On Sept. 28th, Lt.-General Sir H. W. Stisted, K.C.B., was appointed honorary colonel, vice Lt.-General C. C. Hay deceased.
On Oct. 29th, Col. Burroughs, C.B., retired on half-pay, and was succeeded in command by Lt.-Col. M’Bean, V.C., who has well earned the honourable position he now fills.
Lieut.-Col. M’Bean commanded the 93rd during the manœuvres of 1874 at Aldershot, where it remained till the 2nd of July, when it removed to Cambridge Barracks, Woolwich.
The strength of the 93rd, one of the finest Highland regiments, at the present time (1875) is 31 officers, and 642 non-commissioned officers and men, including the depôt.
On the next page we give an engraving of the splendid [Centre-Piece of plate] belonging to the officer’s mess, which was designed by one of the officers of the regiment. The sculpture on one side is supposed to represent the shot-riven wall of an outwork at Sebastopol, where an officer of the 93rd contemplates the dead body of a Russian soldier lying near a private of the regiment, who reclines severely wounded, the regimental pipe-major, in a commanding position above the group, playing “the gathering.” The other side (which we engrave) has an exact reproduction from a photograph of one of the gateway towers of the Secunder Bagh at Lucknow, for an account of the storming of which place in November 1857, see pages [790, 791]. An officer and private of the 93rd, and a dead Sepoy, emblematise that terrible Indian struggle and its result. Ornamental silver shields on each side of the ebony pedestal bear on one side the badge of the regiment, and on the other the presentation inscription, describing it as a memorial from some of the officers (whose names run round a silver rim on the top of the pedestal) of the part taken by the regiment in the Crimean war of 1854, and suppression of the Indian Mutiny in 1857.
This splendid work of art was inspected by Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle in July 1870, when she was graciously pleased to express her approval both of the design and workmanship. It cost the subscribers nearly £500; and when we consider that it exactly reproduces the dresses, &c., of the regiment at the period represented, time will greatly enhance its present value. The uniform and accoutrements of the Russian soldier are of one of the regiments overthrown by the 93rd at the Alma, and those of the Sepoy the dress of one of those rebel corps entirely annihilated in the Secunder Bagh.
We have the pleasure of giving, on the Plate of [Colonels of the 91st, 92nd, and 93rd regiments], the portrait of Major-General Wm. Wemyss of Wemyss, from a painting by Raeburn, at Wemyss Castle, Fife; and that of Sir Henry W. Stisted, K.C.B., from a photograph.
