The 2nd Sussex Rifle Volunteers was a part-time unit of the British Army first raised from the county of Sussex in 1859. It later became the 4th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment. A detachment served in the Second Boer War. During the First World War, the battalion fought at Gallipoli, in Sinai and Palestine, and then in the final months of the war on the Western Front. In the Second World War, both the battalion and its duplicate served in the Battle of France and were evacuated from Dunkirk. The 4th Battalion then fought at the Second Battle of El Alamein, and served in the Middle East until the end of the war. It continued in the postwar Territorial Army until it lost its individual identity in a series of mergers from 1967.
Volunteer Force An invasion scare in 1859 led to the emergence of the Volunteer Movement, and Rifle Volunteer Corps (RVCs) began to be organised throughout Great Britain.Beckett.Spiers, pp. 163–8. A number of these were raised in Sussex, and three Administrative Battalions were formed in April 1860 to control these independent corps (other RVCs formed in the Cinque Ports of Sussex and Kent were organised in their own numerical sequence and admin battalions):Beckett, Appendix VII.Frederick, pp. 210–1.Westlake, Rifle Volunteers, pp. 233–6.Army List, various dates.
1st Administrative Battalion, Sussex Rifle Volunteer Corps4th Bn, Royal Sussex at Regiments.org. Headquarters (HQ): Chichester, moving to Worthing in 1866 8th (Storrington) Sussex RVC, formed 16 February 1860 with Sir Charles Goring, 9th Baronet as captain, transferred to 2nd Sussex Admin Bn by beginning of 1861 9th (Arundel) Sussex RVC, formed 28 February 1860 with Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk (died 25 November 1860) as captain 10th (Chichester) Sussex RVC, formed 1 March 1860 with George Green Nicholls, formerly lieutenant-colonel, 90th Foot, as captain 11th (Worthing) Sussex RVC, formed 10 March 1860 12th (Westbourne) Sussex RVC, formed 8 December 1860 15th (Bognor) Sussex RVC, formed 9 April 1860, disbanded 1865
2nd Administrative Battalion, Sussex Rifle Volunteer Corps2nd Admin Bn, Sussex Rifle Volunteers at Regiments.org. HQ: Petworth, moving to Horsham in 1869 6th (Petworth) Sussex RVC, formed 15 February 1860 with Walter Barttelot Barttelot, formerly captain, 1st Dragoons, as captain-commandantBurke's: Barttelot. 7th (Horsham) Sussex RVC, formed as 1st Sub-Division 1859, redesignated 2 April 1860 13th (Hurstpierpoint) Sussex RVC, formed 14 March 1860 14th (Crawley) Sussex RVC, formed 14 March 1860, disbanded 1863 18th (Henfield) Sussex RVC, formed 14 June 1860 20th (Billingshurst) Sussex RVC, formed January 1860, disbanded by December 1860 without any officers being appointed 8th (Storrington) Sussex RVC, transferred from 1st Sussex Admin Bn by beginning of 1861, disbanded 1876 5th (East Grinstead) Sussex RVC, transferred from 3rd Sussex Admin Bn 1863 2nd (Cuckfield) Sussex RVC, transferred from 1st Cinque Ports Admin Bn 1870
3rd Administrative Battalion, Sussex Rifle Volunteer Corps HQ: Brighton 1st (Brighton) Sussex RVC, formed as two companies 23 November 1859 with R. Molsom, formerly captain, Scots Fusilier Guards, as captain 2nd (Cuckfield) Sussex RVC, formed as two companies 2 December 1859 4th (Lewes) Sussex RVC, formed 25 January 1860 5th (East Grinstead) Sussex RVC, formed 9 February 1860, transferred to 2nd Sussex Admin Bn 1863 16th (Battle) Sussex RVC, formed 19 May 1860 19th (Eastbourne) Sussex RVC, formed 6 October 1860, disbanded 1868
No 3rd Sussex RVC appears to have been formed, but two others were raised: 17th (Etchingham) Sussex RVC, formed 4 June 1860, joined 5th Kent Admin Bn (New) 20th (Uckfield) Sussex RVC, formed 27 October 1870, joined 1st Cinque Ports Admin Bn
On 26 April 1860 George Nicholls (10th RVC) and Walter Barttelot (6th RVC) were promoted to major and R. Molsom (1st RVC) to lt-col, to command the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Admin Bns respectively; Barttelot was succeeded as captain-commandant of the 6th RVC on the same day by Edward Turnour, 4th Earl Winterton.London Gazette, 8 May 1860. The 3rd Sussex Admin Bn was broken up in 1863, by which time the 1st Sussex RVC had grown to six companies and became an independent unit, while the 5th (East Grinstead) transferred to the 2nd Admin Bn and the other RVCs of the 3rd Admin Bn transferred to the 1st Cinque Ports Admin Bn. The Very Rev Walter Hook, Dean of Chichester, was appointed honorary chaplain of the 1st Admin Bn on 13 August 1864.
