1839.

Services of the detachment in Spain—Last party of the artillery on the survey—Survey of South Australia—Inspection at Limerick by Sir William Macbean—Triangulation of north of Scotland—Also of the Clyde—Pontoons by sergeant Hopkins—Augmentation of the corps—Also of the survey companies—Supernumerary rank annulled—Tithe surveys; quality of work executed on them by discharged sappers; efficient surveys of sergeant Douli—Increase of survey pay—Staff appointments on the survey—Responsibility of quartermaster-sergeant M‘Kay—Colonel Colby’s classes—Based upon particular attainments—Disputed territory in the State of Maine—Movements and services of the party employed in its survey; intrepidity of corporal M‘Queen—Experiments with the diving-bell—Also with the voltaic battery—Improvement in the priming-wires by Captain Sandham; sergeant-major Jones’s waterproof composition and imitation fuses—Demolition and removal of the wreck of the ‘Royal George’—Organization of detachment employed in the operation—Emulation of parties—Success of the divers; labours of the sappers—Diving bell abandoned—Accident to private Brabant—Fearlessness of Corporal Harris in unloading the gunpowder from the cylinders—Hazardous duty in soldering the loading-hole of the cylinder—First sapper helmet divers—Conduct and exertions of the detachment.

The detachment in Spain was not called upon during the year to take part in any active operation. Its services were, therefore, confined to the works. At Passages the men performed several duties connected with the squadron; and in addition to fitting up Her Majesty’s ship ‘Nightingale’ for stores, made various essential alterations and fitments in Lord John Hay’s vessel, the ‘North Star.’ Sections of the detachment were for months at Aquirre completing the construction of a redoubt and magazine, and repairing the fortified house there, and building a barrack and magazine at Cachola Fort on the Hernani road. Others were also occupied for a period in fitting up the hospital at San Sebastian, repairing the barracks of the royal artillery and royal marines, and attending to the security of the different forts in front of the fortress.

A detachment of the artillery had, ever since the commencement of the national survey, been employed on that duty, whose numbers, by degrees, were reduced to five non-commissioned officers and privates. This year saw the last of that regiment on the survey, for the men alluded to were transferred to the corps on the 1st April.

On the 20th September, one sergeant, two corporals, and twelve privates landed at Port Adelaide, South Australia, from the ‘Recovery’ emigrant ship. The royal authority for the organization of this party to carry out the surveys of the colony, under the direction of Captain E. C. Frome, royal engineers, was dated 2nd July, 1839. Lord Normanby, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, at the instance of the South Australian Commissioners, recommended the measure. By this addition, the corps was increased from 1,048 to 1,063 of all ranks. The party was composed of men chiefly from the survey, married, with families, and well adapted for the service of the settlement. Soon the men were dispersed over a wide extent of the province, surveying a wild unoccupied territory, and also in setting off and surveying blocks of land for the emigrants. The duty was not without its trials; and for months the surveyors obtained no better shelter than the bush, the shade of some bold cliff, or the cover of a frail canvas tent. In 1844, when it became indispensable to effect some changes in the surveying department and in the mode of its action, in consequence of the increased population of the colony and its great inland distribution, his Excellency Captain G. Grey expressed before the Legislative Council his sense of the accuracy and ability with which the detachment had conducted the surveys, and added, that no greater efficiency could be desired in effecting the trigonometrical survey than that displayed in their labours.[[352]] Some of the party were constantly at Port Adelaide engaged in the contingent duties of the station, such as working at their trades, drawing, &c., and in superintendence. At first all expenses were borne by the Commissioners, but eventually they were defrayed from the colonial revenue. The working pay of the party continues to range between 1s. and 5s. a-day each, exclusive of regimental allowances and rations. The sergeant in charge receives the highest rate, and the privates seldom less than 2s. a-day each.

On the 23rd May, the sixteenth company under the command of Captain Stotherd, R.E., was inspected at Limerick by Major-General Sir William Macbean, and commended by the General for their soldier-like conduct and appearance.[[353]]

One corporal and twenty privates were detached in May under Lieutenant Robinson, R.E., to the north of Scotland, and continued on the trigonometrical survey of that portion of the country until late in December, when they rejoined their companies.

