What was the role of a 'galloper'?

[phsvm]

I have a report from the Portsmouth Evening News that "Sir Joscelyn was attached to the Royal Flying Corps and went to France in 1914 as Galloper to General Sir Sydney Lawford ......"

 

Could someone explain what this means please?

 

[IPT]

I think it was an aide-de-camp.

[Ron Clifton]

I agree with that. In the days of Wellington, general officers could still see the whole of their battlefield and could send messages to their subordinates by hand of a mounted officer. Remember, too, Captain Nolan and the ill-fated message which led to the Charge of the Light Brigade.

 

By WW2 Montgomery and other generals had "liaison officers" who performed a similar function.

 

Ron

[phsvm]

Many thanks.  That would fit with other facts I have about SIr Jocelyn.

[collectorsguide]

A "Galloper" was a runner who carried messages.Its origin appears to be the AIF who use the term in DCM and MM Citations for Company /Battalion Runners.Interesting that he was an officer ,this is the first time I have seen this term used for an ADC. best w, Howard.

[MaureenE]

There is a book available online

A Galloper at Ypres, and some subsequent adventures by Major and Bt- Lieut-Col Patrick Butler, The Royal Irish 1920. Archive.org. Butler was ADC to the General of the 7th Division.

 

Cheers

Maureen

[collectorsguide]

THANKS MAUREEN.It may be an Irish thing?  Best w, Howard

[phsvm]

My 'Galloper' was with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and the article in the paper where I found mention of it was in 1939 so it doesn't appear to be an Irish term and presumably the meaning was still understood some 25 years later.

 

 

[Uncle George]

Any student of Flashman will know that a ‘Galloper’ was an ADC.

Edited 8 September , 2019 by Uncle George

[Open Bolt]

It was a common term in the Boer War.

[corisande]

It does not appear to have been used in the LG appointments to officers as ADC. In other wors the term appears to have been unofficial

 

If you put "galloper" into LG for 1914 to 1921 period there are effectively only 2 entries one for a Sergeant and one for a Lt

 

 

[sassenach]

I think there was a reference to "Gallopers from the Column" in Zulu (set in 1879, of course). 

Edited 9 September , 2019 by sassenach

[Marilyne]

is it far fetched to understand that the "galloper" was mounted… as a galloper also designates a horse ???

 

M.

[Marilyne]

oh… and according to wikipedia it was also an artillery piece that was used "in the colonies"... in the USA that is…

 

But it's a pity the word got out of style for an ADC... considering how they get to run around like crazy even nowadays…

 

M.

[sassenach]

28 minutes ago, Marilyne said:

is it far fetched to understand that the "galloper" was mounted… as a galloper also designates a horse ???

 

M.

They were certainly mounted in Zulu.

[Ron Clifton]

7 hours ago, corisande said:

t does not appear to have been used in the LG appointments to officers as ADC. In other words the term appears to have been unofficial

It was certainly an unofficial title, but was in common use (like so many Army colloquial terms) for over a century before the AIF was dreamed of.

 

Ron

[Steven Broomfield]

In this context, I would assume a Galloper was, as suggested, an ADC, but with the added proviso that he could, when required, ride his horse extremely quickly and skillfully to take messages for his chief when urgently required to.

 

An ADC might well not be mounted (he was, after all, a sort of military PA in many ways), but a Galloper would need to ... well ... gallop.

[Ron Clifton]

On 09/09/2019 at 16:58, Marilyne said:

oh… and according to wikipedia it was also an artillery piece that was used "in the colonies"... in the USA that is…

I think that it would then refer to a light artillery piece. As well as "the horse gunners", the RHA were sometimes referred to as "the galloping gunners".

 

Ron

[Steven Broomfield]

Commanded by a Galloping Major, no doubt.

[tullybrone]

Fed by a cook known as the “Galloping Gourmet”

[David Filsell]

Patrick Butler, son of the the painter, Lady Elizabeth Buttler served as a galloper to the commander of 7th Infantry Division, Thompson Capper at Ypres in 1914 and wrote well of his experiences in A Galloper at Ypres.

