30 Things You Didn't Know About BRNC
30 Things You Didn't Know About BRNC
- Picket Boats are so called because they would have been deployed from a ship with the ‘pickets’ who are a body of men sent out to watch for the approach of the enemy of his scouts, or used to bring in men who have exceeded their leave.
- Photographs of the cadets who have passed out from the College were first taken in 1878.
- The College is the World’s second largest consumer of Pimms.
- The cost of building the College by the builders Higgs & Hill was £220,600 and this was undertaken in three and a half years.
- The College Parade Ground was originally designed as a Sunken Garden with the rose-beds not being removed until 1926 to make way for the new Parade Ground.
- Some of the College still bears graffiti from the time when the USA used it as Naval Headquarters (1943-4). Military personnel would scratch their initials and home state in the brickwork.
- The actor Sir Michael Redgrave married the actress Rachael Kempson in the College Chapel in 1935. Rachael was the Headmaster’s daughter.
- The College has produced 28 recipients of the Victoria Cross.
- The originator of both ‘Parkinson’s Law’ & ‘Parkinson’s Law of Triviality’ Cyril Northcote Parkinson was a member of the Academic staff at Dartmouth in 1939.
- The College produced a Nobel Prize winner. Patrick Blackett was awarded the Nobel prize in Physics in1948. He had been a cadet at the College in 1914.
- The College serves 750,000 meals per year including 12,000 HALAL meals for Muslim students, 6,000 vegetarian meals, 600 vegan and 1,000 medical diets.
- The College cooks enough sausages each year to stretch 39 miles.
- It would take a chicken 1,962 years to lay all the eggs consumed by the College in one year.
- Six million items of crockery and cutlery are washed up each year.
- George Mallory who led the 1924 expedition to conquer Mount Everest and who some claim may have been the first person to reach the summit was a member of the Academic staff at Dartmouth in the early 20th century.
- The College consumes 4.5 million cups of tea and coffee per year.
- The College employs approximately 200 people and is the largest single employer in Dartmouth.
- Students from more than 50 different countries have been Trained and Educated at the College.
- Three 20th Century British Kings have been Educated at Dartmouth.
- King Juan Carlos of Spain was Trained and Educated at Dartmouth during WWII.
- While at the College Prince George (later King George V) wrote to his Grandmother Queen Victoria to ask for £5.00 as a supplement to his pocket money. The Queen replied and refused to send the money, so Prince George sold the letter to a fellow cadet for £5.00.
- The College clock chimes the watches and not the hour and half hours.
- During the time that the US Navy occupied the College they had an illegal still in what is now the Wardroom, during ‘Rounds’ this was hastily covered to prevent its detection and it subsequently exploded. To cover the damage the Americans painted the wood panelling and it remains painted to this day.
- The College was built partly as a memorial to Nelson and opened in the centenary year of the Battle of Trafalgar.
- On 21st October (The anniversary of Trafalgar) at approximately 1615 in the afternoon a shaft of sunlight falls onto the right hand of the statue of Christ behind the altar, from a window high on the west wall of the Chapel. The time being around the Death of Nelson and the realisation of Victory during the battle.
- Guy Burgess, spy and traitor and famous double agent was a cadet at the College in 1925-7 but left before his final term for alleged ‘defective eyesight’.
- When King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the College in 1939 a young Prince Phillip of Greece was assigned to chaperone the two Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. While Divisions took place the three went into the Captain’s House to play with the electric train set.
- The medals from King George VI uniform have been borrowed on more than one occasion by a senior officer taking the salute at a Parade because his own had been left at home.
- An inclined tramway from the River at Sandquay was used to carry materials from ships up to the College during the construction.
- When Prince Charles arrived at the College for his RN training, unlike all other cadets who arrived by coach he drove to Dartmouth in his own Aston Martin. While driving up the ramps to meet the Captain it broke down and had to be pushed the final few yards.
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First Published April 2011 By The Dart