914–18

CHAPTER THREE: 1919–39

CHAPTER FOUR: 1939–45

CHAPTER FIVE: 1945–68

CHAPTER SIX: 1969–82

CHAPTER SEVEN: 1983–95

CHAPTER EIGHT: 1996–2015

Epilogue

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

Appointments of Colonel Commandant, Commandant, Senior Master-at-Arms and CO ASPT

RAPTC and RAPTC Association Trophies

The RAPTC Association

The RAPTC Museum

Select Bibliography

FOREWORD

In September 1860, Major Hammersley and 12 Senior NCOs formed the first cadre of the Army Gymnastic Staff (AGS), the aim of which was to improve the health and fitness of the British Army’s most vital asset – its soldiers. Over a short period of time the first cadre of the AGS, known fondly as the ‘12 Apostles’, had a profound effect on the combat effectiveness of the British Army. Since those founding days the AGS has evolved over more than 150 years into the Royal Army Physical Training Corps (RAPTC) of today. The officers and SNCOs of the RAPTC continue to generate and maintain ‘Fit to Fight’ personnel as an essential component of fighting power for the British Army.

The RAPTC is an integral part of the ethos and fabric of Army life. Its men and women have been involved in the many operations and campaigns of the British Army from the Crimea to the present day. Members of the RAPTC have been at the forefront of the physical preparation of Army personnel; deployed on operations (frequently on the front line alongside unit commanding officers); and helped in the post-operational recovery and recuperation of returning troops. Sport is a key component of military life and features frequently throughout this book, illustrating the importance of sport to the Army and RAPTC. Two other important activities the Corps has delivered over the years are adventurous training – a vital ingredient in developing men and women for operations – and rehabilitation, which is crucial in returning personnel to full fitness after injury.

The RAPTC is an elite group in the British Army and, despite serving in singleton posts or small groups around the world, remains a close-knit fraternity. Above all else the history of the Corps is the story of a family – fiercely proud of each other and ferociously loyal. This is reflected in the deep and lasting bonds of friendship within the Corps, including the sterling support and camaraderie provided by the RAPTC Association.

The history of the RAPTC shows how the British Army has adapted and evolved over the last 155 years, revealing that many of the challenges the Army faces in the 21st century are not new, and highlighting the importance fitness has played in securing the Army’s fighting power. The men and women of the RAPTC embody the British Army’s values and standards and their Corps motto, ‘Mens Sana in Corpore Sano’ (‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’) says it all. For the new recruit or officer cadet, their RAPTC Instructor is one of the few people they encounter who remains an indelible role model for the rest of their careers.

I am enormously proud to be the 9th Colonel Commandant of the RAPTC. The work of the RAPTC in physical training, rehabilitation, adventurous training, health promotion and sport is as relevant today as it was in 1860, and remains an essential component for a ‘Fit to Fight’ Army. This history captures many of the changes to the British Army over the last 155 years, but what has changed little is the spirit and enthusiasm that was present in the very first cadre in 1860, and continues to be embodied in the officers and instructors of the RAPTC today.

Lieutenant General James Bashall, CBE

CHAPTER ONE

1860–1914

The genesis of a physical training elite

An outdoor physical training lesson at the HQ School, Aldershot, in 1908.

The Royal Army Physical Training Corps (RAPTC) was born at a time of – and partly as a result of – widespread social change in Great Britain. The rise of meritocratic professionalism, concerns for the welfare of the common soldier, and an increasing intellectual awareness of the methodology and benefits of physical training (particularly with reference to the muscular physique) combined together to bring about the embodiment of its predecessor organisation, the Army Gymnastic Staff (AGS), in 1861. Many aspects of its core identity would be formed in this early period, including its distinctive insignia of crossed swords and crown, Corps motto of ‘Mens Sana in Corpore Sano’, and the built environment of its permanent home. It would also demonstrate a core feature of its organisational ethos: the ability to adopt, adapt and promote modern methods and best practice in physical training, functional fitness and (particularly in this period) skill at arms, within an evolving army structure.

THE ORIGINS OF THE ARMY GYMNASTIC STAFF

Between September 1854 and February 1856, the British Army campaigned in the Crimea alongside French, Sardinian and Ottoman allies against Russian forces. The appaling conditions endured by the 250,000 British men who fought at the Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman, and who besieged Sevastopol for 11 months in terrible conditions, were widely reported at home, chiefly through newspapers (encouraged by the abolition of stamp duty on them in 1855), and telegraphy. The British public formed a clear, and negative, opinion about the conduct of the war, in which 25,000 British soldiers died – mostly from a lack of adequate food, clothing and shelter, and poor sanitary conditions. A concerted effort thus began to improve the resourcing and physical well-being of the common British soldier, particularly the infantryman.

Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, a stipple engraving by W. Holl after G. Richmond. Herbert’s great efforts to improve the health of the soldiers under his care may have ultimately contributed to the decline of his own. On 2 August 1861, a month short of his 51st birthday, he died from Bright’s disease. (Wellcome Library, London)

In 1859, joint control of the Army was exercised by the long-serving General Commanding-in-Chief, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Secretary of State for War, Sidney Herbert (MP for South Wiltshire). Herbert, a Liberal who had served as Secretary at War from 1852 to 1855, was a friend of Florence Nightingale, whose efforts to reform the sanitary conditions in Military Hospitals and barracks are well documented.

In the wake of the Crimean War, political and social pressures combined to bring about numerous enquiries and reports, chiefly under the two administrations of Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (1855–58 and 1859–65). The chief aim was to bring permanent reform to Her Majesty’s forces through improving the health, well-being and physical resilience of the common soldier. A further key area of reform, made clear in the correspondence of Sidney Herbert from 1856 onwards, was the wholesale reform of military education, chiefly by means of the employment of ‘enlightened instructors’.

The Royal Commission’s 1858 Report on Sanitary Condition of the Army attracted much public and parliamentary interest. It identified the ‘monotonous and uninteresting’ daily routine of the British infantryman in particular, and the lack of opportunities provided for outdoor exercise. By contrast, the report noted, in the French Army soldiers were required to perform gymnastic exercises as part of their daily routine; moreover, medical inspectors would check that such routines were being performed both correctly and with regularity. It was also noted that Royal Navy personnel, who led a more physically active service life, demonstrated fewer mortalities per thousand capita compared with personnel in the British Infantry.

A further area of concern regarding infantrymen was intemperance. ‘That the soldier frequently indulges in the use of stimulating liquors, to an extent which may injure his health, though not deprive him of his senses, cannot, we think, be denied’, stressed the report, although it considered intemperance more of a contributing factor to poor health, rather than a clear cause of increased mortality. The lack of exercise in the daily routine often contributed to the temptation to indulge in drink or opiates (the latter being freely available until the 1868 Pharmacy Act). Alongside intemperance, sexual diseases were rife in the rank and file in the mid-19th century, causing severe reductions in manpower in the Infantry regiments.

The 1858 report concluded with a long list of recommendations aimed at improving the health of the common soldier, the most notable of which focused on the reform of the Army Medical Department and improvements to the location, layout, ventilation and sanitary facilities of barracks (including the provision of day rooms for soldiers). Two further recommendations relevant to this study were:

– That inquiry should be made into the French system of gymnastic exercises, with a view to the adoption of some similar practice in the British Army.

– That facilities and encouragement be given for all athletic games, such as fives, cricket, quoits, single-stick, for gymnastic exercises, &c.

A further influential factor in the integration of regular physical activity into the routine of Army life was the dominance of the upper classes among Army officers. Traditionally educated at private schools, where team sport in particular formed a key part of the daily routine, these men were receptive to the concept of encouraging sport and physical activity in the men they commanded.

The generations of working class born in the wake of the Industrial Revolution often came from urbanised, less physically active backgrounds, meaning they were less fit, less resilient, and more prone to illness and disease. Improving health and fitness in the ranks would, it was hoped, make Army service appear more attractive to working-class men. This was an era of increasing military manpower shortages and pressures. In the mid-19th century, British troops were stationed in Australia, British North America, the West Indies, Africa, China, New Zealand and notably on the Subcontinent. The Indian Mutiny of 1857–59 – the suppression of which coincided with the Second Anglo-Chinese (or Opium) War – had placed great strain on the British Army’s manpower reserves.

LOOKING TO PRUSSIA AND FRANCE

As noted in his reports to Parliament during this period, Secretary of State for War Sidney Herbert was well aware that a great deal more attention was paid in other countries to the physical development of the recruit and trained soldier than in Great Britain. As a consequence, in 1859 Herbert asked the General Commanding-in-Chief, the Duke of Cambridge, to select an officer to visit Paris and Berlin to observe how physical training, and in particular the well-established system of military gymnastics, was delivered in these countries.

The officer dispatched to France (Britain’s Opium War ally) and Prussia on a fact-finding mission in 1859 was Colonel (later Sir) Frederick William Hamilton of the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards. He was accompanied on his trip by Dr Thomas Galbraith Logan, the Inspector-General of Army Hospitals. Hamilton had commanded a regiment in the Crimea, seeing action at the Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sebastopol, and Logan had served as Principal Medical Officer of the Highland Division during the Crimean War. Both were thus well acquainted with the issues that needed addressing.

