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 1_s._ 3_d._
a-day each; but from twenty-five to thirty of the most useful
draughtsmen and others received 2_s._ 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.
“MY LORD
“WINDSOR CASTLE, _Oct. 29th_
“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
600_l._, 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.
“I have, &c.,
“ALBERT, President Royal Commission.
“_Field Marshal the Marquis of Anglesey,
“Master-General of the Ordnance._”
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 600_l._ 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:—
Class. Value. Number.
1st. each 10_l._ 13
2nd. 5_l._ 41
3rd. 3_l._ 41
4th. 1_l._ 97
5th. 10_s._ 14
—-
Total 206
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.