Sappers attached to it—Opening—Distribution of the force employed—Duties; general superintendence—Clerks and draughtsmen—Charge of stationery—Robert Marshall—Testing iron-work of building—Workshops—Marking building—Receiving and removing goods—Custom-house examination—Fire arrangements—Ventilation—Classmen—Private R. Dunlop—Clearing arrangements—Miscellaneous services—Bribery—Working-pay—Close of the Exhibition—Encomium by Colonel Reid—Also by Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners—Honours and rewards—Their distribution—Statistical particulars—Lance-corporal Noon—Removing the goods—Return of companies to Woolwich—Contributors to the Exhibition—The Ordnance survey—And Mr. Forbes, late sergeant-major.

It was the good fortune of the royal sappers and miners this year to be associated with the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations, by which its name and character, its acquirements and usefulness, became more extensively known, appreciated, and commended. For this honour, the corps is indebted to Lieutenant-Colonel Reid, the Chairman of the Executive Committee. Receiving the cordial concurrence of his civil colleagues, he represented to Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners, the desirableness of military co-operation for carrying out the subordinate details of the work. The measure—at once approved of—was ordered to be carried into effect, and accordingly, three lance-corporals—Richard Rice Lindsay, Thomas Baker, and Charles Fear—were attached on the 11th September, 1850, to the executive committee. The two former were clerks and draughtsmen, and the latter an ingenious mechanic and modeller. Their first duty was to execute a plan and model of the proposed arrangements for the Exhibition. By the end of the year, fifteen rank and file, clerks and draughtsmen, including a founder and an engineer, were added to the party, who for a time were quartered in Kensington cavalry barracks. By degrees the force continued to augment, and at last by the arrival of the fifth and twenty-second companies, under Captains Owen and Gibb, R.E., and a strong detachment under Lieutenant Stopford, R.E., who was appointed acting-adjutant, the corps, on the 21st April, 1851, counted 200 non-commissioned officers and men. This was the greatest number of the sappers ever employed at the Exhibition. The enlarged force was furnished on the ground that as the corps was composed of artizans, its services would be especially useful, particularly in the mechanical part of the arrangements. As soon as the small cavalry barrack was full, the subsequent arrivals at the Exhibition were quartered in the royal palace at Kensington, and ultimately the detachment in the former barrack was also removed to the palace.

Just prior to the opening of the Exhibition on the 1st May, parties of the corps placed barriers across the various entrances into the building and also at some of the naves leading into the transept. At each outer barrier a small section of men was posted to prevent its removal, or the ingress of persons not authorized to view or take part in the state ceremonial. Within the area of the transept a strong detachment was stationed near Her Majesty, to attend to any orders which Prince Albert or the Royal Commissioners might see necessary to enforce. As the crowd kept flowing in, the “temporary barriers to protect the space round the throne were in part swept away” by the excusable impetuosity of the throng, “and the entire space of the nave seemed to be permanently in possession of the spectators. In this emergency Colonel Reid called out a party of sappers who soon restored order, and thus,” wrote ‘The Times,’ to whose columns these pages are indebted for the above description—“added one additional service to the many others which they had contributed for months within the walls of the Exhibition.” With temper and management the confusion soon subsided, and by ten o’clock order was established, “and reasonable facility afforded for the royal progress round the nave of the building.”^[65] Immediately the Queen proclaimed the Exhibition opened, the sappers removed the barriers, and the avenues of the building were at once rendered free for the unrestrained passage of the people. For the temperate, quiet, and efficient conduct of the sappers on the occasion, they received the thanks of Colonel Reid, Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, and Sir Richard Mayne, the Chief Commissioner of Police.^[69]

The subjoined table shows the strength of the corps at the Exhibition at the beginning of each month from October, 1850, to December, 1851, and also illustrates the divisions of labour in which the several parties were occupied.^[70]

A brief but more extended exposition of their duties than the above detail adduces, is here given to show the general nature of the connection of the sappers with the Exhibition, and the availability of the men to discharge onerous duty and varied occupation.^[71]

One of the colour-sergeants during the arrangements superintended the sappers on the British side, and the other on the foreign side. After the opening of the Exhibition, colour-sergeant Thomas Harding acted as sergeant-major; and colour-sergeant Noah Deary as foreman of works, in the repair of damages which accidents and the pressure of the crowd were continually causing to the railings, counters, &c. On two or three occasions when there was a press for money-takers, colour-sergeant Deary and sergeant Thomas P. Cook and William Jamieson did duty as collectors.

