Trooping season

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and Troopships.

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 travel in 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 troops changed ships at Suez, so there were different ships on the routes England to Suez, and Suez to India, but subsequently (and by 1886) ships sailed a round trip from England to India, approximately three weeks in each direction.

Each season generally there were only two of the twelve or so voyages which called at Aden on the way out to India and three on the way back. The extra one coming from India was needed to effect the annual relief of the British infantry battalion in Aden.[1]

HM Indian Troopships

Although generally referred to as HM Indian Troopships, the official designation was HMS Her Majesty's Ship. The Euphrates- class troopships were a group of five purpose-built troopships paid for by the Indian Government and launched in 1866-7. The sister-ships were the 'Crocodile', 'Euphrates', 'Jumna, 'Malabar' and 'Serapis'. Each ship could transport a full battalion of infantry with its married families, or about 1,200 people.

Before the opening of the Suez Canal the 'Crocodile' and 'Serapis' ran between England and Alexandria, whilst the other three ran from Suez to Bombay.

By 1894, four of the five naval troopers were laid up while two P&O ships, 'Victoria' and 'Britannia' had a trial as troopers on charter. The two newcomers soon demonstrated that they could make a better job of it than the old naval ships and 'Crocodile' and her sisters were disposed of in 1896[2]

The ships were then designated HMT Hired Military Transport, although at least during the First World War HMT could also mean His Majesty's Transport.[3]

Movements of Crocodile 1886-1888

1886
6th Oct Sailed Portsmouth for Bombay;
2nd Nov Arrived Bombay
13th Nov Sailed Bombay for Portsmouth via Suez
8th Dec Arrived Portsmouth
22nd Dec Sailed Portsmouth for Egypt
1887
8th Jan Sailed Suez for Bombay;
14th Feb Sailed Bombay for Portsmouth;
11th Mar Arrived Portsmouth
17th Mar Capt. Richard Evans assumed Command. End of trooping season.
7th Sep Sailed Portsmouth for Bombay via Queenstown. Commencement of trooping season.
5th Oct Arrived Bombay
15th Oct Sailed Bombay;
10th Nov Arrived Portsmouth
23rd Nov Sailed Portsmouth for Bombay;
20th Dec Arrived Bombay
31st Dec Sailed Bombay
1888
25th Jan Arrived Portsmouth
08th Feb Sailed Portsmouth for Bombay via Plymouth;
7th Mar Arrived Bombay
17th Mar Sailed Bombay
12th Apr Arrived Portsmouth
7th Sep Sailed Portsmouth for Bombay[4]

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" [5]

External links

Eastern Monarch 1859 Fire broke out in English waters on this ship, whose passengers included 352 invalid soldiers from North West India. Old-merseytimes.co.uk.
Issue 11, 12, 13, 14 thequeensownbuffs.com
Issues 11 and 14. He joined the Army as a Boy Musician in 1932 aged 14 and went as part of a a draft to India leaving 4th February 1933 on the troopship HMT Dorsetshire, returning to England on the Dilwara arriving Southampton on 13th January 1938.

Historical books online

  • "East India (Transport of Troops"). Report of Select Committee c 1858 page 308 'Series F British India, Colonies etc' Annals of British Legislation, Volume 5 edited by Leone Levi 1859 Google Books
  • "Report on the Ships "Clifton Belle" and "Dudbrook," which arrived at Kurrachee with Soldiers' Families in March 1860" by Surgeon Major D.Grierson M.D., Staff Surgeon, Kurrachee. Appendix page l, Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bombay, Volume VI, New Series 1860 Google Books. There were many deaths on board, particularly of young children
  • Conveyance to India of soldiers’ wives and families: Mortality statistics on the voyage, for 1859-60 Page 14 onwards and Page 74 [Parliamentary Papers] Reports from Commissioners: [including] Emigration Session: 5 February-6 August 1861. Google Books
  • "The New Overland Troop Service to India" Colburns’s United Service Magazine 1867 Part 3, page 226. Google Books. (The Suez Canal was subsequently opened for navigation on 17 November 1869)
  • Periods for embarkation page 239 The Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Army 1868 Google Books
  • 24 coloured views of H.M. Indian troop-ship to Bombay & back, published 1885. Bodleian Library Oxford Digital version. Possibly "Jumna". Catalogue entry with link, direct pdf (may be slow to load)
  • A voyage to India on the Malabar in 1889 page 47, Some Rambles of a Sapper by Brigr-Genl. Herbert Henry Austin. 1928 Hathi Trust Digital Library
  • "The Peregrinations of an Officer’s Wife" page 178 Blackwood’s Magazine, no 211 January-June 1922 Archive.org. Includes description of voyages to, and from, India.
  • Seven Cantonments by Major SEG Ponder c 1938. The author was an Officer in the Royal Artillery. He describes the voyage to India on HMT Devon in the c 1930s from page 21. Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection.
  • "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. ↑ Troopships from "Aden in Days of Empire". peterpickering.com/aden, now archived
  2. ↑ Preece, Nigel HM Indian Troopship Crocodile Rootsweb India Mailing List 28 January 2000. Retrieved 26 February, 2015
  3. ↑ Currell, Ralph "H.M.T." TRMA Discussion Forum January 21, 2013. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  4. ↑ qprdave HMS Crocodile World Naval Ships Forum 9 January 2011. Retrieved 26 February 2015
  5. ↑ "Chaplains for Troopships" page 15 The Tablet, 20th August 1904
  6. ↑ dunnboer Numbers for transport ships? angloboerwar.com.
  7. ↑ Ebay, seller three4five
  8. ↑ "A Few Stations In India" by Mrs. H. V. Bagshawe. Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps 1926;46:3 214-223.
  9. ↑ A History of the British India Steam Navigation Company Limited , pages 17 and 62. Pdf rakaia.co.uk.
  10. ↑ A History of the British India Steam Navigation Company Limited, page 62.

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