Designated "Keeper of the King's Wardrobe", his duties included the care and accounting of heavy equipment such as battering rams and catapults.

The title of "Master of Ordnance" can be traced to 1414; this individual cared for the king's military stores, particularly his artillery pieces.

Creditable service in the Second World War led to the grant of the prefix "Royal" by George VI on 12 July 1947.

On 8 December 1996, the RNZAOC was one of the corps that amalgamated to form The Royal New Zealand Army Logistic Regiment (RNZALR).

[2] In 1856 stores depots were established at Mt Cook in Wellington and at Fort Britomart in Auckland, by 1870 the final withdrawal of Imperial troops had been completed.

[3] In the early years of the 20th century, it was recognised that New Zealand Defence stores functions, which were controlled by a combination of civilian and military departments were in need of rationalisation and modernisation.

Various studies were undertaken and many recommendations made, with organisational changes taking place in 1907 and after then 1910 inspection and recommendations of Field Marshal Viscount Kitchener plans for the formation of an Ordnance Corps progressed slowly with small steps taken in 1911, the ad hoc formation of the NZAOC within the NZEF and finally the formation of the New Zealand Army Ordnance Department and Corps with them being Gazetted on 1 February 1917 taking over the functions of the Defence Stores.

The NZOC was the Ordnance element of the New Zealand Territorial Army,[14][15] and was tasked with home defence and as a feeder for the Expeditionary Forces.

[16] In 1947 a Reorganization of New Zealand Military Forces removed the distinction between Regular and non-Regular soldiers, and the NZOC ceased to be a separate Corps, becoming part of the NZAOC.

From a genesis of four Stores Depots at the beginning of the 20th century, the RNZAOC expanded and retracted to meet the operational needs of the NZ Army.

In the early years of the Corps, stores accounting relied upon manually raised vouchers and entries into ledger books and cards.

As the NZ Army had a long relationship with the British Army, the Corps used the Vocabulary of Army Ordnance Stores (VAOS) system of codification of item part numbers, but as the relationship with the United States became closer and more US equipment was coming into service it was decided in 1968 to adopt the NATO Codification System and replace the VAOS number with internationally standardised NATO Stock Number (NSN).

[28] The RNZAOC's motto was Sua tela tonanti (literally "His [i.e. Jupiter's] Missiles to the one who is Thundering", but commonly translated as "To the Warrior his Arms").

At the end of 1920 King George V approved an alliance between the RAOC and the Ordnance Corps of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

Puggarees from an Indian (Hindi) word paggari or pagri roughly translated means small turban.

Puggarees on western military headgear have their origins with the British Indian Army's attempt to make the band on helmets and hats look like a stylised turban.

As Billy Beck was the first New Zealand ordnance soldier to set foot on a foreign land operationally, his name was chosen for the club for all RNZAOC military members posted to Singapore.

[41][42] The requirement for a Corps newsletter was first mooted by the Director of Ordnance Services (DOS) in 1968 as a medium to distribute information about activities in the RNZAOC and it was to be published quarterly or more frequently.

The first printed edition was published in October 1968 and distributed across the Corps including copies to soldiers then serving in Malaysia and Vietnam.

The RNZAOC has two memorials of note: Commissioned by Lt Col David Watmuff, Commanding Officer of 1 Base Logistic Battalion, and painted by Artist Graham Braddoc,.