The clerks were employed under the various officers, military and civil, of the Executive Committee; the draughtsmen, partly under Sir W. Cubitt and Mr. M. Digby Wyatt, when they found such assistance necessary in the superintendence and record of the progress of the building; but principally under the Executive Committee, in making the numerous plans which were necessary during the preliminary arrangements. It was from their surveys and drawings that the plans in the Commissioners’ First Report were made. The men employed as clerks and draughtsmen varied at different times from three to forty in number. One of the men, lance-corporal John Pendered, was also employed in working an autographic press, which was useful when a few circulars were required at a short notice. The facility with which he acquired a knowledge of the apparatus was creditable to his aptitude, and the simple method he adopted to throw off the copies with rapidity and clearness proved him to be intelligent and skilful. The most distinguished of the draughtsmen were lance-corporals James Mack, Thomas Baker, and Nicholas Clabby, corporal Archibald Gardner, and lance-corporals Richard R. Lindsay and John Venner. The large plans, both of the ground and galleries, made for the convenience of the visitors, to enable them to find their way more easily to the parts likely most to engage their curiosity, and which were displayed at the south side of the transept during the later months of the Exhibition, were prepared by corporals Mack, Baker, Gardner, and Gabby. Both were considered to be highly-creditable specimens of drawing, combining boldness and skill with perspicuity. A daily journal, after noticing one of the drawings, thus wrote of the sappers, “Indeed that body have rendered invaluable services, not only in the general arrangements of the interior, but more especially in making those nice measurements which were essential with reference to the question of space.” It then concluded its notice by making some flattering allusions to the proficiency of the sappers employed on the national surveys.^[72] The plans were each twenty-one feet long by six feet wide. Similar drawings on a very reduced scale, from which the plans in the first report were engraved, were executed by corporals Gardner, Mack, Clabby, Venner, and Lindsay, but the principal and most effective part of the work devolved on corporal Mack. The ground plan was drawn by the three first-named non-commissioned officers, and the galleries by corporals Mack and Venner. The interesting coloured diagram to show the fluctuations in the number of visitors, and other characteristic details, was wholly drawn by corporal Mack. The plan of the exhibition building to illustrate the water-supply, and measures for security against fire, was drawn by corporal Lindsay. These four drawings comprised the plans in the First Report.

The chart exhibited in the transept on the 6th October, to show by diagrams the fluctuations in the number of visitors to the building, was prepared by corporals Gardner and Mack, under the direction of Captain Owen. ‘The Times,’^[73] said it was “a production of great merit and of much public interest, and resembled those scales of mountain elevations which are usually prefixed to atlasses. The shilling days were the Himalayas and Andes of the chart; while the half-crown and five shilling days were represented by heights of much lower altitude.” With the permission of the Executive Committee, these two non-commissioned officers compiled, on the same principle, a similar diagram with more copious general information, for the proprietors of the ‘Weekly Dispatch,’ from which an engraving was made, and copies in immense numbers were thrown off and issued on two stated occasions to the purchasers of that newspaper. Referring to the great chart shown in the Exhibition, the ‘Weekly Dispatch’ thus wrote: “This chart, which is beautifully executed, and is altogether a production of very great merit, reflects the utmost credit upon the authors—corporals Gardner and Mack of the royal sappers and miners, a corps which has rendered most intelligent and valuable service to the Exhibition.”^[74]

Corporal Baker, under Mr. Henry Cole, had the honour of preparing a coloured plan of the arrangements for Her Majesty, another for Prince Albert, one for the Duchess of Kent, and several for the members of the Royal Commission. He also surveyed the whole of the arrangements on the ground floor. In an instructive article in ‘Chambers’ Journal,’ on the ‘Crystal Palace,’ allusion is popularly made to this portion of the sappers’ duty, and it is justly added, that “the men were found very useful. All our surveying and planning have been done by them.”^[75]

During the latter months of the Exhibition, corporal Clabby recorded hourly the number of visitors who had entered the building up to the time of making the registry. This he did on a large sheet of paper fixed in the transept, at a sufficient elevation for the public to consult it. The rush at the moment of making the record was always great, and the interest with which the corporal was greeted and questioned by the curious, was accompanied by many honourable indications of kindness and good will.^[76]

Two men were in permanent charge of the receipt and issue of printed forms, and all articles of stationery to the various officers. Second-corporal John Vercoe was in chief charge. He also assisted as a clerk, and was pay-sergeant for Lieutenant Stopford’s detachment. From the 2nd October, 1850, to 23rd January, 1851, he had the charge of the party then at the Exhibition, and for his courteous deportment and address, was well spoken of by those with whom he was brought in contact.^[77]

