Note 1 — 1772—1779.
Reading edition
The rank of sergeant and adjutant—an odd combination certainly—was not adopted. The senior non-commissioned officer was styled sergeant-major. The authority for this are the muster rolls and returns of the company. But it is not a little remarkable that, in opposition to the fact, evidence should exist of the best kind for veracity, to oppose the averment. The error appears on a tablet built in Charles the Fifth’s wall adjoining Hargrave’s parade at Gibraltar, to the memory of the widow of the first sergeant-major of the corps. Thus runs the epitaph:—
To the Memory of Martha, wife of
Thomas Bridges, Sergeant, and as Adjutant
to His Majesty’s Artificers' Company.
She departed this life, 4th February, 1773,
Aged 38 years.
A more loving wife or friend sincere
Never will be buried here—
Charitable she was to all,
Altho' her income it was small.
Excuse the stanza. Perhaps the sergeant-major was a tetchy man, obstinate in maintaining his rights, and took this private opportunity of asserting his warranted rank and publishing the military anomaly in imperishable marble.