Captain A. Henderson, having with him one corporal and six privates, was employed in the secondary triangulation of the Clyde from May to the 10th October.

At the summer examination of the gentleman cadets at Sandhurst, there was “exhibited a pontoon raft of very ingenious construction, made by the sappers employed at the college under the direction of sergeant John Hopkins.” The raft was supported on two wicker boats formed after the fashion of the old Welsh coracle, covered with waterproof canvas, “each being ten feet long by three feet wide, and two feet three inches deep. The buoyancy and firmness of the raft were such as to show, that by giving a small additional length to the coracles, it might be rendered capable of bearing field artillery, and it was so light as to be swiftly impelled by a pair of oars. The experiment was extremely satisfactory, and proved that a very valuable resource in the field might be found in such constructions for passing rivers.”[[354]] On several occasions during the term the detachment were out day and night extinguishing fires—the work of incendiaries—in the plantations near the college, and their effectual exertions prevented the destruction of much of the crown property. Sergeant Hopkins was highly praised for his activity and intelligence in the practical work of instruction, and corporal Robert Hearnden for his skill in the construction of revetments.

By the authority of a royal warrant dated 3rd July, 1838, a company of eighty-nine strong, numbered the tenth, was added to the corps on the 1st July, 1839, which increased the establishment from 1,063 to 1,152 of all ranks. The formation of this company was occasioned by the removal in the previous year of a company from home duty to the Canadas.

In 1838 the Government threw the tithe surveys in England into the hands of contractors, whereby the parishes were burdened with an expense of 9d. an acre, while the survey executed by the Ordnance cost but little more than half the sum. The higher price thus paid to the contractors, enabled them to attract to their employment civil assistants trained by the Ordnance, to do their work. Many resignations of superior surveyors and draughtsmen were therefore the result, and so great a loss from a single class, necessarily deferred the completion of a large portion of surveyed work. To provide against injury from any similar contingency, a warrant dated 2nd July, 1839, authorized an augmentation of two sergeants, two corporals, two second corporals, and ten privates to each survey company, which, for the three companies devoted to that service, gave an increase of forty-eight men, making the total sapper establishment on the survey amount to—

Col-Sergts.Sergts.Corporals.2nd Corpls.Bug.Privates.Total.
31518186255315

By this augmentation, the corps was raised from a total of 1,152 to 1,200.

At this period, the survey companies were generally employed on confidential duties and dispersed over a vast extent of country; while most of the non-commissioned officers and many of the privates were in charge of parties, performing duties which required the exercise of great judgment and discretion. The additional permanent rank was granted to invest the non-commissioned officers with more weight and authority among their parties, and to supersede recourse to the anomalous expedient of supernumerary promotion.

The same reason which diminished the civil strength of the national survey, induced a disposition among the best soldiers of the corps on that duty to purchase their discharge. Several quitted during the tithe survey mania,[[355]] and the vacancies in the three companies by this and other means, showed that encouragement was wanted to influence them to continue in the service. To afford this, Colonel Colby obtained the power on the 16th August, 1839, to award working pay to the royal sappers and miners under his command, to the maximum of 3s. a-day, according to individual merit and exertion, in addition to their regimental pay and allowances.

This, however, was not regarded by Colonel Colby as sufficient to meet the emergency. It was hopeless for him to compete in pecuniary payments with the expensive parochial surveys of England, and he therefore asked for two military rewards in addition to the augmented working pay. These were the permanent rank and pay of one sergeant-major and one quartermaster-sergeant. But the Master-General did not view the matter in the same light as the Colonel, and only consented to the appointment of an acting sergeant-major with the pay of the rank. This Colonel Colby did not consider an adequate distinction, and he never availed himself of it.[[356]]

In July, 1839, before the increased working pay was granted, the following was the distribution of the companies on the survey according to classes.

s.d. No.
Receiving less than 10a-day19
” 10”25
1st 11”15
2nd 12”12
3rd 13”17
4th 14”17
5th 15”24
Colonel Colby’s6th 16”26
Classes. 17”20
A18”17
19”5
110”3
B111”1
20”5
206[[357]]

The qualifications demanded of surveyors to render them deserving of advancement were as follows:—

Class 1st.—To be capable of surveying for content—flat country.