Two men were employed during the erection of the building in testing the cast-iron girders and columns with an hydraulic press, &c., and in ascertaining that all the bolts were sufficiently screwed up; also in keeping a record of the ironwork fixed each day. This duty was intrusted to lance-corporals Robert Fleming and Joseph Barrow; the former tested the girders, and the latter the proper adjustment of the fitments and bolts. In cases of dispute about the practicable application of some defective columns and girders, the opinion of corporal Fleming was, on three or four occasions, sought for; and he gave it in so clear and manly a manner, that his views were readily followed by the contractors. It is not a little remarkable that this non-commissioned officer was the only sapper recommended by Sir William Reid for promotion, during the period that the Colonel commanded the corps at the Exhibition. Corporal Barrow, when not employed in examining the fitments, took his place in the drawing-room, and notwithstanding the rough occupation he had been accustomed to, was found efficient. For the successful stability of the building, some little credit is at least due to these two humble officials. Their exertions were very great, and their vigilance in the important work intrusted to them was fully equal to the responsibility.

Soon after the building was constructed, and before the goods began to be deposited, it was considered desirable to ascertain the effect of regular oscillation in the galleries. Experiments of different kinds were tried, but to carry out that which was regarded as the most trying, a strong detachment of the corps in close columns, keeping military time and step, was marched several times up and down, and round, and finally were made to mark time. With the result of this last test the eminent scientific men present expressed themselves highly gratified, and the incident was considered to be sufficiently interesting to become the subject of illustration in a popular journal.^[78]

Lance-corporal Charles W. Fear made, in the early part of the arrangements, a model of a portion of the building for the information of the Royal Commissioners, and afterwards was employed in making small models of counters of various parts of the building and other things of the kind required during the progress of the work. After the opening of the Exhibition a party was employed in repairing damages caused to the railings, counters, &c., and in copying, in model, some of the simplest and most instructive mechanical inventions and appliances for provincial institutions. The better to carry out the new style of constructing models, four of the party attended lectures on the subject delivered by Professor Cowper at King’s College, Somerset House.

A party, varying from five to twenty-five men, all painters, was employed during the arrangements in numbering and lettering the columns, and laying down on the floor of the building the plan of the proposed passages and counters. Lance-corporal John Venner, who also worked as a clerk and draughtsman, was conspicuous in this division of duty. Corporal Archibald Gardner, also a draughtsman, was in great request for printing. The facility with which he lettered notices, labels, &c., required in an instant, brought him greatly into favour with the officials. The amount of work he had to execute rendered it indispensable that some more convenient substance than Indian ink, which took an immense time to grind, should be found. This he effectually provided, and thereby caused a considerable saving of expense. Gas-stoves were used in the Exhibition offices, in which he observed a very available description of soot to accumulate; and carefully collecting the material and mixing it with common ink and a little glue, he manufactured an abundance of a fine jet black preparation, which was always ready for emergencies.

The number available for unloading the goods when they were coming in varied from twenty to fifty men, and was not sufficient without the assistance of considerable numbers of porters from the docks. As the waggons containing the packages arrived within the building, they were driven to the centre of the transept and there unloaded and marked by a Custom-house officer. From the transept relays of sappers conveyed the packages in trucks to the compartment of the foreign country from which they had been consigned, where another band of Custom-house officers was ready to receive them. There was always a fresh supply of sappers with chisels and other implements to break open lids or other coverings, and who, with military determination, swept everything before them until the goods were revealed. This was the usual course of the reception arrangements.^[79] “We have here,” writes a London Journal, “to commend the aptitude and intelligence with which the force of sappers execute the duties intrusted to them. So quietly and precisely do they obey instructions, that their assistance is properly considered of material consequence to the punctual fulfilment of the arrangements in which they are concerned.”^[80] Another thus writes, “The sappers and miners form prominent objects in the animated scene. Their work is principally to facilitate the reception of goods, and they get through all they have to do with great energy, and with a certain observance of military precision which is not without its interest to the looker on.”^[81]

From ten to twenty men were employed during the receipt of goods in opening the cases, and in assisting the Custom-house examination. Both in this duty and in removing the goods the greatest care was taken; so much so indeed, that only two or three accidents by breakage occurred to the exhibitors’ property.

