Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/188

184 in the Crimea, though Liége received a large contract as well as Birmingham.

Consequent upon the adoption of the rifle, the School of Musketry at Hythe was established in 1854, under the command of Colonel Hay, for the training of instructors in musketry. One of the first officers appointed to Hythe was Captain Lane Fox, of the Grenadier Guards (now General Pitt-Rivers), whose researches in the history of firearms had been of great value to the Committee of 1852. He drew up a code of instructions in musketry, which forms the basis of the existing regulations; and he also trained the regiments to which the earliest Minie rifles had been issued, at Malta and afterwards in the Crimea. On being invalided home, he was succeeded by Colonel A. Gordon.

Since those days the art of rifle shooting has advanced by leaps and bounds, in a great measure under the stimulus furnished by the Volunteer movement, while many successive committees have conducted experiments and made reports upon every description of rifle. But the words of Lord Herbert, given in evidence before the Parliamentary Committee on Military Organisation, are not to be gainsaid: — 'Lord Hardinge was the man to whom the army owes most for the improvement of weapons of war, and for carrying out those changes with the greatest energy and determination.' Nor was his attention confined to small-arms. The rifling of field and heavy guns demanded an equal share of his time.