Catalogue description War Office and Ministry of Defence: Central Department C2 Branch, later C2 (AD) Army Department: Policy and Precedents Notes

The C2 Division has its origins in the re-organisation of the administration of the Army that was begun between 1854 and 1856 and which brought most of the important functions together in the newly formed War Office. In 1866 a Central Department was formed from the merger of several departments including that of the Chief and Assistant Chief Clerks which had themselves been united in 1861.

This Central Department was under the control of the Under Secretary and was concerned with the conduct of constitutional or other matters that did not fall specifically under the responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief, the Surveyor-General, or the Financial Secretary.

During the early 1870s there were further adjustments to the organisation of the department but by October 1878 it was clearly divided into four sub-divisions C1 to C4. C2's duties at that time included, correspondence on colonial and miscellaneous military subjects; stoppages of soldiers' pay under certain regulations, pensions and retired pay questions; disposal of lunatic soldiers' effects; recruitment of clerks etc in conjunction with the Civil Service Commission; preparation and issue of officers' commissions, court martial warrants; questions relating to the Victoria Cross, Order of the Bath, and foreign orders; military chaplains; grants to churches and schools; and submissions to the sovereign.

These duties remained virtually unchanged until the end of the century when C2 also took on many of the duties previously the responsibility of C4 notably those concerning parliamentary business; all work on telegrams including their encipher and decipherment; printing and stationery and responsibility for confidential and secret papers. Of C2's previous work, only that on pensions and pay was passed elsewhere.

The large scale re-organisations of the War Office in 1904 to 1906 saw C2s duties expand again so that in addition to its existing duties, it was now responsible for press enquiries and communiques and office accommodation. A further sub-section now dealt with the actuarial effects of proposals and the preparation of general returns and statistics was added to the division's tasks in about 1904.

During the First World War, C2 took on actuarial questions concerning casualties, including correspondence with enemy countries and eventually incorporated the Prisoners of War Information Bureau; as far as possible the pre-war actuarial work was suspended to free staff for this new work. The most notable of its other duties that went elsewhere was that of controlling the secret and confidential papers.

The end of the war brought a reduction in casualty and PoW work, although C2 retained general responsibility for dealing with enquiries on casualty and record of service matters. Yet by the early 1920s, C2 had grown in size with the expansion of its work controlling stationery, forms and army publication of which it now also controlled the printing, this being the responsibility of a separate sub-division.

The early 1930s saw the re-organisation of the division into three sub-divisions. The first dealt with Parliamentary, legal investiture and certain decoration matters, letters patent and royal submissions. The second dealt with stationery, printing and publications, and the third was an information section concerned primarily with press communiques and press matters, although this last task was removed from C2 in 1936-1937.

The Second World War saw a few increases to C2's work, one of these being its re-involvement from about 1942 in responsibility for various army funds, charitable organisations, grants to schools and churches and scholarships.

From the early 1950s, C2's duties further included questions of access to closed documents, as well as information and co-ordination of work on international agreements.

Following the 1964 re-organisation of the Ministry of Defence, C2 added Army Department (AD) to its title.

By 1973, matters on Northern Ireland had been added to C2's tasks. In the mid-1970s, C2(AD) as a division finally disappeared, its work being taken on by other branches.