As early as January, 1851, while the building was still under the control of the contractors, a party of four men of the royal sappers and miners patrolled the building and its workshops every evening after work, remaining until they had seen every fire and light properly extinguished except those in the offices, where the great press of work rendered it necessary to allow fires and lights to be kept up during the night. With the addition of a party of the London fire brigade, this arrangement remained in force until the opening of the building, when a picquet of twenty-four men of the corps was mounted in the building at eight P.M.; this party on arriving at the Exhibition was marched round it to all the stations where the different fire-engines, fire-cocks, tanks, buckets, &c., were placed; thus every individual ascertained that all the stores were correct and ready for use. The whole of the men of the corps at the Exhibition had been drilled to the fire-engines, and made acquainted with all the arrangements undertaken to provide for the immediate extinction of any fire. The twenty-four men slept in the building every night, one man remained on sentry to be in readiness to rouse the men in case of alarm, and a non-commissioned officer and two men patrolled the building every two hours. The picquet came off duty at six A.M., when another party of the sappers relieved them for the usual daily duty. This arrangement continued until the 4th November, 1851. The number was then reduced to twelve, and on the 11th November to two men, who remained all night in the building until it was again given over to the control of the contractors, Messrs. Fox and Henderson, in December, 1851.

By day two non-commissioned officers were selected, one for each side of the building, Foreign and British, whose sole duty it was to take charge of the men who belonged to the fire-party, and in conjunction with the men of the London fire brigade on duty at the building, they were held responsible for all the stores connected with the fire department, that everything was in its proper place and ready for immediate use, and also that the water was on, and the pressure not less than sixty feet. When the body of sappers was marched to work in the building each day, a party of twelve or fifteen men was allotted for each side of the Exhibition, and placed under these two non-commissioned officers, who distributed them to the various fire stations, and visited them during the day to see that they were at their posts, and alert.^[82] The promptitude with which this service was attended to was exemplified on an occasion when a fire, in the southern part of the Colonial collection, raised an alarm. The flue attached to a stove in one of the offices of the contractors having become heated, ignited a piece of wood with bunting attached to it. A piece of the burning cloth fell into an open cask of Indian corn, but the drapery of the counter concealed for a time what had happened. Eventually the smoke began to break forth, and as soon as the existence of fire was ascertained, it was extinguished before it had time to do more than slightly char one plank of wood. The stores in charge of the non-commissioned officers were 8 engines complete, 40 cisterns, 16 hydrants, 410 spare buckets, 16 spare hose, 16 axes, 18 hand-pumps, and 15 fire annihilators.

Opening and closing the louvre-boards for ventilation, and keeping a register of the temperature in the building, were attended to by a few of the men. The register was kept from 19th May to the 11th October, and the indications of fourteen thermometers were taken three times a-day.^[83] Corporal Thomas Noon was the chief at this duty, and was found very intelligent and attentive.

There were one or more men, termed classmen, attached to each class on the British side, who carried out the orders of the class and district superintendents during the arrangements, and also during the time of the Exhibition. The number of classmen appointed to the thirty divisions of the arrangements during the progress of the building, &c., was fifty-seven; and the number included in the organization for assisting in the classes during the exhibition, was sixty-one of all ranks. Five or six men also assisted on the foreign side, of whom two were attached to the Chinese court. The classmen afforded material help to the exhibitors and their assistants in displaying their property to advantage, and in protecting it.^[84] They likewise were often found very useful in giving information to the public, and in conducting individuals through the masses, to those parts of the building which they were the most anxious to visit. Their courteous demeanour and intelligence were rewarded with repeated expressions of thanks and satisfaction, and the exhibitors were desirous to mark, in a substantial form, their appreciation of the services of the classmen, but it was declined on military considerations. Private tokens of respect, however, were frequently presented by some of the superintendents and class assistants to their military subordinates.

A party of about forty men came early in the morning during the Exhibition, and superintended a force of boys in sweeping the British side of the building. The arrangement was systematic, simple, and effective. Six hours—from four o’clock in the morning until ten—were dedicated to this purpose. Had it not been for the peculiarity of the structure, the duty of sweeping would have been insurmountable, but fortunately both floors and roof assisted very greatly to carry off much of the dust and dirt.^[85] After finishing the service each morning, the detachment was either kept as a reserve, or returned to the barracks.

In addition to the above they on several occasions assisted the police in their duties, especially on the opening and closing days; occasionally a few trustworthy non-commissioned officers issued tickets during the arrangements,^[86] and some of the privates rung the bells at the time the building closed each day. In assisting the police, corporal George Pearson detected an official personage, holding a lucrative situation at the Exhibition, taking money from the place in which it was deposited. The corporal for a long time watched his proceedings, and making known the case to the superintendent of police, the delinquency of the official was fully proved, and his dismissal from employment forthwith ordered.

