Cadets

In the Navy, commissioning and promotion had long been solely on the basis of merit. Pepys introduced compulsory exams for would-be Naval lieutenants from 1677. In the Army, commissions could be bought. This remarkable custom persisted until 1870 - with the exception of the Royal Artillery and the Corps of Engineers. In these two units, both formed at the Arsenal in 1716, the professional training of the modern army officer originated, with the first establishment of the Military Academy at the Arsenal in 1720 (re-established 1741).

The Tudor tower of the earlier building still stands in this drawing by Sandby of 1775 (demolished 1786). The new buildings were constructed in phases from 1718 onwards. The military academy was housed in the double-storey room to the left of the entrance. In the style of Hawksmoor, it is strange to modern eyes that the academy was founded in the midst of an industrial complex.

Accommodation for the Arsenal's storekeeper, and a boardroom for the Board of Ordnance, were also housed in this building. Artillerymen and Engineers of the East India Company were also trained at Woolwich until 1810. From 1806 the Academy largely moved from the Arsenal to the buildings now standing on Woolwich Common. There was always something of a "town and gown" rivalry between the cadets and the citizens, and before 1840 when Woolwich's new Police Force (of eight constables) was formed, there appears to have been a certain unruliness of behaviour.

The cadets at woodwork class

Before the Duke of Wellington made cropped hair fashionable, the cadets followed the army requirement for wearing the hair powdered in a queue or pigtail. According to Vincent, the regulation length was four inches in 1798, ten inches from 1799. Cadets caught cutting their hair were ordered to be confined to the green (on the left, in front of the new cadet barracks) until it had grown again.