The Volunteer Artillery of the British Army

The Consolidation of the Artillery Volunteers in 1880

In the years 1859-1861 Artillery Volunteers Corps (AVC) were created all over Britain. They were of different sizes and were soon combined in Administrative Brigades (numbered within their county) to administer them. Some, mostly in urban areas, were large enough (several batteries, brigade size) to administer themselves (and often a few smaller AVCs in the neighbourhood). The first column shows the Administrative Brigades of Artillery Volunteers (and the Artillery Volunteer Corps that were part of them) and the independent Artillery Volunteer Corps as at the begin of 1880.

Counties got a precedence and a number in the sequence of the date of acceptance of the first AVC in a county. The corps were numbered inside each county in the sequence they were accepted.

In the begin of 1880 all remaining Administrative Brigades were consolidated into single Artillery Volunteer Corps (with the old corps as batteries) that got the title (number and county name) of the lowest numbered corps in the Administrative Brigade. These are shown in the second column.

Later in 1880, the gaps in this numbering were filled by moving the numbers down. These are the Artillery Volunteers Corps as shown in the third column.

In 1882 all Artillery Volunteer Corps were attached to one of the territorial divisions of the Royal Artillery.