Otago pack saddle
[10][11][12] Following the death of his father, Lieutenant Colonel George Spiller, RA, in 1861,[13] he and his brother had shipped out from Plymouth, Devon, for New Zealand, arriving at Port Chalmers on the Black Swan amid the Otago gold rush in June 1862.
The want of ventilation and the constant friction with the closing of the pads from the weight of the load upon the horses' withers and the ridge of the back speedily rendered every animal I had useless.
The idea upon which I worked was suggested to me by the principle adopted in the knapsack invented by my late father, Colonel Spiller, of the Royal Artillery, in 1861.
I spoke of my invention to the Director of Transport, Commissary-General Baily, and he requested me to get a saddle made after my plan, which I did at my own expense, and which upon trial was entirely approved of, and obtained the favourable notice of General Sir D. Cameron, K.C.B.
F. Le P. Trench, 40th Regiment; Captain Tigh, who commanded my own division of Transport—all or any of whom could corroborate the truth of my statement and substantiate the justice of my claim.
[3] Trials of Spiller's pack saddle proved it to be a vast improvement on existing patterns and, accordingly, Lieutenant General Duncan Cameron accepted it for use in the campaign.
In review of the vast amount of equipage required to cross Abyssinia's mountainous terrain, concerns over the suitability of pack saddles broke at the War Office in September 1867.
Ordnance Select Committee member Colonel Edward Wray, RA, ACG James Bailey, returned from New Zealand, Joseph Aspinall and Captain Gordon met at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, on 10 September to inspect and report on the general service pack saddle, of which 5,000 were being prepared for shipment, and a copy of the Otago pack saddle Bailey had sent from New Zealand.
In their reports to Sir John Pakington, Secretary of State for War, and Sir Edward Lugard, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for War: Bailey concluded "that the Otago saddle is really a serviceable and useful article of equipment, and, from my personal experience in New Zealand, I know can be carried by pack animals with very little injury to their backs."
The Military Store had advised that, if quickly acted upon, a large proportion of 5000 saddles could be supplied in a month, with the whole completed in six weeks from date of order.
[38][25] Henry Morton Stanley had been a special correspondent of the New York Herald embedded in the Abyssinian Expedition, along with a sizable contingent of journalists, several European observers, translators, artists and photographers.
Summoned to Paris in October 1869, James Gordon Bennett Jr. of the New York Herald sent him to find the missing missionary Dr David Livingstone.
[39][4] As the Commissariat Transport Corps disbanded in 1866, Lieutenant Harvey Spiller was appointed to rank of Captain in the Auckland Militia on 7 May,[42] and then to Sub-Inspector in the Armed Constabulary in October 1868, to command Wairoa District, Hawke's Bay.
[43] In 1869, a friend drew his attention to a letter published in the Army and Navy Gazette of 25 July 1868[44][25] giving, in its "large admixture of truth", praise to the Director of Transport in relation to his invention.
Spiller sought to put the truth of the origin of the saddle on record in a letter to the Army and Navy Gazette of 19 June 1869,[3][2] and there he seems to have left the matter.
