Editing Machine Gun Corps (section)

==Formation==
[[Image:British Machine Gun LOC ggbain 24930.jpg|thumb|right|An MGC gun team with their [[Vickers machine gun]].]]
[[File:St Cassian's Church, Chaddesley Corbett, Worcestershire - Hemming.jpg|thumb|right|Grave of H. Hemming, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry Branch), in Worcestershire.]]
At the outbreak of the [[World War I|First World War]] in August 1914, the tactical potential of [[machine gun]]s was not appreciated by the [[British Armed Forces]]. The prevalent attitude of senior ranks at the outbreak of the Great War can be summed up by the opinion of an officer  expressed a decade earlier that a single battery of machine guns per army corps was a sufficient level of issue.{{cn|date=February 2021}}

Despite the evidence of fighting in Manchuria (1905 onwards) the army went to war with each [[infantry]] [[battalion]] and [[cavalry]] [[regiment]] containing a machine gun section of just two guns.{{sfn|Corrigan|2012|p=129}}
<ref name=LLT_2xgunMGsection>{{cite web |title=What was a battalion of infantry? |last=Baker |first=Chris |url=https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/definitions-of-units/what-was-a-battalion-of-infantry/ |via=The long, long trail |access-date=25 February 2023 |quote=Until 1915 it also had a Machine Gun Section..... These men made up two gun teams.}}</ref>
This was soon increased to four guns per section.<ref name=Feb1915_4xgunMGsection>{{cite web |title=Machine Gun Section of the British Expeditionary Force (Great War) |last=Fisher |first=Rich |url=https://vickersmg.blog/in-use/british-service/the-british-army/machine-gun-section-of-the-british-expeditionary-force-great-war/ |via=Vickers MG Collection & Research Association |date=29 December 2017 |access-date=26 February 2023 |quote=With the introduction of the ‘New Armies’ in February 1915, the number of guns within the section was increased from two to four and the numbers of men and equipment were increased accordingly.}}</ref>{{sfn|Corrigan|2012|p=132}}

These organic (embedded) units were supplemented in November 1914 by the formation of the [[Motor Machine Gun Service]] (MMGS) administered by the [[Royal Artillery]], consisting of motor-cycle mounted machine gun batteries.

A machine gun school was also opened in France.

After a year of warfare on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] some commanders advocated crewing them with specially trained men who were not only thoroughly conversant with their weapons but understood how they should be best deployed for maximum effect. To achieve this, the Machine Gun Corps was formed in October 1915 – by Command of Brigadier [[Beauvoir De Lisle|H.B. de Lisle]] to Captain [[Ross McGillycuddy]] ([[4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards]])<ref>History of the Descendants of Richard, The McGillycuddy of the Reeks, (1826-1866) by Sir Aubrey Metcalfe.</ref> with Infantry, Cavalry, and Motor branches, followed in 1916 by the Heavy Branch.<ref>Captain Ross McGillycuddy, Brigade Machine Gun Officer, 2nd Cavalry Brigade, had brought a captured German Machine Gun from the Western front to the School of Infantry, Netheravon with a view to modernising the base plates of the Maxim and the relatively new Vickers to make them more manoeuvrable. He was awarded a gratuity by the War Department and purchased a bronze statuette of a Minstrel boy which is still in the family possession.</ref> A depot and training centre was established at [[Belton House|Belton Park]] near [[Grantham]], [[Lincolnshire]], and a base depôt at [[Camiers]] in [[France]]. Captain, then Major, McGillycuddy attended an earlier Machine Gun School at Hythe. He formed there, as an ex-Gunner, certain theories on the use of the Machine Gun from which he was able to turn to good account in the war of 1914 to 1918.
<ref>At the outbreak of the war in 1914, the 3rd Earl Brownlow offered the War Department the use of Belton Park (but not the house which now belongs to The National Trust). The offer was readily accepted and Belton Park was used by the British Expeditionary Force before becoming the training school for the newly formed Machine Gun Corps. Initially just a tented village,  the camp soon grew with the addition of barracks, chapels, post office, water towers, school rooms, YMCA huts and a camp hospital. Between 1915 and 1922. around 175,000 men would spend six weeks trainingat Belton before being posted to the 
 Western Front. Mesopotamia (Iraq), Egypt, Palestine, Russia, Italy, Greece, India or East Africa.</ref>