Class 2nd.—Surveying for content—hilly country, including the use of the theodolite, taking the horizontal and vertical angles, as well as reducing the lines to the horizontal planes of the links on the arch.

Class 3rd.—Competent to register angles and distances, and to make a content plot.

Class 4th.—Able to compute areas, and horizontal and vertical distances and triangles.

Class 5th.—Able to lay out town lands or parishes for content with skill, so as to prevent confusion or unnecessary labour in the subsequent measurements.

Class 6th.—Fully acquainted with every branch of content surveying, and capable of directing parties of content surveyors.

Class A.—Competent to survey and plot roads, &c.

Class B—Competent to draw plans.

In all the classes, every man was expected to do his work accurately; and if, in addition, he showed rapidity with correctness and neatness, special encouragement was given to such sappers by the grant of a proportional allowance.

Second-corporal Robert Hearnden and two lance-corporals were attached on the 9th July to Colonel Mudge, R.E., and Mr. Featherstonhaugh, to assist in the topographical survey of the disputed territory in the state of Maine, with a view to the settlement of the boundary question. The sappers were dressed in plain clothes, suitable to the climate; and after a brief stay at New York, and subsequently at Boston, entered Fredericton on the 19th August. Sixty-two canoes were hired for the service of the commission, and about 100 men, chiefly Indians, to man them. Lance-corporal William McGregor was left at the observatory at the Grand Falls, St. John’s; and on every day, at intervals of two hours, registered the indications of the five different barometers placed in his charge. Corporal Hearnden and lance-corporal John McQueen were employed with the Commissioners; and, in tracing the sources of the rivers and finding the heights of land, aided in registering the results of the instruments used to determine their altitudes. This employment necessarily kept them much afloat; they moved daily to reconnoitre; and in doing so, the stores and equipage, for which they were responsible, were invariably sent onwards under their charge. At night they slept in tents by the shores of the streams where their day’s labour ended, and in winter were much exposed to great inclemency of weather and sometimes personal danger. Once corporal McQueen, under circumstances of peculiar peril, saved from drowning a servant of one of the commissioners, and held him with his powerful arm, by the collar, at the side of the canoe for about an hour, until he reached land. The canoe at the time was crossing the first lake on the Allagash, about three miles broad, and was freighted with baggage. Had he taken the sufferer into the canoe it would have foundered, as it was then sunk in the water to the gunwale. Corporal McQueen also met with personal misfortune in the loss by fire of his necessaries. Late in November the party reached Fredericton, and arrived at Woolwich on the 24th January, 1840. Each received 1s. a-day working pay, and as a reward for having performed their duties in a satisfactory manner, a gratuity of 10l.

Previously to undertaking the destruction of the wreck of the ‘Royal George,’ at Spithead, Colonel Pasley made various experiments with the diving-bell. The common form was rectangular, and proved under certain circumstances very dangerous. The diving-bell in Chatham dockyard was fitted up by carpenters of the corps, and when completed, resembled in its horizontal section, that of a boat twelve and a half feet long, and four and a half broad.[[358]] On the 14th May the altered bell was tried from the ‘Anson,’ 72, in the Medway, near Gillingham. Captain M. Williams, R.E., was the executive officer: he had with him a party of the corps and some riggers, &c., to work the bell. Sergeant-major Jones was the first man of the sappers to enter it, and on that day the experiments fully proved its efficacy for hazardous service. Colonel Pasley thereupon determined to use it at Spithead.[[359]]

