HC Deb 17 March 1879 vol 244 cc1029-31
LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE

asked the Secretary of State for War, If it is true that this year the appointments of Brigade Major of Artillery proceeding to Africa, and last year of Cavalry Brigade Major in Ireland, were given to officers who had not passed through the Staff College, although it is laid down in the Queen's Regulations that No officer will be appointed to the Staff as deputy assistant of the Adjutant and Quartermaster General's Department, or as Brigade Major, who shall not have passed the final examination of the Staff College, except in the case of "officers of proved ability on the staff in the field," who may be so appointed; if it is considered that the officers to whom the above appointments were given were of such "proved ability on the staff in the field" as to give them a prior claim to all the officers of the Staff College available for the above appointments; and, if the Quartermaster General and his deputy on Lord Chelmsford's Staff at the time of the recent disaster at Isandula had qualified in the Staff College?

COLONEL STANLEY,

in reply, said, that at the time the appointment first referred to was made only five Artillery officers had passed the Staff College. Of these, two were in India, one was medically unfit, one was selected for other Staff employment, and one, he believed, was not considered suitable. Of the two who passed the College last December, one was abroad, and the other had embarked for the Cape for special service. As to the appointment of Cavalry Brigade Major in Ireland, the only Cavalry officer available at the time had previously hold a Staff appointment, which he had only recently resigned, and it was not, therefore, thought advisable to select him. With regard to the officers to whom the appointments were given, neither of them had, as the Question put, "shown proved ability on the Staff in the field;" but one had been, in 1873, on the Staff of the Inspecting General of Cavalry at Aldershot, and the other was selected as being particularly fit for the post, and had held in the Royal Artillery one or more Staff appointments, though possessing no positive field service. With regard to the last part of the Question of the noble Lord, it was not required by the Regulations that these officers should pass through the Staff College. The Deputy to the Quartermaster General had passed through the College; and the other officer was selected on the spot by Lord Chelmsford, who was authorized by the Regulations to make such appointments on the field.

MAJOR NOLAN

asked the Secretary of State for War, If an officer of the Royal Engineers has been admitted to the Staff College in place of another officer of Engineers, who has been ordered to Natal?

COLONEL STANLEY,

in reply, said, that when vacancies occurred in the Staff College it was sometimes, but not always, the custom to fill them up. The Director General of Military Education said it was inconvenient to do so, because the officers so joining could not go through the full course; and, secondly, because the others might rejoin at any time before those who had taken their places had left, and thus supernumeraries were created in the College. An officer of the Royal Engineers had been admitted in the place of an officer ordered, not to Natal, but to India. This officer had twice passed third, and it was thought no harm would be done by letting him join.