Engineers. THE CORPS OF ROYAL, formed in 1763, is an important branch of the British army. A similar organisation exists in all regular armies. The duties devolving upon military engineers include the design, construction, and maintenance of fortifications and submarine mining defences at all times, and, during war, the conduct of engineering operations at sieges, mining, bridging, surveying, ballooning, together with the making of roads, railways, and lines of field telegraph. The men, who are called sappers and miners, are therefore selected with a view to these various duties, and with a small percentage of exceptions must have learned some handicraft before enlistment. The service is for seven years with the active army and five in the reserve, or these periods may be three and nine respectively. In addition to ordinary pay they receive 'engineer' pay, varying from d. to 3d. per hour, or allotted on the piece-work system. There are in round numbers 5000 non-commissioned officers and men in the corps, forming 51 companies; 1 field telegraph battalion, carrying 120 miles of wire and materials; 1 bridging battalion, in 2 troops, each carrying 120 yards of pontoon bridging material; and a field depot quartered at Aldershot.
In India the Bengal sappers and miners consist of 1000 natives, forming 10 companies; those in Madras, 1050, or 10 companies; and those in Bombay, 400, or 5 companies. The officers and higher non-commissioned officers are British.
There are some 900 officers of all ranks in the Royal Engineers, those not doing duty with the men being employed on detached duty in all parts of the empire. Except those of the coast battalion of Submarine Miners and the quartermasters, who are promoted from the ranks, all pass through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich or Royal Canadian Military College, and on joining the corps undergo a course of special training at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, which is the headquarters of the corps. They, like the privates, receive 'engineer' pay besides their ordinary pay as officers, commencing with 2s. a day, and are often able, especially in India, to obtain appointments entitling them to large salaries, irrespective of their army rank. Promotion is by length of service, and not, as in other regiments, dependent upon the occurrence of a vacancy in the higher rank.
At the War Office a deputy adjutant-general manages the discipline, &c. of the corps, and the inspector-general of fortifications superintends all works, &c. The Ordnance Survey is carried out by the Royal Engineers, the office being at Southampton. The militia and volunteer engineers are affiliated to the corps of Royal Engineers. The militia engineers in 1888 consisted of 2 regiments of fortress engineers and 5 divisions of submarine miners; the volunteer engineers of 22 regiments of fortress and railway engineers, 1 of railway transport, and 9 divisions of submarine miners. See Major-general Whitworth Porter's History of the Corps of Royal Engineers (2 vols. 1889).