In 1854, during the Crimean War, a grand military revue was held at Scutari, in Turkey, to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria.  During the parade the approximately twenty bands on parade were required to combine in a performance of the National Anthem.  The custom, at this time, was for Regiments to hire civilian Bandmasters for their bands, each of whom had free reign in both the instrumentation of the band and the arrangements it played.  With each band having a different instrumentation, pitch and arrangement, the result was an embarrassing and humiliating cacophony!

 

Among those present was George, Duke of Cambridge (a cousin of Queen Victoria), who was commanding the 1st Division in the Crimea.  He determined that the lack of central coordination in the training of military musicians should be rectified. 

 

 

When he was subsequently appointed Commander in Chief of the Army, in 1856, he set about exploring options to improve the standard of military music.  The most popular suggestion at that time was to emulate the French Army, which had established the Gymnase de Musique Militaire twenty years earlier as a central college for military music. 

This was the option that the Duke of Cambridge decided upon and the first 'Military Music Class' commenced at Kneller Hall in 1857, with 85 pupils from 48 different regiments.  The first Director of Music was Henry Schallen, who had been the Bandmaster of the 17th Lancers when the Duke of Cambridge was the Commanding Officer

The School was established at Kneller Hall, which had been acquired by the War Office a year earlier.  Originally known as Whitton Hall, after the nearby Village, the building is thought to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren.  It was built in 1709 for his friend, Sir Godfrey Kneller, a prolific Court portrait painter to King Charles II and subsequent monarchs, including George I.  By the time of Kneller's death, in 1723, Whitton Hall had become known as Kneller Hall. 

It remained in private hands, undergoing several rebuilds, until it was bought by the government in 1850 to provide premises for 'the training of schoolmasters who were to teach the children of paupers and criminals'.  It was one of the first Pestelozzi schools in England, but was conceptually ahead of its time and closed five years later, in 1855.

The Military School of Music quickly achieved the results desired by its founder and, thirty years after its foundation, during the Queen's Jubilee, was granted the title Royal, becoming The Royal Military School of Music.  During its 150 years of existence the school has earned an international reputation as a centre of excellence and Kneller Hall has become the spiritual home of many generations of Army musicians.

Over its long existence the school has remained at forth front of military music.  Many thousands of Army musicians have passed through the gates and have been taught by the best professors of music available in the country at each point in time.  The museum and the photograph board of all the Bandmaster classes show just how many people have spent a period of time at Kneller Hall.  In certain points in time over 300 musicians would have been on the pupils course and nearly all will have performed on at least one legendary Summer Concert which are still going to day in the form of 'Concerts in the park'.