"Events, however, brought a change in the command, and Leighton having, not without hesitation, accepted it, set himself at once to introduce reforms. The Captains, he announced, were to be responsible each for the command and drill of his company. He, to carry out before promotion as Major Commanding a duty which the previous laxity had never required of him, learned the company drill by heart and went through the whole complicated system then existing, on a single evening under trying circumstances in very insufficient space. Reorganisation did not rapidly fill the ranks, and there was much hard work to be done before the Artists' Corps appeared as a completed eight-company battalion, and took its place among the best of the Volunteer Corps of the Metropolis. The personality of the Commander did very much to achieve this result, and Leighton became Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant in 1876.
"Next to his duty to his Art and to the Royal Academy, as he was ever careful to say, he esteemed his duty in the Corps. Busy man, with his time mapped out more than most, he was always accessible and ready to give the necessary time to those who had access to him on the Corps business. He never appeared on parade without previous study of the drill to be gone through, while his tact, energy, and personal charm were brought out and used at those social meetings with officers and with men which do so much to build up the tone of a volunteer body.
"Of camps and duties in the tented field he took his part cheerfully. He shared the hardship of the early experience of the detachment at the Dartmoor Manoeuvres, where, camping on the barren hills above the lower level of the mist, the extemporised commissariat followed with difficulty, and the officers consoled themselves for the roughness of their fare by the consumption of marmalade, which happened to be supplied in bulk, and had to clean their knives in the sand to make some show for the entertainment of the Brigadier at such dinner as could be had.
"Regarding volunteering so earnestly as he did, the reports of the Inspecting Officers would appear of great importance in Leighton's eyes. On one occasion paragraphs had appeared in the papers about the Corps which probably gave some umbrage to the authorities. The Inspecting Officer kept the battalion an unconscionable time at drill, changed the command, fell out the Staff Sergeants, yet all went well. At length, with Leighton again in command, and a word imperfectly heard, the square walked outwards in four directions. The confusion was put to rights, and the well-prepared speech from the Inspecting Officer as to the importance of battalion drills, &c., followed. It was quite a pleasure to point out to the distressed Leighton that the whole was manifestly a 'put up thing.'