Trooping season

The Indian Trooping season generally began with troop ships leaving England in September, and ended with the last ships leaving India in March. This pattern was probably established once troop ships no longer sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and started using the "Overland Route", and then the Suez Canal after its opening in 1869.

The reasons for a restricted period were to restrict travel to the cooler months so that

• troops were not travelling during the hot summer months in unventilated ships , particularly in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, when conditions could become dangerous.
• unacclimatised troops from Britain were not travelling from the ports of Bombay or Karachi to their cantonments during the heat of an Indian summer.

In 1916, when normal procedures were disrupted due to the First World War, the "Karachi troop train incident" of the 5th June, 1916, resulted in the death of nineteen Territorial Troops due to heat stroke on a troop train between Karachi and Lahore.

Initially it appears troops changed ships at Suez, so there were different ships on the routes England to Suez, and Suez to India, but subsequently (and by 1904-05) ships sailed a round trip from England to India, approximately three weeks in each direction.

1904-05 Trooping Season

"The Indian Trooping season will begin in September… The following are approximately the dates on which the ships will start from Southampton and arrive there on their return.

1. September 8-November 3

2. September 30-November 12

3. October 1-November 24

4. October 11-December 8

5. November 15-January 6, 1905

6. November 23-January 18, 1905

7. December 6-January 28, 1905

8. December 17-February 8, 1905

9. January 17, 1905-March 11

10. January 28, 1905-March 28

11. February 7, 1905- April 5

12. February 18, 1905-April 13"

External links

• Troopships from "Aden in Days of Empire". peterpickering.com/aden
• The Indian Relief Trooping Season, passing through the Suez Canal Illustration for The Graphic, 12 September 1891.
• Image: HM Transport "Rewa" No.4 Mail List (Trooping Season 1909-1910). The "Rewa" travelled Southampton to Karachi, and return. University of Limerick WW1 Online Exhibition
• The King's Shilling — Part 2a – India by Neil Walker .bbc.co.uk..Contains a mention of the Trooping season c 1937
• "Death Of Territorials In India". House of Lords. Hansard 25 July 1916 vol 22 cc911-6, 01 August 1916 vol 22 cc1037-42. "Karachi Troop Train Incident". House of Lords. Hansard 18 May 1920 vol 40 cc390-404, 21 July 1920 vol 41 cc413-20. 10 August 1920 vol 41 cc1169-79
• 'Perceptions of, and reactions to, environmental heat: a brief note on issues of concern in relation to occupational health" by Delia Rizpah Hollowell Global Health Action December 29, 2010. (scroll down) Includes the statement “In 1884 Major-General MacGregor, Quarter Master General in India, wrote of the ‘risk incurred by the prolongation of the trooping season so far into the hot weather,’ arguing that the last British vessel should leave India no later than the 1st of April (14)". Footnote 14 states "14. MacGregor CM. Letter from Major-General Sir CM MacGregor, K.C.B., C.S.I., C.I.E., Quarter Master of India to the Secretary to the Government of India, Military (Marine) Department No. 3515-A. 1884 Indian troop service: general arrangements 1884–85. The British Library File No. 12861 IOR:L/MIL/7/10235".
• Photograph: Troopship HMS Otranto. Voyage home from India to UK in 1947, from the collection of James Wilson, Royal Artillery

Historical books online

• Periods for embarkation page 239 The Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Army 1868 Google Books
• "Hot weather precautions" Volume II [2], Part I - Annual report on the health of the army in India for the year 1939, page 107 National Library of Scotland “ Medical History of British India”