The Glamorgan Fortress Royal Engineers was a Welsh Territorial Army (TA) unit of Britain's Royal Engineers, first raised in 1885 as a Volunteer unit of Submarine Miners to defend the Severn Estuary. During World War I, it carried out defence work in England and Gibraltar, and detachments served on the Western Front. In World War II, it served in the North African campaign, including the Second Battle of El Alamein, and the Allied invasion of Sicily. Postwar, the unit continued in the TA until 1961.
Origin When Lt-Gen Sir Andrew Clarke, Inspector-General of Fortifications 1882–6, did not have enough Regular Royal Engineers (RE) to man the fixed mines being installed to defend British seaports, he utilised the Volunteer Engineers for this task. After successful trials, the system was rolled out to ports around the country. In 1885 the 1st Gloucestershire (The Western Counties) Engineer Volunteers, Royal Engineers formed a company at Cardiff to cover the Severn Estuary. Under the new Volunteer Regulations of 1887, several officers of the unit gained certificates in signalling. In 1888, the submarine miners were constituted into a separate branch of the RE Volunteers, and the company became the Severn Division Submarine Miners, ranking second in the list of volunteer submarine mining divisions. By 1895, the unit consisted of three companies, based at 10 Charles Street, Cardiff. Pontypridd County School formed a Cadet Corps in 1901, which was affiliated to the Severn Division and disbanded in 1910. In 1907, the War Office decided to hand all submarine mining duties over to Militia units and the Volunteer submarine miners were converted into electrical engineers to continue manning the electric searchlights of the harbour defences. The Cardiff unit briefly became the Severn Division Electrical Engineers.
Territorial Force
When the Volunteers were subsumed into the new Territorial Force (TF) in 1908, most of the unit formed the Glamorgan Fortress Royal Engineers, but the early interest of the unit in signalling (see above) led to the simultaneous creation of the Welsh Divisional Telegraph Company, RE, with an initial strength of 44, which was the first TF telegraph unit recognised by War Office in 1908. Both units had their headquarters (HQs) at The Drill Hall, Park Street, Cardiff. While the telegraph (later signal) company was assigned to the TF's Welsh Division, the fortress engineers formed part of Western Coast Defences, with the following organisation:
No 1 Works Company at Park Street No 2 Works Company at the Drill Hall, Gladstone Road, Barry No 3 Electric Lights Company at Park Street (operating coast defence searchlights)
World War I
Mobilisation When war was declared on 4 August the Glamorgan Fortress Engineers went to their war stations in the Western Coast Defences. Shortly after the outbreak of war, TF units were invited to volunteer for overseas service and at the end of August the formation of a reserve or 2nd Line unit was authorised for each 1st Line unit where 60 per cent or more of the men had volunteered for Overseas Service. The titles of these 2nd Line units would be the same as the original, but distinguished by a '2/' prefix. In the case of the Glamorgan Fortress Engineers, 3rd Line and additional 1st Line units were also formed. Once it was clear that the threat to Britain's coastal defences was small, six of the fortress engineer units organised their 1st Line as 'Army Troops' companies for service on the Lines of Communication of the British Expeditionary Force. The Glamorgan Fortress Company embarked for France on 29 December 1914 and arrived at Rouen. The 2nd Works Company embarked for France on 8 March 1915.
Service By the end of the war, the Glamorgan Fortress Engineers had formed the following service companies (numbers were assigned to TF companies of the RE in February 1917):
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