About: 1st Suffolk and Harwich Volunteer Artillery

The 1st Suffolk & Harwich Volunteer Artillery, later the Essex & Suffolk Royal Garrison Artillery was an auxiliary coastal artillery unit of the British Army first raised in 1899. It defended the ports and naval bases (the Haven ports) around the estuaries of the Rivers Orwell and Stour. Although the unit saw no active service, it supplied trained gunners to siege batteries engaged on the Western Front during World War I. It was greatly expanded in World War II to defend the invasion-threatened East Anglian Coast from Harwich to Great Yarmouth. Postwar it continued in the coast and air defence roles until it disappeared in a series of amalgamations from the 1950s.