The Museum

In 1896 a small museum was established at the Army Service Corps School of Instruction at Stanhope Lines, Aldershot. The RCT Museum itself began life in 1945 as the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) Museum located at Buller Barracks in Aldershot. Initially located in a wooden hut, the museum moved to a converted brick building within the barracks in 1948. The main exhibition space of this museum was a panelled room, the panelling for which was salvaged from wooden huts and then treated by members of the Corps. In 1965, the museum was renamed the Royal Corps of Transport Museum to reflect the amalgamation of the RASC and the Transportation and Movement Control Branches of the Royal Engineers to form the RCT. In 1970 the RCT Museum moved into a new home on the ground floor of the HQ Training Centre block at the newly rebuilt Buller Barracks. This museum featured a main exhibition space, and a separate archive located above the public spaces.

The origins of the RAOC Museum can be traced to 1928 when a small medal collection was established at the Headquarters Officers Mess at Hilsea Barracks, Portsmouth, then the headquarters of the RAOC. These medals were incorporated into the collection of the RAOC Museum when it was formally established in 1947 at the Central Ordnance Depot in Feltham, Middlesex. In 1950 the museum moved to an old wooden hut at Blackdown Camp, Deepcut.

Sadly, the following year a fire destroyed the museum and most of the collection. An appeal was launched in the RAOC Gazette, and the Corps and its veterans rallied together to provide donations. By 1956 the museum was open once more, now located in the former Deepcut Railway Station.

In 1971 the RAOC Museum at last moved to a purpose-built home within the newly built Blackdown Barracks (later renamed Princess Royal Barracks) Headquarters Training Building. This museum had displays covering all aspects of the Corps’ history, including quite contemporary displays including a Wheelbarrow EOD Robot.

The RPC Museum was first established in the early 1950s at the Corps Depot and training centre at Hermitage

Camp, near Wrexham. The museum was noted as being in less-than-ideal accommodation, and in 1957 the building underwent a complete renovation.

In 1967 the museum followed the RPC as it moved its headquarters and depot to Simpson Barracks in Northamptonshire. Here the museum would occupy part of the Corps Headquarters building with items such as the medals of Capt Herbert Sulzbach, a German Jewish soldier who won the Iron Cross in the First World War but fled the Nazis and served with the Pioneers during the Second World War, being on prominent display.

The ACC Museum began its existence in the early 1950s as a small collection housed within St Omer Barracks, Aldershot, the home of the Army Catering Corps since their formation in 1941. In 1963 the museum moved for a comparatively short period to Tournai Barracks, also in Aldershot, as this was for a time the Depot and Training Battalion of the Corps.

The museum eventually returned to St Omer Barracks in 1971 following a complete demolition and redevelopment of the site to become the central Army School of Catering. Here the museum was given a new exhibition space in a building near the camp’s entrance, although this space was still comparatively small at 30ft x 40ft. The museum was formally registered as a charitable organisation in 1987 and took a centre stage role in the ACC’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 1991.