The resultant Report on Gymnastic Instruction in the French and Prussian Armies was published in August 1859. Hamilton noted the use of regular gymnastic exercises under the superintendence of regimental and Medical Officers and remarked on the improvements to general health brought about by such exercises.

Herbert’s attention was also focused on improving sword bayonet skills in the British Army. He noted in a statement to the House of Commons Committee of Supply on 17 February 1860 that there was ‘a very general impression in this country that the French army had got some peculiar bayonet exercise which [gives] them a great superiority over every one else’. Herbert’s friend Henry F. Foley had written to him in July 1859 urging that the sword bayonet should form a key part of the British soldier’s training, including among the men of the Volunteer Rifles Corps.

Embarkation of the sick at Balaklava, a coloured lithograph by E. Morin (1855) after a watercolour by war artist William Simpson. (Wellcome Library, London)

Moves were soon made in the War Office to see what gains might be secured through the introduction of gymnastic exercises to British troops. At the same time, a cadre of instructors who might disseminate their skills and expertise throughout the Armed Forces (should gymnastic instruction prove beneficial) might be formed.

Florence Nightingale, a coloured lithograph by J. A. Vinter (1855) after H. Barraud. Nightingale was one of many who made great efforts to improve the health and physical well-being of the British soldier in the mid-19th century. (Wellcome Library, London)

The question quickly arose as to where such an experimental cohort might receive training, from whom, and for how long. In a private letter dated 18 November 1859, Dr (later Sir) Henry Acland – professor of medicine at Christ Church College, Oxford – wrote to Sidney Herbert to recommend the sending of Army officers to the city to learn the gymnastic system established there under Mr Archibald MacLaren (c.1819–84).

MacLaren was the proprietor of a modern, purpose-built gymnasium in central Oxford, which was used by university students. As a young man, he had studied fencing and gymnastics in Paris. MacLaren adopted a scientific approach to physical training; this manifested itself in the design and construction of gymnasia, the selection of the equipment used therein, and the gathering of data to measure and chart the progress of his subjects (mostly ‘youths from our public schools’, as he called them in a letter to Dr Logan dated 26 April 1861).

By November 1859, Colonel Frederick Hamilton had already visited Oxford (and other gymnastic establishments) in his search for both premises and expert instruction. In an 18 November 1859 letter to Herbert, Acland urges him to ‘make use of [the gymnasium] temporarily for Army instruction’, stating: ‘if you should see fit to send here any number of either Commissioned or Non Commissioned Officers, to learn M’Laren’s [sic] system, we will endeavour to make their residence in Oxford acceptable and pleasant as well as useful’. Acland ends by noting that he has already spoken to the Dean of Christ Church on this matter, who was in full agreement.

As the decision to select Oxford was taking shape, the Duke of Cambridge, General Commanding-in-Chief of the British Army, wrote to the Quartermaster General at the War Office, Sir Richard Airey, on 24 December 1859 requesting a more formalised investigation into the introduction of gymnastic exercises to the British Army.

On 30 March 1860, Sir Richard Airey wrote to Colonel Frederick Hamilton at Wellington Barracks informing him that: ‘the Secretary of State for War has approved of a committee being assembled to consider and report upon the question’. Hamilton, the letter stated, had been appointed as president of this committee, of which the other initial members were to be ‘Inspector General of Hospitals, Dr Logan, and Mr MacLaren of the Gymnasium at Oxford’. The Committee set to work immediately, but would only report formally in 1864.

THE FIRST OXFORD COURSE: SEPTEMBER 1860–APRIL 1861

In early 1860, Archibald MacLaren was chosen to both host and instruct the first group of trainee Army Instructors. Plans were put in place to send 12 non-commissioned officers to Oxford for six months, where they would learn the principles of gymnastic instruction and qualify as the first Military Gymnastic (or Sergeant) Instructors.

A letter of 27 April 1860 from Colonel Hamilton to Major Fred Hammersley of the 14th Regiment of Foot expresses Hamilton’s opinion that the ‘officer who is eventually to take military and educational charge of the gymnasium at Aldershot should accompany these men’. Provided the Duke of Cambridge approved of the idea of an ‘officer commandant’, Hamilton wrote, ‘do you think it is a position that would suit you?’ Hammersley agreed to accompany the 12 NCOs (who later became known as the ‘12 Apostles’) on the Oxford course.

