The 1st Cinque Ports Rifle Volunteers was a part-time unit of the British Army first raised from the Cinque Ports of Kent and Sussex in 1859. It later became the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. During the First World War, it served on the Western front as pioneers, seeing a great deal of action at Aubers Ridge, the Somme, Ypres, and in Italy. In the Second World War, both the battalion and its duplicate served in the Battle of France and were evacuated from Dunkirk. The 5th Battalion then fought at the Second Battle of El Alamein while its duplicate unit served as an anti-aircraft regiment in the campaign in North West Europe. Neither unit was reformed after the war.
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 formed in the Cinque Ports towns along the coast of Sussex and Kent. The 1st Cinque Ports RVC, commanded by Captain the Hon George Waldegrave, was raised out of the Hastings Rifle Club, which in all but name was the successor of the old Cinque Ports Volunteers of about 1789.Beckett, Appendix VII.Frederick, pp. 210–1.Westlake, pp. 46–9, 233–6. The volunteers drilled at the Market Hall in George Street and began rifle practice at Rock-a-Nore, where they shot at targets set at the base of the cliffs. Later that year, Lady Waldegrave allowed them to set up a range shooting across Ecclesbourne Glen, which they used for many years until a new rifle range was opened in Warren Glen in May 1901. Most of the volunteers provided their own rifles and the corps funded its own uniforms. By the middle of 1859 it had reached 70 members, and was officially adopted on 17 December 1859.'The Volunteers in Hastings' at Drill Hall Project.
An Administrative Battalion to control the Cinque Ports RVCs was formed at Hastings in late 1860 under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon Henry Hall Gage of the Royal Sussex Light Infantry Militia:Army List, various dates.5th (Cinque Ports) Bn at Regiments.org.
1st Administrative Battalion, Cinque Ports Rifle Volunteer Corps 1st (Hastings) Cinque Ports RVC, formed 17 December 1859 2nd (Ramsgate) Cinque Ports RVC, formed as 2nd Kent RVC 18 September 1859; joined April 1860; transferred to 2nd Cinque Ports Admin Battalion December 1861 3rd (Rye and Tenterden) Cinque Ports RVC, formed as 2nd Cinque Ports RVC with half-companies at Rye and Tenterden, 4 January 1860; renumbered when 2nd Kent RVC joined; Rye portion broke up by September 1861, with members joining either the 1st Cinque Ports RVC or the 1st Cinque Ports Artillery Volunteers, and HQ moved to Tenterden; transferred to 5th Kent Admin Bn December 1861 4th (Hythe) Cinque Ports RVC, formed 13 February 1860 as the 1st Subdivision, numbered 4th RVC April 1860; transferred to 2nd Cinque Ports Admin Bn December 1861 5th (Folkestone) Cinque Ports RVC, formed on 30 March 1860 as a result of a public meeting at the Old King's Arms Assembly Rooms; transferred to 2nd Cinque Ports Admin Bn December 1861 6th (Deal and Walmer) Cinque Ports RVC, formed as 3rd Subdivision at Deal on 20 April 1860 under the command of Colonel Julius Backhouse, CB, formerly of the Bengal Artillery; transferred to 2nd Cinque Ports Admin Bn December 1861 7th (Margate) Cinque Ports RVC, formed 22 March 1860; transferred to 2nd Cinque Ports Admin Bn December 1861 8th (Dover) Cinque Ports RVC, formed 30 July 1860; transferred to 2nd Cinque Ports Admin Bn December 1861 9th (Rye) Cinque Ports RVC, formed 12 December 1864 from Rye elements of 1st Cinque Ports RVC (see 3rd Cinque Ports RVC); absorbed into 1st Cinque Ports RVC 1876 2nd (Cuckfield) Sussex RVC, formed 2 December 1859; transferred from 3rd Sussex Admin Bn 1863; transferred to 2nd Sussex Admin Bn 1870 4th (Lewes) Sussex RVC, formed 25 January 1860; transferred from 3rd Sussex Admin Bn 1863 16th (Battle) Sussex RVC, formed 19 May 1860; transferred from 3rd Sussex Admin Bn 1861; absorbed into 4th Sussex RVC 1876 17th (Etchingham) Sussex RVC, formed 4 June 1860; transferred from 5th Kent Admin Bn 1861; absorbed into 4th Sussex RVC 1876 19th (Eastbourne) Sussex RVC, formed 6 October 1860; transferred from 3rd Sussex Admin Bn 1861; disbanded 1868 20th (Uckfield) Sussex RVC, formed 27 October 1870; absorbed into 1st Cinque Ports RVC 1876
The 2nd Administrative Battalion, Cinque Ports Rifle Volunteer Corps formed at Dover in December 1861 took over the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th (disbanded 1863), 7th, and 8th Cinque Ports RVCs, later joined by: 10th (New Romney) Cinque Ports RVC, formed 22 December 1864
The 2nd Admin Bn was broken up in 1874, its corps being either absorbed into the 5th Kent RVC or added to the 4th Kent Admin Bn.
A drill hall was opened in Middle Street, Hastings, in 1861, to be used by the Cinque Ports Rifles and the 1st Cinque Ports Artillery Volunteers. A replacement building was erected on the same site in 1895.Hastings at Drill Hall Project.
