The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum is located in Wolseley Barracks, purposely-built by the Dominion Government to house «D» Company of the Infantry School Corps (1886 to 1888). The Royal Canadian Regiment (The RCR) began as the Infantry School Corps (21 December, 1883) and evolved to four battalions located at Garrison Petwawa, ON, Garrison Gagetown, NB and London, ON. The RCR has a lineage back to 1863-64, when militia units were raised in Woodstock and London, ON.
The RCR Museum is one of the oldest Canadian museums. On 2nd June 1886, the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada approved in its fourth session – fifth parliament, an expenditure of $30,000 for the London Infantry School. The works were eventually placed under the care of Henry James (1839 – 1893), the Chief Architect for the Militia Department. By the end of 1888, the construction was completed and the troops took quarters. The 1886 floor plans show a room specially designated to become a museum, adjacent to a “reading room” and to an office for the “professor”; no other armouries or military buildings erected in Canada included such a designation before. Successive renovation projects brought the museum to today’s footprint, occupying the entire west wing of the historic building.