In the first report of the Commissioners to the Right Honourable the Home Secretary, the corps of sappers and miners was thus alluded to: “In many parts of these arrangements, both before and after the opening of the Exhibition, the Commissioners derived the most important benefit from the co-operation and assistance of the corps of royal engineers and royal sappers and miners, who had been placed at their disposal.”^[89]

To carry out the intentions of the Commissioners with respect to the disposal of the 600l. according to individual merit, a board of officers of royal engineers—Captains Owen and Gibb, and Lieutenant Stopford—laid down rules to guide them in the distribution. The cardinal grounds for exclusion were, that none should participate in the rewards who had been less than a month at the Exhibition, or who had been sent to head-quarters in consequence of irregularity, or who had been notoriously idle and useless. Of this character it is satisfactory to add, that among the whole body employed, from the very beginning to the close, only two privates had earned the unenviable distinction.

The distribution of the grant was arranged into sums considered to be equivalent to the criteria of five specific classes of qualification and utility. On this principle therefore, the first class comprised men only, who in situations of considerable responsibility, drew public attention for their steadiness and general ability.

The second and third classes embraced men, who in various degrees called for favourable mention, and who displayed considerable aptitude and zeal.

The fourth class contained men, who not having the same opportunities of distinguishing themselves as the men in the previous classes, gained the commendation of their officers and others for attention to duty, and cheerfulness and exertion in its execution.

The fifth class comprised men who had only been a short time at the Exhibition, but who, nevertheless, rendered themselves, by their conduct and zeal, deserving of a slight memento of their services.

According to this classification, the prizes distributed were in value and number as follows:—

The prizes embraced a selection of gold and silver watches, cases of instruments, portable writing-cases, and such other articles as would tend to increase the professional efficiency of the men, and at the same time form a suitable and handsome memorial of their services. Every article was suitably inscribed with the owner’s name, and the source from whence it was obtained.

In addition to these rewards, each non-commissioned officer and soldier, to the extent of the above number, received a bronze medal inscribed with his name, in a morocco case, to be kept as a token of useful services rendered, and also a pictorial certificate signed by Prince Albert.

The number of men sent to the Exhibition from September 1850 to December 1851, reached a total of 274 of all ranks. Sixty-eight of the number reaped no advantage from the grant. Of these, twenty-four had been removed to head-quarters for slight irregularity, two deserted, two did not participate on account of indolence, thirty-three were only three weeks at the Exhibition before it closed, and the remainder, seven men, were removed after short periods of employment, in consequence of illness.

Only one casualty occurred in the companies during their service under the Royal Commissioners. Lance-corporal Thomas W. Noon had obtained leave to visit his friends at Oxford, and was killed by a railway accident at the Bicester station on the 6th September. Liberally educated, and brought up to the profession of an architect and builder, he promised to be very useful both as a non-commissioned officer and foreman. In several situations of responsibility, he proved the superiority of his attainments, and was consequently one of the first men selected for duty in London. Mr. Wiltshire, under whom he was employed at the Exhibition, bore testimony to the value of his services. Much esteemed by his comrades, his melancholy end was deeply deplored, and his remains, interred in the cemetery of St. Sepulchre, at Oxford, were followed to the grave by a large concourse of mourners, among whom were seven non-commissioned officers of the corps from the Exhibition. In a funeral sermon, preached by the Rev. W. Mitchell, M.A., in Hornton-Street Chapel, Kensington, was given a review of the history and character of the deceased, which awakened interesting sympathies in the crowded congregation.

The removal of the goods commenced immediately after the closing of the Exhibition, and all the available sappers were for some weeks employed in assisting the exhibitors and their assistants to pack their property, and remove it from the building. Soon these duties, from the rapidity with which the clearance was carried on, permitted a large force of the corps to be withdrawn, and accordingly, the 22nd company quitted for Woolwich on the 4th November, and the 5th company with the greater part of Lieutenant Stopford’s detachment on the 11th November. Of the number left, a few were employed in collecting and arranging specimens presented to the Commissioners for the formation of a trade museum, and gradually the numbers were reduced to twenty-four, and by the end of the year to nine men only.

Among the contributors to the Exhibition were the Ordnance Survey, and Mr. Forbes, late sergeant-major of the corps. The Survey sent a number of artistic specimens of maps, one of which, Lancashire, was fifty feet in height and twenty-seven feet in width. A plan of the city of Dublin, on a scale of sixty inches to the mile, was the finest specimen of map engraving ever produced in the United Kingdom.^[90] With this plan was associated the name of colour-sergeant John West, late of the corps, whose services have already received honourable mention in these pages. Among the other maps exhibited, which especially attracted attention, was one of the borough of Southampton, on a scale of six inches to a mile. For finished beauty of execution and truthful delineation of the various features of the ground, it was regarded as unrivalled. This specimen was executed by Charles Holland, formerly second-corporal in the corps, and who is still the leading draughtsman at the Ordnance Map office, Southampton. As already noticed in these pages, he received a case of instruments from Prince Albert for his talent in drawing a similar plan of Windsor. Six or seven specimens of electrotype, to illustrate the different stages of the process of engraving the copper-plates, were also exhibited. Sergeant Donald Geddes assisted in mounting the maps, which from the colossal dimensions of one of them, was found very difficult; and he also arranged the various specimens in the space assigned to them at the end of the western gallery. “The Council gold medal was granted to the Ordnance Department who exhibited the maps, as a just and honourable tribute to the meritorious and scientific officers of that department who prepared them.”^[91] “For the copper-plate etchings, and for the use of the electrotype process in reproducing the plates, our eulogium,” say the Jurors, “is justly due to the establishment at Southampton, where they are executed.”^[92] Sergeant Geddes had from the first the charge of the electrotype branch at Southampton, under the executive officers of royal engineers, Captain Yolland, and afterwards Captain W. D. Gosset; and by his skill and acquaintance with chemical science, attained that perfection in the art which, but a few years past, it would have been thought chimerical to expect.

Mr. Forbes exhibited a beautiful model of his spherangular pontoon in raft, with all its stores complete, and waggon for carriage. He also contributed the model of an apparatus for the ventilation of mines. Both objects were inventions of his own, and the former, though not adopted in the service, gained for him the present of one hundred guineas from the Board of Ordnance. Mr. Forbes was very late in submitting the articles, and they have therefore not been included in the official catalogues.