Catalogue description Addiscombe Military Seminary

By the end of the eighteenth century the East India Company had recognised that cadets for the technical branches of its armies needed a better training than that received under the 'direct' system, and from 1798, a number of artillery and enginer cadets were educated at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.

This arrangement proved both expensive and unsatisfactory, and in 1809 the Company opened its own seminary for such cadets at Addiscombe Place near Croydon. A special Military Seminary Committee of the Court of Directors was created to govern the new institution and also to pass the 'direct' cadets for the cavalry and infantry; its functions were transferred to the Pplitical and Military Committee in April 1834.

Despite an extensive curriculum it was still found necessary, from 1815, to send engineer cadets to the Royal Engineers Establishment at Chatham for instruction in mining, and in 1816 permission was granted for non-technical cadets to be admitted to Addiscombe if a further period of general education seemed desirable.

From 1851 the Addiscombe staff was also used as an examining body for 'direct' cadets. The 1858 Government of India Act provided for the continuation of the seminary as the Royal India Military College, with entrance through competitive examination, but it was eventually decided that Sandhurst and Woolwich offered adequate facilities. Addiscombe was closed in 1861 and the house and grounds were sold for building development.

See also L/MIL/1/9-27, Addiscombe, its heroes and men of note, Henry Meredith Vibart (London, 1894), and A guide to the records of the East India College Haileybury and other institutions, Anthony Farrington (London, 1976) pp 113-123.

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See also L/MIL/1/9-27, Addiscombe, its heroes and men of note, Henry Meredith Vibart (London, 1894), and A guide to the records of the East India College Haileybury and other institutions, Anthony Farrington (London, 1976) pp 113-123