The following is an appreciation by an old comrade in the Artists' Volunteer Corps:—
"The names of those who first enrolled themselves to form the Artists' Volunteer Corps in 1860 is a record of considerable interest in itself, and calls back many reminiscences connected with art. Leighton joined May 10, 1860, and was in a few days given his commission as ensign.
"Probably the very character of the first recruits tended to prevent that expansion and accession of numbers without which no military body can flourish. Lord Bury, the first commandant, became the Colonel of the Civil Service Rifles; and whatever attention may have been given to firing and detailed training, the early appearances of the 'Artists' in public at reviews was, as a rule, as a company or two attached to the Civil Service Rifle Corps.
"Events, however, brought a change in the command, and Leighton having, not without hesitation, accepted it, set himself at once to introduce reforms. The Captains, he announced, were to be responsible each for the command and drill of his company. He, to carry out before promotion as Major Commanding a duty which the previous laxity had never required of him, learned the company drill by heart and went through the whole complicated system then existing, on a single evening under trying circumstances in very insufficient space. Reorganisation did not rapidly fill the ranks, and there was much hard work to be done before the Artists' Corps appeared as a completed eight-company battalion, and took its place among the best of the Volunteer Corps of the Metropolis. The personality of the Commander did very much to achieve this result, and Leighton became Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant in 1876.
"Next to his duty to his Art and to the Royal Academy, as he was ever careful to say, he esteemed his duty in the Corps. Busy man, with his time mapped out more than most, he was always accessible and ready to give the necessary time to those who had access to him on the Corps business. He never appeared on parade without previous study of the drill to be gone through, while his tact, energy, and personal charm were brought out and used at those social meetings with officers and with men which do so much to build up the tone of a volunteer body.
"Of camps and duties in the tented field he took his part cheerfully. He shared the hardship of the early experience of the detachment at the Dartmoor Manœuvres, where, camping on the barren hills above the lower level of the mist, the extemporised commissariat followed with difficulty, and the officers consoled themselves for the roughness of their fare by the consumption of marmalade, which happened to be supplied in bulk, and had to clean their knives in the sand to make some show for the entertainment of the Brigadier at such dinner as could be had.
"Regarding volunteering so earnestly as he did, the reports of the Inspecting Officers would appear of great importance in Leighton's eyes. On one occasion paragraphs had appeared in the papers about the Corps which probably gave some umbrage to the authorities. The Inspecting Officer kept the battalion an unconscionable time at drill, changed the command, fell out the Staff Sergeants, yet all went well. At length, with Leighton again in command, and a word imperfectly heard, the square walked outwards in four directions. The confusion was put to rights, and the well-prepared speech from the Inspecting Officer as to the importance of battalion drills, &c., followed. It was quite a pleasure to point out to the distressed Leighton that the whole was manifestly a 'put up thing.'
"The answer he received on another occasion admitted of no misinterpretation. Riding with the Officer after the inspection, and anxious to know whether in his opinion he was really doing any good work by his volunteering, Leighton asked whether the Officer would be willing to take the battalion he had just inspected under fire, and received the laconic reply, 'Yes, sir, hell fire.'
"On Leighton's election as President of the Academy, his twenty-five years active service in the Corps ceased in 1883. All the time that the history of the volunteering of the nineteenth century is known, his name will be associated with the Artists' Corps to the honour of both."
Mr. Hamo Thornycroft, R.A., also adds his tribute in the following lines:—