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Overview

The Royal Artillery Museum’s archive and library covers 300 over years of the Royal Regiment’s history. The archive is wide-ranging, fascinating and a nationally important collection in its own right. It is of interest to anyone studying the history of the Gunners, of artillery development or more widely of warfare and society. 

The library contains over 30,000 books including military and social histories as well as military biographies and tactical treatises. The archive includes a large collection of war diaries as well as the papers of numerous famous Gunners, notably those of Major General Sir Alexander Dickson, the Duke of Wellington’s Siege Train commander. There is a wealth of drawings, both technical and illustrative, many produced by soldiers in war time, hand-drawn maps, photographs and slides relating to artillery through the ages.

We have recently transferred our archive to a new storage facility near Larkhill, and most records are now available for research purposes. 

They include:     

  • Battery Digests of Service (peace-time details of the activities of individual Batteries, c.1890-1939)
  • Annual Historical Returns (details of the activities of individual Batteries and Regiments c.1945 onwards)     
  • WWI War Diaries and WWII War Diaries         
  • The ‘MD’ collection (personal papers of former Gunners)         
  • The ‘AL’ collection (photos and photograph albums)
  • Gun Handbooks and Training Pamphlets
  • Gunner Magazine (1919 - current date)
  • Royal Artillery Journal (c.1860 – current date)
  • Royal Artillery News (1899-1970)
  • Royal Artillery Distribution List (1868-1938)
  • Regimental ‘Blue’ Officers’ Lists (early copies, from 1904)       
  • Establishment Lists

We are sorry that the Royal Artillery Museum archive is currently unable to accept enquiries.

This year the Archivist and volunteers have had to carry out a large amount of work in merging parts of the former Badley Library (at the Royal School of Artillery) into the Royal Artillery Archive. The move and the preservation of important books and documents has had to take priority over other work. Our enquiry service has always been very popular, and we have built up a large backlog of enquiries that we need to answer before we can re-open the service.
We hope to be able to accept enquiries again in 2025.
 
If you are emailing with a donation offer, please re-send your email to donations@royalartillerymuseum.com.
 
The archive remains open to researchers visiting in person. If you wish to book a visit please call us on 01980 634208 and leave a message, including possible visit dates.