Note 158 — SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.[158]

It cannot be too generally known that there is an excellent model of the Siege of Sebastopol deposited in the Museum of the United Service Institution, Whitehall Yard, which forms a worthy companion to that of the Battle of Waterloo, by Captain Siborne, also to be seen there. The Sebastopol model owes its origin to the following circumstances:—While the war in the Crimea was still being carried on, His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, as a mark of the continued interest he has always taken in the above Institution, presented to its Museum, in November, 1855, a model of the Siege of Sebastopol, based upon the best information that could at that time be procured in England. His Royal Highness, on presenting it, made a stipulation that the council would take steps to mark (in colour or otherwise), the exact position of the attacks of the allies, and of the Russian defences at the time of the capture of the place.

The council lost no time in inviting some officers who had lately returned from the Crimea, to undertake the completion of the model, according to His Royal Highness’s wishes; difficulties, however, presented themselves in endeavouring to carry this out in a satisfactory manner, which it was found impossible to overcome. In the meantime, at the expiration of the war in 1856, the officers of the Royal Engineers and of the Quartermaster-General’s department had completed their official surveys of the country, and, with His Royal Highness’s concurrence, it was resolved to construct a new model, based upon the latest and most accurate information. Colonel F. W. Hamilton, C.B., of the Grenadier Guards, who was wounded at the Battle of Inkermann, undertook the execution, the officers of the Army and Navy being invited to subscribe to a fund for defraying the necessary expenses, the Prince Consort heading the list with a donation of £50. The model is constructed to a horizontal scale of eleven inches to one mile, or one inch to four hundred and eighty feet. A succinct but valuable description of the model by Colonel Hamilton has been printed, from which the above particulars have been extracted.