On the 21st June and 5th July the Queen inspected the second company in common with the rest of the troops at the camp. The Prince Albert and Lord Hardinge accompanied Her Majesty. The King and Queen of Hanover were present on the first day. The fifth company and a detachment of the eleventh were also reviewed by the Queen and the Prince Consort on the 4th and 6th August. On the latter date Her Majesty did not personally inspect the troops. On all occasions of the royal presence at the camp, the sappers were in full notice of Her Majesty, for they possessed the advantage of occupying a position close to the Bagshot road, and next to one of the special entrances, which led the Queen and the royal cortege immediately past their tents to the “Magnet.”
After the breaking up of the camp, the sappers remained for four days to dismantle the stables and collect the stores. All the canvas was stripped off the stables, and packed in two days and a half, throughout which time the men were exposed to a ceaseless rain, which fell in torrents. The pontoons and carriages were conveyed to Chertsey, and embarked for Chatham. After completing these duties, the fifth company and the detachment of the eleventh, under Captain W. M. Inglis and Lieutenant W. C. Anderson, R.E., arrived respectively at Chatham and Woolwich on the 24th August. On that day Lord Seaton finally gave up his command. A party of one sergeant and eight privates—the last troops at the camp—detained for the closing duties of clearing the ground, and collecting and packing the Ordnance and Commissariat stores, joined at head-quarters on the 27th August. Novel and memorable was the reappearance of these companies with the corps, for both officers and men had doffed their plumes, and substituted for them bunches of blooming heather, gathered from the ridges and valleys of the now famous Chobham. On their route to Chertsey they were met by Colonel Vicars, who complimented them for their excellent conduct and exertions during the period of their encampment, and expressed to them the satisfaction of Lord Seaton for their alacrity and readiness at all times to meet the wants of the service. This testimony was afterwards corroborated in a letter dated Hyam’s, 25th August, 1853, to Lieutenant-General Sir John Burgoyne, in which his lordship, after alluding to the active assistance of the officers of royal engineers, and the detachment of the corps of sappers under the command of Colonel Vicars, added “that their conduct and exertions on all occasions have been most satisfactory.”
1854-1856.
Staff appointments—Party to Melbourne—Mint detachment to Sydney—Survey of Aldershot heath—Department of Practical Science and Art—Staff ranks to the survey companies—Dress—Party detached to Heligoland—Also to Paris for the Exhibition—Corporal Mack’s services in testing woods—A foreigner’s surprise at the varied employments of the sappers—Sergeant Jenkins’ interview with the Emperor—Fire at the Manutention du Commerce—Radical change in the dress—Arms and accoutrements—Costume of the quartermasters—Supernumerary sergeants—Additional staff appointments—Exhibition at the Mauritius—Arrival of company from Bermuda, and removal to Aldershot—Chatham becomes the head-quarters—Rejection of the services of Van Diemen’s Land detachment by the Legislative Council, which are accepted by the Governor of New South Wales—Organization and pay of driver troop—Additions to the corps and various incidental alterations—Detail of establishment of corps—The band—Its costume—Dress of the bandmaster—Party recalled from Purfleet—Detachment to Hythe for rifle practice, &c.; the system pursued there becomes a leading feature in the instruction at Chatham.
Major Walpole, on his promotion to be lieutenant-colonel, was removed from the appointment of brigade-major to the corps, and succeeded by Captain Frederick A. Yorke, R.E., on the 17th February. Lieutenant-Colonel Walpole had been commissioned to the office from the Cape of Good Hope, where he had served for many years in command of the tenth company, and been twice dangerously wounded in action with the Kaffirs at Fort Peddie. During the six years he had held the appointment he carried out in all respects its requirements with a diligence, consideration, and success, that were of great advantage to the corps, and enhanced in public estimation its services and merits.
In Major Yorke, now Lieutenant-Colonel, the corps has the good fortune to have for its chief executive an officer who, for the greater part of his military career, has been much employed with it both at home and abroad. Under Major-General Matson, when brigade-major, he was the acting-adjutant at head-quarters, and thus early became acquainted with the organization, character, services, and resources of the royal sappers and miners.
On the 3rd March one sergeant and five rank and file sailed from Southampton for Melbourne to reinforce the civil staff employed in the survey of the waste districts of the Crown, and landed on the 24th July. This addition was made to the colonial establishment, as applications for land by the emigrants were increasing and urgent, and could not be met by any resources to be engaged in the colony.
In April a party, hutted on the bleak heath of Aldershot, commenced a series of surveys, having reference to the use of the moor as a military camp for periodical evolution and exercise. The detachment mustered at one time as many as twenty-four non-commissioned officers and men, and dwindled down to an initial party of a few choice hands to finish the operation. Captain Cameron, R.E., had the direction of the service; and corporal James Macdonald, now sergeant, a non-commissioned officer of tried ability and indefatigable activity, was its local superintendent. In ten months the detachment, after being instructed by the corporal, completed a survey of a selected district of about 800 acres for the Commander-in-Chief; another of some 1,500 acres for the professional use of Major-General Sir Frederic Smith; and a general one for the Ordnance, including the ground specially surveyed, extending over an area of 13,000 acres. Each survey provided its contours to suit particular requirements; and the whole range of duties for providing data for the plans, usually performed by different parties, with qualifications adapted to each particular service, were wholly carried out by corporal Macdonald[[128]] and his party. The work has since been engraved on the 6-inch scale.
Six rank and file to complete the mint detachment at Sydney, embarked in two parties on the 8th April and 19th June, taking with them the portable houses, shops, machinery, and stores necessary for the formation of the establishment. The men had all been instructed prior to leaving the royal mint in London in the art of coining, and were taught by Messrs. Walker, of Millwall, the method of fitting together the iron roofing, cisterns, girders, &c., to form the mint buildings. One man had also been instructed by Messrs. Whitworth and Co. at Manchester, in the manipulation and action of the several lathes to be used in the coining processes. They respectively reached Sydney on the 10th July and 24th October.
Three men were withdrawn from the department of science and art in the summer for service in the East, viz., two for employment as photographers, and one—corporal Dickson—as conductor of the pontoon equipment and stores. One of the photographers—corporal Pendered—had, while in that department the care of the students’ drawings sent from the various local schools of art, in competition for prizes offered by the commissioners. Corporal Dickson, who until his removal had acted as a clerk at Marlborough House, received from the Board of Trade a gratuity of 5l. in recognition of his usefulness. The non-commissioned officers who remained under Captain Owen, R.E., were corporals Frederic Key and James Mack; the former, stated to be full of invention and intelligence, continued throughout the year to act as overseer of the civil carpenters employed at Gore and Marlborough Houses; and the latter, remarkable for his good information and acquirements, was found a most useful clerk and draughtsman. It should also be noted that one or other of these non-commissioned officers travelled during the autumn to several provincial towns in England and Scotland, such as Nottingham, Coventry, Sheffield, Warrington, York, &c., and exhibited to local institutions in connection with the central school of design at Somerset House, a collection of students’ drawings for which prizes had been awarded at the spring examination at Gore House. The exhibition was so arranged as to be packed and conveyed from town to town with readiness and facility, and wherever they itinerated with their charge, were treated with attention and courtesy.