Page 21 - Ranger Demo

Sappers and the 1853 Mapping of Chobham Common
Graham Webster
Graham left working for Mapping and Charting Establishment in 1987 after 14 years to continue a career in MOD HQ – in IT Policy, Manpower Audit and various information-related postings ending as MOD's Chief Librarian from 2000-2003. Until 2011, when he retired, Graham worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Information Service. In retirement, he has been researching various local history topics, e.g. Chobham Common, Surrey in the First World War and codenames in the Second World War.
Introduction
The earliest military exercise for the British Army was on Chobham Common, Surrey, in the summer of 1853. Royal Engineers (then known as the Royal Sappers and Miners) prepared the exercise area and produced maps and plans of the encampment and the location of activity. The former had an impact on the features of the Common – although little remains today – but subsequent military use of Chobham Common did change the landscape and is visible today. The Sappers' mapping may be one of the first examples of peacetime support to large-scale military exercises.
Chertsey Common is an area of heathland in Surrey lying between Woking and Chertsey. It was once described as 'wild' and consisted of a series of scarps and entrenched valleys. Man has had an influence shaping what the visitor can see today as Chobham Common. 1 The military is responsible for many features, not too evident today. It is not, therefore, surprising that as an experiment, never tried in peacetime, a divisional "Camp of Exercise", was proposed by the Duke of Wellington.
Hitherto there had been nowhere in the United Kingdom, except near Dublin, where sufficient men could be collected together for the manoeuvring of even a single brigade.2
The exercise became the Chobham Common Great Camp of 1853 and
apart from being an impressive display in its own right and contributing to the success of the British and French in the Crimean War.3
The exercise was undoubtedly an enabling factor in establishing Aldershot as the home of the British Army and spreading War Department properties across the Surrey/Hampshire border.
The Exercise
Operations started on 21 June, and until 20 August 1853 when the 'camp' broke up, and there were a variety of military put on to large gatherings:
comprising four regiments of cavalry, three battalions of Guards, two brigades of infantry, each comprising three regiments, one troop of Royal Horse Artillery, three batteries of Horse Artillery, a company of Sappers, and a Pontoon train.4
1WEBSTER, Graham (2015- ) Man’s influence on Chobham Common, https://chobhamcommon.wordpress.com accessed 22 January 2020
2 LORD ANGLESEY (1993) A history of the British Cavalry 1816-1919: volume 2: 1851-1871, Pen & Sword, p27-28 http://tinyurl.com/pqkdboa accessed 20 Jul 2015
3Although this may have more to do with exercises on Chobham Ridges to the west of the Common: “...On the return from a field-day at Chobham Ridges, in 1853, I halted the cavalry at the end of a lane, which led on to the highroad leading to our camp, to wait for a battery of artillery, which was crossing our front down the high-road, and which delay was doubtless a source of momentary irritation to us, after a long day's work....” Remarks on the Charge of the Light Brigade; extracts from the letters and journal of General Lord George Paget: remarks on the movement of the 8th Hussars and on the conduct of Lords Lucan and Cardigan, fn 2. In: PAGET, General Lord George (1881) The Light Cavalry Brigade in the Crimea Extracts from the Letters and Journal of General Lord George Paget, http://www.historyhome.co.uk/forpol/crimea/paget/remarks2.htm , accessed 22 January 2020, and; “...we will ride up to Chobham Ridges, where we will have some exercises as if you are in enemy country...”, spoken by Paymaster Captain Henry DUBERLY played by Peter Bowles, in the film The Charge of the light Brigade, United Artists, 1968
4 IRVING, Joseph (1871) The Annals of our time: a diurnal of events, social and political, home, and foreign, from the accession of Queen Victoria June 20, 1837, Macmillan and Co, 28 Feb 1871 https://tinyurl.com/stzt5yx
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