Royal Marines Volunteer Cadet Corps
The Royal Marines Volunteer Cadet Corps is part of the Royal Navy's Volunteer Cadet Corps. There are units in Arbroath, Chivenor, Gosport, Lympstone, Portsmouth, and Plymouth.
The RMVCC exists alongside the Royal Marines Cadets of the Sea Cadets and Royal Marines Section Combined Cadet Force, and is part of the Royal Navy Cadet Forces. The RMVCC is the oldest of the Royal Marines Cadets organisations.
History
The RMVCC traces its history back to the formation of the Royal Marines Artillery Cadet Corps in the Mission Hall, Prince Albert Street, Eastney on 14 February 1901 by the Admiralty. The new Cadet Corps was based at the now closed Royal Marines Eastney Barracks in Portsmouth. It was formed, so the story goes, to "gainfully occupy the spare time of sons of senior Non-Commissioned Officers " after an occasion when the colonel's office window was broken by a ball kicked by an SNCO's son playing outside. The RMACC was the first cadet corps in the Royal Navy.The RMACC was initially formed with the motto 'Manners Maketh Man', and re-titled as the Royal Marines Volunteer Cadet Corps in the mid-20th century. Royal Marines Girl Cadet Corps and the Girl Ambulance Corps units existed alongside RMVBC units for some time, and these were merged with the RMVBC after the Second World War, with the current title being adopted by all units in the 1970s. However, Portsmouth Division RMVCC only accepted girls from the mid-1990s. The RMVCC is also the first military cadet organisation to be titled 'Royal'; indeed, its cadets were 'Royal Marines Cadets' from the date of the organisation's formation.
Since 1901, units were formed at:
- Portsmouth Division RMVCC: originally at Eastney Barracks, then HMS Nelson but now at HMS Excellent in Portsmouth.
- Chatham Division RMVCC: Royal Marine Barracks, Chatham.
- Deal Division RMVCC: Royal Marines School of Music in Deal, Kent.
- Gosport Division RMVCC: Forton Barracks, Gosport.
- Plymouth Division RMVCC: RM Stonehouse in Plymouth.
- Lympstone Division RMVCC: Commando Training Centre Royal Marines, Lympstone, near Exeter in Devon.
- Arbroath Division RMVCC: RM Condor in Arbroath in Angus, Scotland.
- Chivenor Division RMVCC: RM Chivenor near Barnstaple in Devon.
- Band of the RMVCC Plymouth: RM Stonehouse in Plymouth.
- Band of the RMVCC Gosport: HMS Sultan in Gosport, Hampshire.
Cadets from the RMVCC have appeared at Navy Days in Portsmouth and Plymouth, the Royal Tournament and in the 1955 film The Cockleshell Heroes. As of the 6 July 2014, following a tri-partite RMC parade at Buckingham Palace in the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh and in celebration of the 350th anniversary of the formation of the Royal Marines, all marine cadets in the UK can be titled as Royal Marines Cadets.
The RMVCC were casualties in the 1951 Gillingham bus disaster when 24 RM Cadets were killed on a foggy December evening whilst marching to watch a boxing tournament.