The survey of Southampton was completed late this year for the Southampton Improvement Board. A detachment of the corps, directed by Captain Yolland, R.E., under the local superintendence of sergeant William Campbell, executed the work. The map, on a scale of 60 inches to a mile, occupies thirty-five large sheets, which have been magnificently bound in bureau folio, and placed in the municipal archives of the town. Sergeant Campbell attended at a meeting of the Commissioners on the 31st March, 1847, and presented the map, on the part of the Ordnance to the Corporation. The work is one of extreme beauty. A more artistical display of ornamental surveying does not exist. The stonework of the pavement, the styles of the public buildings, the masonry of the graving-dock, the undulation of the silt on the shores, and small streams of water running into it from the coast, the gardens of private houses, and the trees and shrubberies of the common, are all delineated with a minuteness of detail and beauty of colouring unexampled in any town map in England. Even the map of Windsor, which obtained the approbation of Her Majesty for its accuracy and exquisite finish, is much inferior to the map of Southampton. The draughtsmen were second-corporals Charles Holland[[500]] and George Vincent, with Patrick Hogan,[[500]] late royal sappers and miners, and Mr. Maclachlan.[[501]] The Commissioners of the town gave a unanimous vote of thanks to Captain Yolland, the sappers, and the assistants for the survey and map of the borough, and also expressed “the high sense they entertained of the great ability and unrivalled skill displayed in the execution of the work.” A committee was formed to take steps for rewarding Captain Yolland and sergeant Campbell “with an adequate testimonial of the Commissioners' high approbation of the work;” but the intended honour, on military grounds, was declined.[[502]]
1847.
Detachments in South Australia—Corporal W. Forrest—Augmentation to the corps—Destruction of the Bogue and other forts—Services of the detachment at Canton—First detachment to New Zealand—Survey of Dover and Winchelsea—Also of Pembroke—Flattering allusion to the corps—Sir John Richardson’s expedition to the Arctic regions—Cedar Lake—Private Geddes’s encounter with the bear—Winter quarters at Cumberland House—Roadmaking in Zetland—Active services at the Cape—Company to Portsmouth.
The detachment in South Australia was in July, 1845, on the representation of his Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Grey, ordered to be reduced, its employment being considered no longer necessary or advantageous to the province. Scarcely had steps been taken to effect its disbandment, when Governor Grey, removed to another settlement, was succeeded by Colonel Robe, who, taking a different view of the services of the party, submitted the desirableness of its immediate completion to the authorized establishment. In this suggestion Earl Grey concurred, regarding it of the greatest importance that the survey department in the province should not be permitted to fall into arrear in its work; and under authority, dated 22nd October, 1846, a party of seven mechanics, who were also surveyors and draughtsmen, sailed for Port Adelaide in February and landed there the 30th June.[[503]]
The corps was increased by 200 men this year, on account of the formation of a company on the 1st April, and another on the 1st December. These companies were numbered the seventeenth and eighteenth; and the establishment now reached a total of 1,800 officers and soldiers. When the estimates for the year were under consideration in the House of Commons, Colonel Anson, the surveyor-general of the Ordnance, in claiming an increased amount to cover the augmentation, passed a high eulogium on the corps. After speaking in flattering terms of the royal engineers, the Colonel added, “He might say as much for the sappers and miners. This body was composed of most intelligent men, who applied themselves most assiduously to the discharge of their duties, and were equal to any services which they might be called upon to perform.”[[504]]
Thirty-five non-commissioned officers and men accompanied the expedition from Hong Kong to Canton, under Captain Durnford and Lieutenant Da Costa, R.E., and were present at the capture of the Bogue and other forts in the Canton river on the 2nd and 3rd April. The forts taken were fourteen in number, and 865 heavy guns were rendered useless by spiking, while a number of barbaric weapons were captured.[[505]]
The sappers were in advance, and opened the gates of the forts for the assaults, and afterwards destroyed the magazines and assisted to spike the guns. Privates James Cummins and James Smith placed the powder-bags on the gates.[[506]] Corporal Hugh Smith[[507]] laid the trains to two forts, and was favourably mentioned by Major Aldrich, R.E., to Sir John Davis, the Governor, and Major-General D’Aguilar. Sergeants Joseph Blaik[[508]] and Benjamin Darley[[509]] conspicuously distinguished themselves: the former blew in the gate of Zigzag Fort, and the latter blew up the magazine at Napier’s Fort.
At Canton the sappers were employed in barricading streets, making scaling-ladders, &c., and pulling down houses, walls, and other obstructions required to be removed. “My own observations,” wrote Colonel Phillpotts, the commanding royal engineer in China, “of the cheerful and ready manner in which they at all times performed their various and arduous duties by day, and often by night, demands my most marked approbation.” The gallant conduct of sergeant Blaik attracted the notice of Major-General D’Aguilar, for which he was promoted to the rank of colour-sergeant. The whole detachment remained at Canton until the 8th April; but on the troops quitting for Hong Kong four of the sappers were left behind, and assisted Lieutenant Da Costa, R.E., in making a survey of the European factories at that commercial emporium, until the 14th May, 1847, when they rejoined the detachment at Victoria.
On the 10th April one sergeant and twelve rank and file embarked at Deptford on board the ‘Ramilies,’ and landed at Auckland, New Zealand, on the 9th August. This was the first party of the corps detached to that remote settlement.
From April to June one sergeant and twelve rank and file from Chatham, under Captain McKerlie, R.E., assisted in the survey and contouring of Dover, within a range of a thousand yards from the fortifications. Early in the previous year five non-commissioned officers and men were employed in a military survey of portions of Winchelsea.