[MikB]

AEW Mason mentions a Lord acting as galloper in 'The Four Feathers':-

 

"Lord Wilmington. One of the best names in England, if you please. Did you ever see his house in Warwickshire? Every inch of the ground you would think would have a voice to bid him play the man, if only in remembrance of his fathers.... It seemed incredible and mere camp rumour, but the rumour grew. If it was whispered at the Alma, it was spoken aloud at Inkermann, it was shouted at Balaclava. Before Sebastopol the hideous thing was proved. Wilmington was acting as galloper to his general. I believe upon my soul the general chose him for the duty, so that the fellow might set himself right. There were three hundred yards of bullet-swept flat ground, and a message to be carried across them. Had Wilmington toppled off his horse on the way, why, there were the whispers silenced for ever. Had he ridden through alive he earned distinction besides. But he didn't dare; he refused! Imagine it if you can! He sat shaking on his horse and declined. You should have seen the general. His face turned the colour of that Burgundy. 'No doubt you have a previous engagement,' he said, in the politest voice you ever heard—just that, not a word of abuse. A previous engagement on the battlefield! For the life of me, I could hardly help laughing. But it was a tragic business for Wilmington. He was broken, of course, and slunk back to London. Every house was closed to him; he dropped out of his circle like a lead bullet you let slip out of your hand into the sea. The very women in Piccadilly spat if he spoke to them; and he blew his brains out in a back bedroom off the Haymarket. Curious that, eh? He hadn't the pluck to face the bullets when his name was at stake, yet he could blow his own brains out afterwards."

 

So there, eh? 

[Bordercollie]

Possibly gallopers were less useful on the Western Front. The Official History (1915 Volume1) relates that Brigadier General Hull was given command of 15 battalions for a counter attack to restore the line at St Julien but "It was by no means certain whether all 15 battalions detailed in orders could be found and assembled. In darkness, in an area devastated by fire and intersected by trenches he could not use gallopers to convey his orders."

 

In 1916 Volume 1 differences in April 1916 between Haig and Rawlinson about the depth of the initial attack to be planned for the Somme offensive are described thus. "In the open warfare of old days it was unnecessary to make beforehand a decision of the nature now called for; a commander-in-chief, after the opening phase of a battle or assault, would have seen the progress of events with his own eyes, or learnt of them in a few minutes through the reports of his gallopers, and shaped his further course accordingly. But with masses of men engaged on a wide front under modern conditions, with the communication of news and orders rendered unreliable and slow by shell fire, a commander-in -chief cannot take advantage of fleeting opportunities - he does not hear of them until reports arrive, too late."

[FROGSMILE]

‘Galloper guns’ were originally the highly mobile, lightest of field pieces expressly attached closely to the infantry and providing intimate fire support rather like medium mortars today.  They were the converse of the more static, heavy ‘batteries of position’.  Galloper guns did great slaughter among the French cavalry at the battle of Minden, by pouring in fire from the flanks

 

A galloper was the mounted equivalent of a runner.  Within cavalry regiments, any man sent with a message on a horse, a vital means of communication in the years before field telephones, radios and even heliographs, and not generally an officer.  They were especially common when scouting patrols were sent ahead of the main body, and what was seen, or found needed to be conveyed rearward to those following up.  

 

Commanders and their staff officers, in effect mobile headquarters, also needed gallopers and it was these that were aides to general officers.  At Waterloo, I recall that almost all of Wellington’s aides were killed or wounded whilst acting as gallopers to convey his orders.  

In the Crimean War perhaps the most infamous galloper of all was Captain Louis Nolan, who after carrying a message from Lord Raglan to Lord Lucan was killed by joining the Light Division charge rather than returning to Raglan’s HQ as he should have done.

 

As Ron has pointed out the galloper long predates the AIF.  The Duke of Marlborough had gallopers at Malpaquet! It’s simply a typical English idiom for fast moving horsed mobility.

Edited 17 September , 2019 by FROGSMILE