India and Indian Engineering. / Three lectures delivered at the Royal Engineer Institute, Chatham, in July 1872

by J. G. Medley

All the above officials, from the grade of Chief Engineer down to that of Assistant-Engineer, inclusive, are indifferently drawn from officers of the Royal Engineers; Artillery or Line Officers trained at [Roorkee]; Civil Engineers sent out from England; civilians (European and Native) trained at Roorkee. The promotion from one grade to another is partly by merit and partly by seniority, and has nothing whatever to do with military rank; but care has generally been taken not to have a Royal Engineer officer serving departmentally under his junior.

It may interest some of you if I trace the probable career of a young Royal Engineer, sent to India, say, to what is still called (though improperly) the Bengal Presidency. On landing at Bombay, and reporting himself to the military authorities, he will be directed to proceed to Roorkee, where he will have to do duty with the Bengal Sappers and Miners for a year. This is the order at present, the idea being that in the interval he will acquire some knowledge of the language and of the customs of the country, and, if he is wise, he will make good use of his time; for until he can speak Hindustani pretty fluently, he will find himself very helpless, and all but useless. Roorkee is the head-quarters of the Bengal Sappers, and virtually the head-quarters of the Royal Engineers in the Bengal Presidency. The college over which I have, for some years, had the honour of presiding is at the same station, but is in no way connected with the Sappers, being a public works institution under the civil government, while the Sappers are of course under the Commander-in-Chief.

The Thomason College has been founded about twenty-five years, and now contains about 250 students. There is an engineer class, consisting of a few Artillery and Line officers, and some thirty civilians, who undergo a two years’ training to fit them for the posts of Assistant-Engineers in the P. W. Dept.; another class of officers, who stay only seven months, and are trained for the Quartermaster-General’s Department; a class of soldiers who are trained as Overseers; and a large native class, who are educated as Sub-Overseers, Sub-Surveyors, Estimators, and Draftsmen. Besides the Principal, there are two Royal Engineer Assistants on the staff, two civil Professors of Mathematics and Experimental Science, and two sets of subordinate Masters for the lower classes. There are also a library, model room, and museums in the college, and an excellent press, whence a good many useful works have issued, chiefly relating to Indian engineering.

The Bengal Sappers and Miners are a fine body of men, consisting of twelve companies of native soldiers, recruited from the best and most warlike tribes in Upper India, who have done excellent service wherever they have been employed. Besides their own native officers, English non-commissioned officers are attached to the companies. There is a Commandant, Adjutant, Superintendent of Instruction, and Superintendent of the Park and Field Train, and four doing-duty officers, who are all Royal Engineers, besides the new arrivals attached temporarily to the corps. About half the men are at head-quarters, the remainder in detached companies at Peshawur and elsewhere on the frontier. There is a very fair park and pontoon train attached; also workshops and schools. The men are skilful and intelligent, excellent workmen and good soldiers.

Roorkee also possesses a Foundry and Workshops belonging to Government, which are interesting as having been the first of the kind erected in India, twenty-four years ago, before the introduction of railways. The workmen are all natives, and some of them are remarkably clever and intelligent. They will make anything for anybody, from an iron bridge or a steam engine, down to a railway key; and they turn out excellent spirit levels, prismatic compasses, and so forth. Near Roorkee are also all the greatest works of the Ganges Canal.

Roorkee is a pleasant and healthy station, and many of the young officers stay voluntarily with the Sappers for more than the regular year, as their departmental promotion counts all the same. But generally speaking, before the year is out, the young officer will read in the Gazette of India one fine morning that his services have been placed at the disposal of the P.W. Dept.; and in the next Gazette that he is posted to such or such a province; then a week later, in the local Gazette of that province, he will be posted to a particular circle, and the superintending engineer of that circle will desire him to report himself to some particular executive engineer. The day after his arrival he will find himself employed according to the nature of the work, either surveying and levelling, or drawing plans and making calculations, or in a tent in the middle of the jungles superintending the building of a bridge, with not a soul that can speak a word of English within 30 miles of him. For the next four or five years he will probably be changed about a good deal from one work to another; and if he has proved himself efficient, will then find himself an executive engineer of the fourth grade, and in charge of a division; while, after running through the four executive grades, another ten years or so may carry him on to the higher grade of a superintending engineer.

Generally speaking, a new arrival can select his own line of departmental service, which will depend on his tastes and circumstances. If he has been weak enough to get married before going out, or if he is fond of society, he will select the Military Buildings’ branch, so that he may live in a station; and if he has a speciality for architecture, I should strongly recommend him to do this, for there is a great want of men in that line in India. If, however, he is fond of hard work and knocking about in the jungles, and doesn’t mind a solitary life, he will prefer the Irrigation or Railway branch, and I do not think he will regret his choice, for no man fond of his profession could desire more interesting work, and in the construction of a new line of Canal or Railroad he will every day find scope for his talent or ingenuity or readiness of resource.

Not a few men enter the Survey, which is, however, quite a separate department, divided into three branches,—the Trigonometrical, Topographical, and Revenue,—and the promotion in it proceeds pari passu with that of the Public Works Department.

It may be asked, what are the relations of a Royal Engineer officer, in a department so miscellaneously constituted, to the Civil Engineers and Line officers, with whom he has to work? I think they are generally very friendly and agreeable, and though, of course, it is pleasanter to serve under one’s own brother officers, yet the various members of the department work harmoniously together, and the promotions are generally very fairly made, energetic and clever men being pushed on well.