Twelve rank and file were sent from Woolwich in April to Spike Island, to superintend the convict mechanical skill and labour placed at the disposal of the Ordnance, in carrying on the defences of the island and other posts in Cork harbour. This measure was strongly urged by Colonel Oldfield, the commanding royal engineer in Ireland, on the score both of utility and economy; and the services of the party in directing the convicts in the quarries, the excavations, and at their trades, were followed by results, indisputably advantageous to the public. The seventh company, employed first at Portsmouth and then at Gosport, in conjunction with the second company, in constructing the batteries at Brown Down, was removed in June from Fort Monckton to Hurst Castle, to repair its defences and construct new batteries. The men, not quartered in the castle, were provided with accommodation in a detached shed, which was converted into a barrack for the purpose. Early in the year, under orders from the Home Government, four men of the corps under lance-corporal James S. Taylor, made surveys and plans of the Holmfirth reservoir and the country in its neighbourhood, to assist Captain R. C. Moody, R.E., in his inquiries to ascertain the cause of the bursting of its embankment and the consequent destruction of life and property. On the completion of the work the men were commended for the active and able manner in which it had been executed, and received a liberal allowance for their services. A new station was opened for the corps this year at Alderney, one of the Channel Islands, whither the eleventh company, under the command of Captain W. F. D. Jervois, R.E., repaired from Woolwich, and arrived at the island on the 30th June. Some four weeks after the men commenced the construction of the permanent works considered necessary in those precarious days, to enable the garrison to resist any attempt at invasion by the enemy. There being but little accommodation in the island for troops, unused as it had been to have soldiers quartered on it, the company was necessarily divided into two portions, and domiciled more than a mile apart, at Longy and Corblets. The “Nunnery” was constituted an hospital for the sick. An appeal was made to the corps in June to subscribe towards the erection of an asylum for soldiers’ widows in memory of the late Duke of Cambridge. From most of the companies it was met by contributions, which in the aggregate amounted to 101_l._ 17_s._, and thus insured to the corps a permanent interest in the institution to the extent of nine votes at every election of a widow. The gift from the non-commissioned officers and men of the sappers was the most liberal that had been received from any regiment in the service.