Trooping season

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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" [1]

External links

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”

References

  1. "Chaplains for Troopships" page 15 The Tablet, 20th August 1904