During the preliminary arrangements the non-commissioned officers who issued tickets, and took charge of the gates and private entrances, were frequently besought by bribes to permit individuals the privilege of entering the building, &c., but no man of the corps was so wanting in a right sense of his duty as in this way to break the trust reposed in him. An instance of another kind was brought to the notice of Colonel Reid by sergeant Thomas P. Cook, who had a party under him employed removing goods from the hoarding to their destination in the building. Many of the exhibitors, wishing to insure a priority of attention in the removal of their property, offered considerations to effect it, but they were justly exposed, and the Colonel made it the occasion of complimenting the sergeant for his integrity.

The working-pay of the non-commissioned officers and men was 1s. 3d. a-day each; but from twenty-five to thirty of the most useful draughtsmen and others received 2s. a-day.

The Exhibition was closed on the 15th October, on which occasion small parties of sappers were posted at the barriers, and in the various passages leading to the transept, to assist the police in preventing the rush of the crowd. They were also placed around three sides of the dais from which the ceremony took place, and from which Prince Albert “took leave of all those who had given their assistance towards conducting the Exhibition to its prosperous issue.”^[87] The sappers were engaged the whole of the previous night in removing obstacles likely to interfere with the arrangements for the ceremonial. They also constructed the platform, or dais; and while attending, on the morning of the ceremonial, to the preliminary arrangements for the temporary accommodation of the Prince and the Commissioners, a sustained cheer was given by the visitors for the sappers, as a parting token of thanks and satisfaction for their past services.

Colonel Reid, now Sir William, on being appointed Governor of Malta, resigned on the 27th October, 1851, his charge in London, and the command of the corps at the Exhibition consequently devolved on Captain H. C. Owen, R.E. “I have,” said Sir William on leaving, “the most perfect confidence that they will continue to the end of this service, to perform their duties with the same zeal which they have hitherto invariably shown, and with the same considerate and forbearing conduct towards all with whom they have been connected in this arduous undertaking.”

The crowning testimony to the useful services of the corps was graciously given by Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners in a letter to the Marquis of Anglesey, the Master-General of the Ordnance. In promulgating the letter,^[88] a copy of which follows, his Lordship expressed his confidence that this high testimonial in approbation of the valuable services of those immediately concerned, would be received with feelings of pride and gratitude by the whole corps of ordnance.

“I have the honour, as President of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, to convey to your Lordship, both in my own name, and in that of the Commission, our thanks for the cordial aid you lent us in allowing several of the corps of royal engineers, and two companies of royal sappers and miners to assist the executive committee in the arrangement and management of the Exhibition.

“Her Majesty’s Commissioners consider it due to the officers of royal engineers, and to the non-commissioned officers and privates of the royal sappers and miners, who have been thus employed, to express to your Lordship, in strong terms, the sense which they entertain of the admirable conduct of the whole body while engaged in this novel, delicate, and responsible duty.

“The officers of engineers have, in the able assistance rendered by them, afforded another instance of the useful manner in which a military body may be employed in civil services during a time of peace.

“The Royal Commissioners, being desirous of marking their sense of the share which the different persons employed in connexion with the Exhibition have had in bringing it to a successful issue, have requested the various civilians so employed to accept a certain sum of money in recognition of their services. We have ascertained from Colonel Reid, that such a course would not be agreeable to the feelings of the engineer-officers who have similarly given their assistance, and to whom we could have wished to offer a similar token.

“With regard to the non-commissioned officers and privates, it gives me much pleasure to state, that at the period of the preliminary arrangements, when the labour required was sometimes excessive, their exertions were always cheerfully made. During the course of the Exhibition, they practically demonstrated the great value of their schools of instruction by the many useful plans which they drew; and by carefully acting always in subordination to the civil police force, they established for themselves a character for good conduct and attention to the exhibitors and visitors, greatly to the credit of the corps to which they belong.

“The Royal Commissioners have therefore thought fit to award a sum of 600l., to be laid out either in drawing or mathematical instruments, or in other suitable lasting memorial of their connection with the Exhibition, for the non-commissioned officers and privates of the royal sappers and miners, to be distributed by the officers in such manner as your Lordship and the Inspector-General of Fortifications may approve; and we trust that you will give your sanction to the acceptance of these testimonials of their good conduct.