The ‘12 Apostles’ and associates, Oxford, September 1860.

1. Archibald MacLaren.

2. Canon Jenkins, Jesus College, Oxford.

3. Major Hammersley.

4. James Talboys (MacLaren’s nephew).

5. Sgt Rafferty.

6. Sgt Bartlett.

7. Sgt Kearney.

8. Sgt Tarbotton.

9. Sgt Beer.

10. Sgt Smith.

11. Sgt Jackson.

12. Cpl Sheppard.

13. Sgt Flanaghan.

14. Sgt Reilly.

15. Sgt Steel.

16. Sgt Cox.

The 12 NCOs (see Table 1) were selected for the very fact that they were of unexceptional physical stature, as they would best represent an average cadre of Army subjects for the gymnastic experiment. They ranged in weight at the start of the course from 9st. 2lb. (Sgt Smith) to 12st. 6lb. (Sgt Beer), and from 5ft. 5in. (Sgt Flanaghan) to 5ft. 11¾in. (Sgt Beer) in height. They began their gymnastic training course on 11 September 1860. An extract from the Army Medical Report for the year 1860 notes how ‘The exercises in the training at Oxford were so entirely new to the men, some of whom were formed not of the most robust stamp, their instruction had to be proceeded with very carefully.’ MacLaren was unable to include (outdoor) swimming as part of their training, due to the inappropriate nature of the season.

Frederick Hammersley during his service as the Officer Commanding, Regimental Grenadier Company, in the Crimea (1854–57). He was decorated for gallantry during his Crimean War service.

Source: Register of Officers and NCOs on course 1860–1875 (RAPTC Museum)

MacLaren’s scientific methods carefully recorded the changes in the physical appearances and performances of the 12 Apostles over the six-month course, noting the increases in size of forearm, upper arm and girth of chest, as well as weight changes in the men; all had gained (notably Sgt Kearney, whose chest girth increased by 5in. over the six months). The results were published in detail in the Statistical Sanitary and Medical Reports for the Year 1860 of the Army Medical Department.

Two photographs of Sergeant William Henry Kearney, one of the 12 NCOs on the Oxford course; the left was taken in September 1860, and the right in April 1861. Admiring Kearney’s impressively muscled forearms, the Emperor of Germany once exclaimed, ‘I should not like a blow from that!’

On 27 April 1861, their course successfully completed, Hammersley and the 12 Sergeant Instructors left Oxford and returned to Aldershot, where all would take up initial positions at the Headquarters Gymnasium. (A second party of 13 NCOs was sent to Oxford, their course commencing in December 1861 and completing in July 1862; they were accompanied by the first officer on a course, apart from Hammersley, a lieutenant from the 64th Foot.)

THE FIRST GYMNASIA: 1860–64

In the early days, establishing the right facilities was as vital as the quality of the instructors. Indoor, purpose-built and properly equipped gymnasia that could be used with safety and efficiency throughout the year were required – ‘large, airy, and substantial buildings’ as MacLaren called them. Purpose-built gymnasia were important for supporting and erecting appropriate equipment and were better suited to maintaining good order, provided they had good ventilation, light and space. Gymnasia would serve for both bodily exercise and also as a school of arms, where fencing (‘eminently suitable to officers’ as MacLaren put it), sword exercise and bayonet exercise might be taught and practised.

Bronze medal belonging to Sgt Joseph Tarbotton struck to commemorate successful completion of the first gymnastic course in Oxford in April 1861. Each of the 12 Apostles, and Major Hammersley, received one of these.

Keen for his purpose-built Oxford gymnasium to serve as a model for the Army’s first constructions, MacLaren outlined the ideal building design in an 1864 lecture to the Royal United Service Institution. It should possess length, for running and vaulting activities, as well as accommodating large numbers of men at the same time – making an oblong shape ideal. ‘A small portion only of the building needs to be very lofty’ to accommodate climbing apparatus, he notes, which ‘naturally falls to the centre’. The two end walls are to be used for escalading, featuring narrow platforms running along the tiebeams of the roof to accustom soldiers to traversing narrow objects.

Such gymnasia would come at a cost, though. In his speech to the House of Commons Committee of Supply on 17 February 1860, Sidney Herbert informed the members that work on purpose-built gymnasia ‘at one or two of our principal stations’ could soon begin. These were budgeted at £5,000 (c.£250,000 in 2016 terms). In the vote that followed, the Commons approved Sidney Herbert’s plans by a majority of 154 to 18, and work to construct the first gymnasium at South Camp, Aldershot, commenced.