Under the 'Localisation of the Forces' scheme introduced by the Cardwell Reforms of 1872, Volunteers were grouped into county brigades with their local Regular and Militia battalions. This was in Sub-District No 43 in South Eastern District for the Cinque Ports Battalion, grouped with the 35th (Royal Sussex) and 107th Regiments of Foot, the Royal Sussex Light Infantry Militia and the 1st and 2nd Sussex RVCs.Spiers, pp. 195–6.
Royal Sussex Regiment
When the RVCs were consolidated in 1880, the 1st Admin Bn became the 1st Cinque Ports (Cinque Ports and Sussex) Rifle Volunteers. 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 1st Cinque Ports becoming its third volunteer battalion (VB), but without changing its title. The 1st Cinque Ports now had the following organisation: A Company at Hastings – from 1st Cinque Ports B Company at Battle – from 1st Cinque Ports C Company at Ticehurst – from 1st Cinque Ports D Company at Lewes – from 4th Sussex E Company at Rye – formed 1885 F Company at Hastings – formed 1887 G Company at Crowborough – formed 1890 H Company at Ore – formed 1890 I Company at Hastings – formed 1900 K Company at Ore – formed 1900 Eastbourne College Cadet Corps – formed 1896
Arthur Montagu Brookfield, a former lieutenant in the 13th Hussars, took over as commanding officer (CO) with the rank of lieutenant-colonel on 13 September 1884. He found problems obtaining suitable officers: the local rural gentry were distrustful of military service and it was difficult to persuade busy professional men to take commissions. Brookfield was elected MP for Rye in 1885, and became secretary of the influential Service Members' Committee in the House of Commons, helping to counter the antipathy of senior army officers towards the volunteers.Beckett, pp. 78, 164–5, 173, 271, 275.
While Cardwell's sub-districts were later 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 1st Cinque Ports 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.
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. The Royal Sussex's VBs accordingly raised a service company that joined the 1st Battalion and earned the volunteer battalions their first Battle honour: South Africa 1900–02. The 1st Cinque Ports Rifles contingent left Hastings in February 1900, and a second contingent in February 1901.Beckett, p. 213.
Meanwhile, the 1st Cinque Ports' CO, Lt-Col Arthur Brookfield, commanded the 14th Battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa.Beckett, p. 275. It is possible that some of his volunteers joined the 69th (Sussex) Company of this battalion, which was sponsored by the Sussex Yeomanry.Imperial Yeomanry at Regiments.org. Brookfield retired from the command of the Cinque Ports battalion in 1903 when he joined the Consular service, and was replaced by Brevet Colonel Charles Cafe, a retired regular officer.
Territorial Force When the Volunteers were subsumed into the new Territorial Force (TF) under the Haldane Reforms of 1908,Beckett, pp. 247–53.Dunlop, Chapter 14.Spiers, Chapter 10. the battalion became the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment:London Gazette 20 March 1908.Conrad, 1914.1/5th Royal Sussex at Reed, Old Battlefields.
HQ at Drill Hall, Middle Street, Hastings A Company at Hastings B Company at Drill Hall, North TradeRoad, Battle,Battle at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Dallington, Robertsbridge, Sedlescombe and StaplecrossSussex Drill Stations at Drill Hall Project. C Company at Wadhurst,Wadhurst at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Pashley Road, Ticehurst,Ticehurst at Drill Hall Project. Burwash, Flimwell, Frant and Hurst Green D Company at Market Street, Lewes,Lewes at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Glynde and Stanmer E Company at Volunteers' Armoury, Cinque Ports Street, Rye; moved to Drill Hall, Windmill Lane, in 1912,Rye at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Icklesham, Northiam and Peasmarsh F Company at Framfield Road, Uckfield,Uckfield at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Buxted, East Hoathly, Hadlow Down, Heathfield, Newick and Nutley G Company at Drill Hall, Fermor Road, Crowborough,Crowborough at Drill Hall Project. with detachments at Blackham, Groombridge, Hartfield, Mayfield and Rotherfield H Company at Grove Road, Ore,Ore at Drill Hall Project. with Left Half at the Drill Hall at Down Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, shared with 6th Sussex Battery, Royal Field Artillery and D Squadron, Sussex Yeomanry,Bexhill at Drill Hall Project. and a detachment at Westfield Eastbourne College Cadet Corps joined the Junior Division of the Officers' Training Corps
The two TF battalions of the Royal Sussex (4th and 5th) were not included in the Home Counties Division, but were attached to it as 'Army Troops'.James, pp. 77–8.Royal Sussex at Long, Long Trail.
Before the First World War, the CO was Lt-Col Frederick George Langham, VD, of the Hastings solicitors Young Coles & Langdon.Langham, Square Toes. He had been commissioned into the battalion on 13 March 1886,London Gazette, 12 March 1886. promoted to captain on 3 January 1891London Gazette, 2 January 1891. and major on 4 November 1896.London Gazette, 3 November 1896. He was appointed Honorary Lt-Col on 28 July 1906,London Gazette, 27 July 1906. and promoted to Lt-Col in command in succession to Col Cafe on 21 October 1911.London Gazette, 20 October 1911. His younger brother Edward Hennah Langham was also commissioned into the battalion on 11 March 1896 London Gazette, 10 March 1896. and his son Cecil Richard on 19 August 1910.London Gazette, 27 September 1910. The Rev William Streatfeild, later Bishop of Lewes, was one of the battalion's chaplains, with the rank of Chaplain 4th Class (TF).
First World War Mobilisation