Victorian Military Society

The Victorian Military Society is a British educational charity (Registered Charity No 1117006) which promotes the study of military history – of all nations and races – in the period 1837 to 1914. Its journal Soldiers of the Queen publishes work by professional and amateur historians as well as articles by academic researchers and the Society provides speakers and lecturers to local groups and seminars as well as organising its own events.

The Victorian Military Society was founded in 1974 by the late John Crouch FRIBA, who was an architect employed by the Ministry of Defence in Great Britain. His work involved him visiting a number of Victorian buildings and military works such as Woolwich Arsenal, Chatham Dockyard and the Palmerston Forts protecting Portsmouth Harbour. He became interested in their history and the events that had given rise to buildings of such considerable size and complexity.

As the result of a letter to the press asking if there were any other people who might share his interest in the military history of the Victorian period (at the time a somewhat unfashionable one), the Victorian Military Society was formed. The late Marquis of Anglesey, the distinguished historian of the British Cavalry, became the Society’s first President and the late Stanley Baker, the actor and producer of the film Zulu, became the Society’s first Vice-President.

Other notable members of the Society have included the military historians Ian Knight (one of the Society’s founder members) a noted expert on the Zulu War and Rorke’s Drift, Michael Barthorp author of books on the North West Frontier, the Boer War and the Sudan campaigns, and the late Kenneth Griffith, actor, documentary film maker, Boer war historian and author of a book on the siege and relief of Ladysmith.

The Society's current President is General Lord Dannatt and its Vice-Presidents are Allan Mallinson and Colonel Peter Walton.

...
Wikipedia