Catalogue description Royal Logistic Corps Museum: Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Corps of Transport Photograph Collection

This record is held by Royal Logistic Corps Museum

Details of RASCRCT
Reference: RASCRCT
Title: Royal Logistic Corps Museum: Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Corps of Transport Photograph Collection
Description:

The division of the photographs into two series is not based on content. Both series largely comprise photographs of personnel serving in the Army Service Corps, Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Corps of Transport. These have been taken in the UK and overseas, and include Volunteer and TA units. Official photographs form a large part of the collection, showing units and groups of personnel, and visits and inspections by military staff and royalty for example. Items given by ex Corps members and by the Corps Journal (The Waggoner after 1965) include group photographs, but also many informal pictures. Wherever possible units and individuals have been named.

 

This is not a comprehensive catalogue for the RASCRCT collection. Photographs allotted to other categories such as Corps History, Recruits, Groups and Training remain largely unlisted. It is evident that allocation of photographs to categories has been inconsistent as examples of these can be found in both series listed here.

Date: 1889-1993, 2001
Arrangement:

The collection comprises two series. The first, with the reference D3, retains an earlier series code instituted for all accessions relating to units in the Army Service Corps, Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Corps of Transport. It is believed that within this series, new accessions were assigned a running reference number, however there are large gaps in numbering in the only surviving documentation, which also overlooks accession details and provides only a terse descriptive sentence for the content of each accession. The second series covers all photographs that have no previous D3 accession number evident although found in D3 boxes upon transfer to the RCL Museum, or are recent accessions that should fall into this category. Photographs within this series have been assigned the reference code NNA meaning 'no number archives' with a running number following RLC Museum practice.

 

It is believed that some photographs in the NNA series may have originally been assigned a D3 number although this was never recorded on the photograph itself. They may therefore fill gaps in the D3 numbering system, or correspond to some of the entries in the documentation. At the time of writing this had not possible to establish.

 

Within both series, where groups of photographs have been found, these have been listed as 'files', with item level entries supplied for each photograph within the group. Where they have been found in isolation, individual photographs have been listed as file entries.

Related material:

The RLC Museum Archive holds a complete set of RLC and Forming Corps Journals dating from the Nineteenth Century to the present day. The website www.rlcarchive.org has placed on-line all of those which the Forming Corps published between 1914 and 1964, covering the period from the start of the First World War to the end of National Service. The Journals can be browsed from page to page or searched by a word or phrase of choice.

 

The Journals are a valuable source of information on the activities of the Forming Corps and the lives of those who served with them. The Journals provide details of operations, exercises, unit news and Corps sport.

 

For those wishing to learn more of individual soldiers and officers who served in the Forming Corps the Journals can be a very useful source of research. The Journals published details of individuals' promotions, postings, marriages and obituaries. Casualty lists, seniority lists and medal awards were also published in the Journals. At the very least the Journals can provide general background information to an officer's or soldier's time in the Forming Corps.

 

Also available on this website are the Quarterlies/Reviews of the Army Service Corps/Royal Army Service Corps (ASC/RASC) that were published between 1905 and 1964. These more scholarly publications provide a more detailed understanding of the work of the ASC/RASC. Articles in the Quarterlies were usually written by serving Officers on subjects that include doctrinal and technological developments within the Corps. The Quarterlies also published narratives of campaigns and operations, written with an emphasis on supply and transport in the British Army.

 

Over time, the format of the Journals did occasionally change. Consequently the content emphasis does vary. Please also note although this website offers access to all the Journals published between 1914 and 1964, within these years there were periods when some of the Forming Corps did not produce a Journal. However, activities and operations that did occur in years which Journals were not published are usually written up retrospectively when publication of the Journals resumed. Details for when the Forming Corps did not publish Journals are as follows: The Army Ordnance Corps did not publish a Journal between 1915 and 1919.; The Royal Pioneer Corps did not publish an official journal until 1946. This website does include the Journal produced by 30 Group RPC between 1943 and 1945.; The Army Catering Corps' first Journal was not published until 1947.; ASC/RASC Quarterlies were not published over the years 1915-1921 and 1940-1948..

 

Access to the Journals is on a pay/view or subscription basis. Please see www.rlcarchive.org for further details.

Held by: Royal Logistic Corps Museum, not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Creator:

Royal Army Service Corps

Royal Corps of Transport

Physical description: 2 series
Administrative / biographical background:

The RASC formed the largest serving Corps in the British Army. Its immediate predecessor was the Army Service Corps, 1869-1875 and 1888-1918 whose roots lay in the Royal Waggoners, raised in 1794, and it was consequently part of a long tradition of providing supply and transport services to the British Army. In recognition of its services during World War One the 'royal' prefix was granted in 1918. It operated most of the Army's road transport, as well as having some responsibilities at sea and by air, and provided supplies such as rations, forage, fuel and petroleum products. The RASC was re-designated in 1965, becoming the Royal Corps of Transport, when it was joined by the Transportation and Movement Control Branches of the Royal Engineers. From this date, responsibility for providing all stores, together with barracks and fire services passed to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and the RCT became responsible for the operation and control of all forms of transport worldwide. The RASC Museum was established at Buller Barracks, Aldershot, in 1944, collecting photographs, archives and objects relating to the history of the Corps and its predecessor bodies. It was renamed the RCT Museum following the RASC's re-designation in 1965. These photographs, some of which are copies, have been obtained from a variety of sources including RASC (later RCT) Headquarters, ex-Corps members or their executors, and the Corps Journal (known as The Waggoner after 1965), in which some are known to have been published. In 1993, the Royal Corps of Transport, the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, the Royal Pioneer Corps, the Army Catering Corps and the Postal and Courier Service of the Royal Engineers amalgamated to form the Royal Logistic Corps. A new corps museum was built in 1995 to provide a home for the collections of each of the constituent corps.

Link to NRA Record:

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