Page 29 - Who Was Sapper Brown

The arduous conditions faced by the Royal Engineers in constructing this road, and the risks posed
by illness, sunstroke and accident, are attested by the fact that of the eight burials in 1879 at the newly

consecrated Troodos Military Cemetery, five are of young Sappers or Drivers of the Corps, and two are
of infants born to the wives of Royal Engineers. The first burial was that of 13707 Sapper George Wood,

on 27 May 1879, and the last that summer was of 13749 Driver Edwin Claridge, who was buried on 11
September 1879.

There are no further burials of Royal Engineers in Troodos from subsequent years. The Corps of Royal

Engineers, with its five graves from 1879, has a larger number of graves in Troodos than any other unit
(the Coldstream Guards are next with four burials, all in 1885).

Once the Indian Engineers returned to India in October, the 31st Fortress Company was officially listed
as the only Engineer unit remaining in Cyprus.26

Survey of Cyprus

In actual fact, there was another, smaller group of Royal Engineers in Cyprus. Lieutenant Horatio
Herbert Kitchener, later known as Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, had recently surveyed the Holy Land

and produced an excellent map of Palestine. As no accurate map existed of Cyprus, the Foreign Office
tasked Kitchener to produce one. Kitchener landed at Larnaca on 13 September 1878, and the rest of

his team (Lieutenant RH Hippisley, Sergeant Sutherland, and three corporals) arrived on 18 October.
Kitchener promptly started a classical triangulation survey, finished it in 1883, and published the results

in 1885. It is essentially the map of Cyprus used to this day and all larger scale maps produced since then
are derived from it.
27

Sapper Brown

So where does that leave us with Sapper Brown, now buried at Wayne’s Keep? It is reasonable to assume
from the evidence so far that he served with the 31st Fortress Company RE, that he was probably based

at Mathiatis in late 1878 and January 1879, and that he may have died on the line of construction work

between Limassol and Platres. But why did he die, where was he originally buried, and why and when
was he re-interred?

There are no records relating to Sapper Brown at Wayne’s Keep. His grave, while marked with a MOD

headstone, is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission under contract to the MOD,
as are all the other graves at Wayne’s Keep. The CWGC (both at its Larnaca branch and at its central office

in England) holds no records relating to him either.

The trail in Cyprus appears to end here. Where to next?

26 Ibid, (October to December 1878)

27 Erwin, Bill (2006), ‘Lieutenant H H Kitchener RE in Cyprus – with a fair amount of history included’, The Royal Engineers
Journal, Vol. 120, No. 2, pp. 76 – 81.

19