In 1861 the riding school at Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight was inspected by MacLaren with a view to converting it into a gymnasium, as the correspondence between MacLaren, the War Office and the Royal Engineers from this period makes clear. Permission to begin its conversion was eventually given in May 1862.

St John’s Wood Barracks in north London (formerly a riding school, and then home to the Foot Guards) was also inspected for potential development in 1861. In November that year, the order was given to convert the riding school into a gymnasium following MacLaren’s plans, at a cost of c.£500.

A military gymnasium was built at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1861. MacLaren’s correspondence of 4 October 1861 indicates he was requested to correspond with Col Ford, commander of the Royal Engineers at Woolwich, and Col Wilford, Governor of the Royal Military Academy, over the plan for a gymnasium at the Academy, and it entered service in 1863. In late 1861 MacLaren was also involved in fitting up the gymnasium at Warley Barracks, Colchester.

A gymnasium was erected at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst (where cadets had mutinied earlier in the year), in late 1862, and MacLaren was involved in furnishing it with apparatus (at a cost of £750), as his 3 September 1862 correspondence with the War Office makes clear. The fitting up was completed in March 1863, and the gymnasium was considered ready to receive its instructors.

THE FIRST ARMY GYMNASIUM: SOUTH CAMP, ALDERSHOT

A paper in Sidney Herbert’s collection dated 12 December 1860 provides interesting details about the construction of the South Camp gymnasium. It notes that the committee appointed to consider the question of introducing gymnastics into the Army received a plan for a single ‘first class’ gymnasium (suitable for a garrison of 7,000 men) from MacLaren. His plan, however, was considered too expensive; although he submitted a modified (and final) plan, this was still budgeted at £5,400. To reduce costs, a suggestion was made (and rejected by the committee) to emplace apparatus in ‘open sheds’. MacLaren calculated that his gymnasium could be used for six hours each day, with a new batch of men each hour, with each batch in the garrison receiving instruction two or three times a week. MacLaren urged the committee to erect a gymnasium based on his plan as a form of trial.

The paper notes that by this date a building had ‘already been erected’ at Aldershot, ‘though not on [MacLaren’s] plan, and to the construction of which he objects’ (the presence of this building is also mentioned in an extract from the Army Medical Report for the year 1860). MacLaren suggested reserving this building for officer use only, and constructing a new gymnasium for enlisted men, either at Aldershot, or as a cheaper ‘second class’ gymnasium at Portsmouth (both sites being easily accessible from Oxford).

The Herbert paper ends by noting that, as of 12 December 1860, the amount budgeted for the construction of gymnasia was ‘not yet expended’ – indicating the only military gymnasium in existence at this date was the apparently unsatisfactory building erected at Aldershot.

The gymnasium at South Camp, Aldershot, in an 1866 drawing. Note the Octagon structure to the left; the ‘prepared wall’ offering ascent by ‘hole’, ‘projection’ or ‘groove’ in the centre background; and the ‘Great Cross Beam’ combining poles and ladders and various apparatus suspended from the central beam, to the right.

Construction of a brand new 100ft-long, soft-floored gymnasium at Chatham, Kent, began in early 1863, at a cost of £6,000. The costs of the fitments in the latter was spread over a few years, with £200 being paid in late 1863, and the balance of c.£300 in 1864/65. The other gymnasia either completed or under construction in these early years were sited at Colchester, Chelsea and on Malta.

INDIAN GYMNASIA

In the wake of the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Army (comprising the armies of the Bengal, Madras and Bombay presidencies and native troops) was formed to serve alongside the c.80,000 British Army troops in India. Both Florence Nightingale’s and Sidney Herbert’s reforming attention turned to the welfare of British troops in India (and other sovereign territories), as well as that of native troops in the Indian Army.

In July 1863, Archibald MacLaren was requested by the War Office to express his views on how best to introduce his military gymnastic instruction into India. He wrote in April 1864, advising: ‘the first step would be the organisation of a single gymnasium at a suitable station … on approval [it] would serve as a normal school for the preparation of instructors and Officers to superintend other Gymnasia on the extension of the system to other stations’.

Although it initially lagged behind the home nation in the introduction of gymnastic instruction, India witnessed the establishment of the first gymnasia around the late 1860s. Sergeant Flanaghan of the 41st Foot – one of the original 12 Apostles – was transferred to India in January 1872 and would serve as Chief Instructor at Lucknow Gymnasium during 1873–75. The London Gazette notes the appointment of separate Inspectors of Gymnasia in the three presidencies from the 1870s, but it was not until