Under the 'Localisation of the Forces' scheme introduced by the Cardwell Reforms of 1872, Volunteers were brigaded with their local Regular and Militia battalions. For the Sussex and Cinque Ports RVCs and Admin Bns this was in Sub-District No 43 in South Eastern District, grouped with the 35th (Royal Sussex) and 107th Regiments of Foot and the Royal Sussex Light Infantry Militia.Spiers, pp. 195–6.
The 1st and 2nd Sussex Admin Bns were amalgamated in 1874 and consolidated as the 2nd Sussex RVC on 4 February 1880: HQ at Worthing
A and B Companies at Cuckfield – from 2nd RVC C Company at East Grinstead – from 5th RVC D Company at Petworth – from 6th RVC E Company at Horsham – from 7th RVC F Company at Arundel – from 9th RVC
G Company at Chichester – from 10th RVC H Company at Worthing – from 11th RVC I Company at Westbourne – from 12th RVC K Company at Hurstpierpoint – from 13th RVC L Company at Henfield – from 18th RVC
The officer corps of the unit was dominated by the most prominent political and landowning families of the county. Barttelot was elected MP for West Sussex in 1860, and was created a baronet in 1875. He continued to command the battalion until he became its Honorary Colonel in 1882. His son Walter George Barttelot, formerly of the 5th Dragoon Guards and Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry, became a captain in the battalion on 13 March 1886.Brighton War Memorial at Roll of Honour. The elder Barttelot was succeeded in the command by Sir Henry Fletcher, 4th Baronet, former lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards who had been appointed a supernumerary lt-col in the battalion on 6 May 1874. Fletcher was elected MP for Horsham in 1880.Burke's: Aubrey-Fletcher. Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk, who had become captain of his father's old 9th (Arundel) RVC on 5 April 1871, was promoted to major in the 2nd Sussex on 4 March 1882. Another family long associated with the unit was the Campions of Danny House, near Hurstpierpoint: William Henry Campion, formerly captain in the 53rd Foot, who had fought in the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny, with the 72nd Highlanders, was appointed major on 30 April 1873, and succeeded Fletcher as lt-col on 27 January 1897.Brent, pp. 87–9, 93–4, 123.
Royal Sussex Regiment
The Childers Reforms of 1881 took Cardwell's reforms further, the linked battalions becoming county regiments to which the Volunteers were formally affiliated. The 35th and 107th became the Royal Sussex Regiment on 1 July 1881, the 2nd Sussex RVC becoming its 2nd Volunteer Battalion (VB), but without changing its title until February 1887.
