This establishment was far greater than had been allowed even during the oppressive years of the Peninsular war, and the number of companies, long in its teens, had swept on by successive augmentations to 27—one being a driver troop.
Without any increase of pay from state sources, the band is supported by an annual subscription from the officers of engineers managed by a committee, of which the assistant adjutant-general is president. Though never recognised, a brass band had been in existence for many years, but when the new order of things was sanctioned, a reed band was established as more in keeping with the refinements of a distinguished corps. The accomplished features of an operatic orchestra were also introduced combined with the sacred musical accessories of the church; and the bald services of a garrison chapel which, until the arrival of the head-quarters at Chatham, was conducted without singing, has recently been varied and made additionally grateful by the use of chants, glorias, psalms, &c.[[134]]
The costume of the band, approved by Prince Albert, is perhaps the handsomest in the service though the contrasts are extreme. A black bear-skin head-dress, scarlet cloth trousers, and white cloth tunic constitute the uniform. The first is free of embellishment and without feather or plume, but has a gilt curb chain for the chin. The trousers have a stripe of gold lace five-eighths of an inch broad down the outer seams, a distinction never before, it is believed, conferred on any band in the service. After the Hungarian fashion, but less picturesque, the tunic is tastefully trimmed with gold lace, gold traceries, and gold square untwisted cords for the shoulders. All the lacing is half an inch wide and the tracing is worked with Russian braid. Cut on the model of the corps’ tunic, except that the skirts have no slashes and the fronts are curved, its facings and edgings, of silk plush, are of a bright blue, and agreeably harmonize with the white cloth, giving it an appearance of ultra delicacy. Let but a storm soak it, and its elegance departs. The collar is laced all round and traced on the inner edges, enlivened by eyes in the angles, and a crowsfoot at the centre. The cuffs are similarly laced, and traced on both edges with a series of eyes and finished with crowsfeet. Down the front edges and back seams to the bottoms of the skirts both in front and rear, the lace again occurs traced in and out and figured at the terminations with a play of artistic fancy developed into highly florid crowsfeet. Simpler configurations crown the lacing of the back seams, which is relieved at the waist by ornithological devices resembling, with greater truth, a sprig of shamrock than the object to which the tailors have so strangely likened them. Down each breast are five bars compressed in length as they reach the waist, traced on both edges, having eyes at the corners and terminating at the points, with the ever-present crowsfeet. Except the two shoulder buttons, the tunic possesses no adornment of this kind, the fronts being closed by hooks and eyes.
The waist-belt is of white patent leather; the plate the same as that worn by the staff sergeants, the sword has for its hilt an ornamental Maltese cross bearing the device of a buglehorn, and sheathed in a black leather scabbard with brasses ornamentally shaped. It is shorter than the one worn by the buglers. The forage cap is similar to the sergeants; but the jacket and trousers are like the drill dress of the privates with an addition to the jacket of twisted gold shoulder cords, blue cloth edgings, and blue cloth piping down the hind arms and back seams terminating with blue cloth cushions as substitutes for buttons.
A very pleasing uniform has been adopted for the bandmaster, of scarlet cloth without breast bars. In all other essential particulars it is laced, traced, and figured like the tunics of the musicians. The facings and edgings are of garter blue silk velvet. The collar is traced with a series of eyes on the inner edges of the lace; and the shoulder-cords trebly twisted are ornamented with embroidered grenades. The trousers, for bandmaster and bugle-major, are of dark Oxford mixture with a stripe of rich gold lace, one inch and three quarters wide, down each outer seam. In undress is worn a dark-blue cloth surtout, single-breasted, hooked up to the neck, with upright rounded collar, and five loops two inches wide of mohair braid down the front, which are further ornamented by the addition of a row of netted barrels, and flys. All the rest of the trimming is similar to that on the surtout of the quartermasters. The forage cap and trousers are also similar, but the accoutrements of the bandmaster with one exception correspond with those of the staff sergeants.
Instead of a sword he wears an elegant scimitar, short and light, in a brass scabbard, the hilt being composed of masks and foliage of the “cinque-cento” period. The curve of the gripe issues in a lion’s head, with ring attached, bearing a flowing treble twisted fretwork chain united to a ring at the guard.
Considered advisable to add to the system of instruction at Chatham the art of photography, four non-commissioned officers were sent to Kensington Palace on the 6th March to learn the process; and after being taught at Gore House by Mr. Thurston Thompson, returned to Chatham on the 5th May; since which date photography has formed an interesting item in the instructional proceedings of the establishment.
Akin with this is the system introduced by Captain Du Cane on his return from the Crimea for teaching non-commissioned officers and men the method of using the electric telegraph for military purposes. So successfully had the schooling of the men in this department of field usefulness been conducted, that in June a small force of sapper telegraphists was sent to Aldershot to establish the field telegraph. Three stations were soon in action, one at each of the camps, and one at Farnborough close to the electric telegraph company’s office. Double needle instruments were used at each of the stations and double wires connected with them stretched over the roofs of the huts and borne over the open spaces by poles rising between twenty and thirty feet high. A non-commissioned officer or more acted at each station and two always at Farnborough. Line orderlies attended the sappers to carry the messages.
Purfleet, attached from time immemorial to the Woolwich district, was, under the new order of things, combined with the created district of Waltham, and the small party of six sappers, which for many years had been employed in the Ordnance repairs at the station, was removed to Woolwich in May.
To add to the military efficiency of the corps, one sergeant and eight rank and file, commanded by Lieutenant G. R. Lempriere, were sent to Hythe in May to learn under Colonel Hay the approved method of rifle practice and judging distances. Their success was looked upon as very satisfactory. Though less time at drill than other detachments they stood well in the comparison, and one of their number, lance-corporal John Yelland, bore away the prize pen and certificate awarded by Colonel Hay. He was the best shot out of 164 men of different regiments who had for some months been contending for the honour. The sappers returned to Chatham on the 5th August, and the information obtained at Hythe has become one of the leading features of instruction at the royal engineer establishment. Lieutenant Lempriere is the instructor; and some of the men who have passed through his hands have proved themselves better shots and better in judging distances than the Hythe prizeman.