529th (East Riding) Field Company, Royal Engineers
| East Riding Fortress Royal Engineers 542 (East Riding) Construction Squadron 129 (East Riding) Field Squadron |
|
|---|---|
| Active | 1908–1991 |
| Country |
 United Kingdom
|
| Branch |
 Territorial Army
|
| Role | Coast Defence Field Engineering Electrical engineering |
| Garrison/HQ | Hull |
| Engagements | |
The East Riding (Fortress) Royal Engineers was a volunteer unit of Britain's Royal Engineers formed for the defence of the Humber estuary in the East Riding of Yorkshire. As well as serving in this role it also provided field and specialist engineer units in both World Wars. Its successors continued to serve in the Territorial Army until 1991.
As early as 1870 a government defence committee recommended that coastal artillery batteries defending British seaports should be supplemented by fixed minefields fired electrically from the shore, but it was not until the 1880s that this was acted upon. Lieutenant-General Sir Andrew Clarke, the Inspector-General of Fortifications 1882–6, found that he did not have enough Regular Royal Engineers (RE) to man these additional defences, so he utilised the Volunteer Engineers for this task. After successful trials the system was rolled out to ports around the country. In 1886 a meeting held at the instigation of Sir Albert Rollit agreed to form a corps of Volunteer Submarine Miners in Hull to man the defences of the Humber estuary. The new company was entitled the Humber Division Submarine Miners and comprised 60 men, many of them highly skilled craftsmen attracted by the considerably higher pay during training periods than was offered to other Volunteer units. The first officers' commissions were issued on 11 September 1886 and the corps ranked 4th in the list of submarine miners.
The company was accommodated in Hull adjacent to the East Riding Artillery Volunteers' Wenlock Barracks, and High Paull House, close to Fort Paull in the coastal village of Paull, was altered to house the unit's equipment. The unit soon expanded to a strength of three companies, but in 1891 the War Office decided that some of the submarine mining defences would be better served by the Militia. The Humber Submarine Miners were disbanded the following year and reconstituted as a militia unit, but many of the Volunteers resigned rather than transfer to more onerous terms of service.
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