While Cardwell's sub-districts were often referred to as 'brigades', they were purely administrative organisations and the Volunteers were excluded from the 'mobilisation' part of the scheme. The Stanhope Memorandum of December 1888 proposed a more comprehensive Mobilisation Scheme for Volunteer units, which would assemble in their own brigades at key points in case of war. In peacetime these brigades provided a structure for collective training.Beckett, pp. 135, 185–6.Dunlop, pp. 60–1; Appendix A.Spiers, pp. 228–9. Under this scheme the 2nd Sussex formed part of the Dover Brigade, later entitled the South Eastern Brigade, before the Royal Sussex VBs formed their own Sussex Brigade at the end of the 1890s. This became the Sussex and Kent Brigade in the early 1900s, with its HQ at St Elmo, Worthing.Worthing at Drill Hall Project. Colonel Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher commanded this brigade from 1897 to 1904
Second Boer War After Black Week in December 1899, the Volunteers were invited to send active service units to assist the regulars in the Second Boer War. The War Office decided that one company 116 strong could be recruited from the volunteer battalions of any infantry regiment that had a regular battalion serving in South Africa.Beckett, p. 213. The Royal Sussex's VBs accordingly raised a service company, to which the 2nd VB contributed 80 or more volunteers under Maj the Duke of Norfolk and Capt Sir Walter Barttelot, 2nd Baronet (the Duke transferred to 69th (Sussex) Company, Imperial Yeomanry69th Co IY at Anglo-Boer War.Burke's: Norfolk.). The service company joined 1st Bn Royal Sussex and saw action at Welkom Farm, Zand River, Doornkop, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Diamond Hill. Sir Walter Barttelot was killed leading his men at Retief's Nek on 23 July 1900.Royal Sussex at Anglo-Boer War. The service company was in South Africa for a year, and was replaced by two further companies from the VBs as the war continued. These companies earned the Royal Sussex VBs their first Battle honour: South Africa 1900–02.
There was a general expansion of the Volunteers during the Boer War, and the 2nd VB increased to 12 companies in 1900. In addition, three school Cadet Corps were affiliated to the battalion: St John's College, Hurstpierpoint, since 1887, Lancing College, Shoreham-by-Sea, from 1900 and Ardingly College, Hayward's Heath, from 1902. Rev Henry Southwell, VD, later a canon of Chichester Cathedral, was appointed one of the battalion's chaplains on 9 April 1904.
After the Boer War, a Royal Commission on Militia and Volunteers was established in 1903, chaired by the Duke of Norfolk, who had been promoted to lt-col commandant of the 2nd VB on 24 December 1902. The commission attempted to define the role of the auxiliary forces, and made detailed proposals on how their deficiencies in training and equipment could be addressed. Norfolk's commission proposed a Home Defence Army raised by conscription, which was unpopular with the Volunteers and Yeomanry, and was quickly shelved.Beckett, pp. 231–4.Dunlop, pp. 148_51, 173–8.Spiers, p. 255.
Territorial Force However, in conjunction with the Elgin Commission on the War in South Africa, the Norfolk Commission's work influenced the creation of the Territorial Force (TF) under the 1908 Haldane Reforms, which subsumed the Volunteer Force.Beckett, pp. 247–53.Dunlop, Chapter 14.Spiers, Chapter 10. Under the TF the 2nd VB became the 4th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment (not to be confused with the 4th (Royal Sussex Militia) Bn that existed between 1881 and 1890).London Gazette 20 March 1908. HQ moved from its old location at Teville Road, Worthing, to the Drill Hall at Park Street, Horsham,Horsham at Drill Hall Project. before the outbreak of the First World War. The battalion was distributed as follows:Conrad, 1914. A Company at Drill Hall, Market Place, Hayward's HeathHayward's Heath at Drill Hall Project. B Company at Drill Hall, High Street, Hurstpierpoint,Hurstpierpoint at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Burgess Hill and HenfieldSussex Drill Stations at Drill Hall Project. C Company at De La Warr Road, East Grinstead,East Grinstead at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Crawley and Forest Row D Company at Midhurst Road, Petworth,Petworth at Drill Hall Project. with a detachment at Northchapel E Company at Horsham, with a detachment at Warnham F Company at Graystock Terrace, Arundel,Arundel at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Ashington and Storrington G Company at Drill Hall, Priory Park, Chichester,Chichester at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at the Drill Hall, Bedford Street, BognorBognor at Drill Hall Project. and at Eastergate H Company at Bath Place, Worthing