In the experiments which from time to time were made with the voltaic battery, serjeant-major Jones was always appointed to assist. Colonel Pasley had a high opinion of his experience, and of the quickness with which he saw a difficulty and proposed a remedy. The operation of passing the priming wires through water into the bursting charges of powder, was brought to perfection by Captain Sandham, of the royal engineers. Hitherto tape had been wrapped all round the priming wires, and paid over the outside with waterproof composition, leaving the inside of the tapes, and the wires embraced by them, quite clean, “which formed two circular open joints, and therefore was rather a curious sort of connexion.” But the improved arrangement consisted in adopting the “expedient of smearing over or saturating with sergeant-major Jones' waterproof composition, the wires themselves, as well as every other part of the other materials used in this junction, whether tape, thread, hemp, twine, wooden plugs, and caps to prevent contact with the leaden pipe in which the priming apparatus was inclosed, or canvas tops applied over the wooden cap which served to cement it to the outside of the cylinder containing the great charge.” In the judicious use of that valuable composition, very extraordinary proofs of its excellence afterwards came to light in the operations at Spithead.[[360]]

The ‘Royal George,’ a first-rate man-of-war of 100 guns, was overset at Spithead June 28th, 1782,[[361]] and for nearly sixty years, that leviathan wreck had been lying in the roadstead, a danger to shipping. Several enterprising individuals had attempted or proposed to raise or remove it, but with unavailing results. At length Colonel Pasley undertook the task, and in a few summers, by means of gunpowder, effected its entire demolition and removal. Many guns had been previously recovered, but the number still at the bottom was estimated in value at more than 5,000l.

Under the auspices of the Admiralty, Colonel Pasley repaired to Portsmouth from Chatham with the necessary stores and a detachment of the corps, consisting of sergeant-major Jenkin Jones, one bugler, a clerk, and thirteen rank and file under the command of Captain M. Williams, of the corps, who was afterwards relieved by Lieutenant J. F. A. Symonds, royal engineers. The rank and file comprised a collar-maker and a cooper, with a proportion of carpenters, blacksmiths, and tinmen. After being removed from the ‘Queen,’ navy lighter on the 20th August, to the ‘Success,’ frigate hulk, then anchored near the wreck, operations commenced on the 21st, and were continued with diligence till the 4th November. They were then suspended till the return of the summer. During the service, the sappers, and the seamen, marines, &c., were divided into two squads, and attached to two lumps moored about 100 fathoms apart, with the wreck between them. From these lumps the work was usually carried on. Each lump had its own diver. Lieutenant Symonds directed the operations of one, and sergeant-major Jones the other. “Thus a friendly emulation took place between the whole of the men employed,” each party working for the success of its own diver, “and the divers themselves being no less anxious to surpass each other.”[[362]]

Two of the great explosions failed, but two succeeded, besides a vast number of smaller ones, which shook the wreck and opened its sides and cleared its decks. The labour consequent on the success of the divers was immense, and the recovery of articles and guns gave promise of realizing more than sufficient to cover the outlay in carrying on the work. The more particular duties of the sappers did not prevent them taking a full share of the labour at the capstan and the ropes. When not employed in the general duties of the operation, they were confined to the performance of special ones; such as preparing the various explosions, managing the voltaic battery and apparatus, and repairing the latter when needed. “They also repaired the diving-dresses, and did all the coopers', blacksmiths', and carpenters' work necessary, including the fitting up and occasional repairs to launches used for receiving the materials.” In all these duties they were found particularly useful.[[363]]

When Mr. Dewar, the only bell-diver, was discharged, it became necessary to train volunteers to succeed him. Two men of the detachment readily offered to try the service. These were corporal David Harris and private William Reid. On the 27th August, with Colonel Pasley and Lieutenant Symonds, they entered the bell, and twice were lowered, the second time with the intention of going down on the wreck; but before they had descended low enough, a pleasure yacht having run foul of the lump from which the bell was being lowered, it was in consequence hauled up, as every man was wanted to assist in saving the yacht.

