Under General Order 72 of 4 April 1882 the Royal Artillery (RA) broke up its existing administrative brigades[a] of garrison artillery (7th–11th Brigades, RA) and assigned the individual batteries to 11 new territorial divisions.

These divisions were purely administrative and recruiting organisations, not field formations.

Most were formed within the existing military districts into which the United Kingdom was divided, and for the first time associated the auxiliary forces with the regulars.

For these units the divisions represented recruiting districts – batteries could be serving anywhere in the British Empire and their only connection to brigade headquarters (HQ) was for the supply of drafts and recruits.

The artillery volunteers, which had previously consisted of numerous independent Artillery Volunteer Corps (AVC) of various sizes, sometimes grouped into administrative brigades, had been consolidated into larger AVCs in 1881, which were now affiliated to the appropriate territorial division.