p.s.c?

[CliveMcDonald1]

Could any kind soul please tell me what "p.s.c." refers to?

 

Tghanks

[6RRF]

Passed Staff College

[HERITAGE PLUS]

 

Quote

Passed Staff College

 Denoting that an officer had successfully completed the Staff Officer's course at the Staff College at Camberley.

Dave

[CliveMcDonald1]

Thank you gentlemen.

[EastSurrey]

Can anyone advise if placings or distinctions were given for those who passed Staff College, and if so where the information might be found? I am particularly interested in one of the 1893 entrants-Bertram Mitford. His regimental record in WO76 at TNA simply shows him as passed- 'Staff College Certificate'. (For his time at Sandhurst in 1881-2,  the same record reads 'Passed with Honours.') He seems to have been 'specially selected' for Staff College, although he apparently failed the entrance exams twice.

No WO339 correspondence file appears to have survived for him at TNA- he retired, for a second time, as a Major General, in 1918 and died in 1936.

Michael

[6RRF]

"Failing" the entrance twice was in fact a peculiarity of the system, which only allowed one officer from a regiment to attend at a time. I'm not familiar with the officer concerned, but in this case he and at least one other officer from his regiment will have sat the entrance examination in a particular year. No matter how well he actually did in the exam, the other officer must have had higher marks and so got the place, while he "failed"

Diana Henderson's Highland Soldier [Edinburgh 1989] has a useful couple of pages on the Staff College - and regimental attitudes to those attending it.