The diving-bell was employed a second time on the 4th September, with lance-corporal Harris and private John Skelton, as the sub-marine operators. When the vessel had descended about eight fathoms, the message-board and caution-line got entangled, and the divers were consequently hauled to the surface. A mishap of this kind would have discouraged some beginners, but spirited and willing, they only cared to succeed, and down again they went, reaching the bottom in little more than fourteen fathoms. As, however, no less than two and a-half feet of water had entered the bell, it was rendered inefficacious for any useful result. Owing to 50 men, hardy seamen and marines from the ‘Pique’ frigate, working the capstan and machinery, the descent was accomplished in ten and a-half minutes, and the re-ascent in eight and a-half; but when only 30 men were employed on the former occasion, the ascent went through the insufferably tedious period of 27 minutes. After these trials, the diving-bell, which from its unwieldy weight required no less than forty-nine men to be employed in various ways to raise it, was discarded and sent into Portsmouth dockyard.[[364]]

On the 5th September a large wrought iron cylinder filled with powder to be fired against the wreck, was found to have a small leak in it. “This would have been of no importance, as only a few pounds of powder were thereby spoiled; but when the whole of the powder was ordered to be emptied out that the hole might be repaired, unfortunately, the operation was carelessly executed,” inasmuch as water which should have been poured into the cylinder was not done. When, therefore, private Charles Brabant was afterwards employed in soldering a piece of tin over the hole, the powder still remaining in the cylinder blew up, and a fragment from it broke one of his thighs, and then indented itself in the deck. “This accident was much regretted by every one, especially as the young soldier thus injured bore an excellent character, and was one of the most useful men employed, his services as a tinman being in constant requisition.”[[365]]

The method adopted for unloading the powder from the cylinders when any was found to be damaged, and for preserving the good powder, was as curious as it was dangerous. “Having removed part of the outer casing of lead, corporal David Harris cut a hole through the side of the wood-work, by which, after emptying a part of its contents, he got into the cylinder, and continually kept filling a copper shovel with powder, which he handed out from time to time when full. At those periods only could any portion of him be seen. When rising up in his hole he displayed a face as black as a chimney-sweep’s.” To knock off the powder which had become caked either by wet or compression, he was provided with a wooden wedge and a copper hammer. Every precaution was taken to prevent accident, such as putting out the fires, laying hides on the deck and wetting them occasionally, as well as working in slippers. The duty was very unpleasant, and required in the operation more than ordinary courage.[[366]]

Soldering the loading-hole of the cylinder was also a dangerous service. “The neck and loading-hole were of brass, in the form of an hour-glass, soldered to the iron-work. As the hole was to have a disc of metal soldered over it after the cylinder was filled with powder, with a plug and some inches of clay between the powder and the disc, Mr. Taplin, a foreman in Portsmouth dockyard, was requested to send one of his artificers to do it who was accustomed to that sort of soldering; but the man sent to do it was horror-struck at the idea of the thing, and declared he would not attempt it for a thousand pounds!” The hole was eventually soldered by private Skelton, though unused to the work.[[367]]

The first helmet divers were corporal Harris and private William Reid,[[368]] who volunteered to act if required. They went down for trial in fifteen fathoms water near the ‘Success’ frigate one day when the regular divers were not required at the wreck. On another occasion when Hiram London had injured his hand, “corporal Harris went down four times to the wreck in one slack, and succeeded in slinging four pieces of timber, all of which were brought up.”[[369]]

Sergeant-major Jones, it is recorded, assisted Lieutenant Symonds with great efficiency, “and being very nearly as skilful in the management of boats and application of the mechanical powers as in the use of gunpowder,” his services were very important. Private William Read[[370]] prepared the voltaic battery for use, assisted by one or two others of the detachment, and his skill and steadiness, at all times apparent, were more decided in moments of difficulty. “Private John Skelton, a blacksmith, not only did everything essential in his own trade, but worked as a tinman in soldering up the loaded cylinders, and contrived to put the air-pipes in good order when the attempt seemed hopeless. Being also one of the most active men in boats or at the capstan, when not employed as an artificer, he and private William Read were appointed lance-corporals on the conclusion of the service.”[[371]] The detachment returned to the corps at Woolwich in the ‘Medea’ steamer on the 6th November, 1839. The working pay of the sergeant-major was 2s. a-day, and the rank and file 1s. a-day each.