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The Royal Military College Sandhurst shortened its officer training course from eighteen months to three months during World War One in order to continue producing enough officers to send to the front line.

Tuition fees were abolished and cadets from poorer backgrounds trained alongside public school boys and were also known as gentleman cadets. Before the war started, boys entered Sandhurst between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. During wartime the youngest were sixteen and a half but the upper age limit was increased to twenty five.

Sniping, field fortifications and trench warfare were still taught, whilst academic subjects were dropped. Training was adapted as required, with gas warfare being added to the syllabus in 1917.

In WW1; 3,274 former gentleman cadets and more than 40 former RMC staff lost their lives. Thirty seven former cadets were awarded the Victoria Cross.

Location: Royal Military College Sandhurst, Camberley GU15 4PQ
Image: Gentleman cadets in front of New College, courtesy of The Sandhurst Collection.
Interviews with John Loder and William Burton Tobey, courtesy of Imperial War Museums.
Presented by Janice Hunter

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