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STANDING OUT
THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE AND QUEEN VICTORIA’S
DIAMOND JUBILEE PROCESSION 1897
by Captain J L Davies
formerly Grenadier Guards
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Amidst the panoply of colour and the cheers of the
spectators on Diamond Jubilee day, 22nd June 1897, two
elements of the Household Brigade’s participation stood
out. One was very noticeable at the time; the other did
not emerge until the following year.
The Queen’s Procession which travelled from Buckingham
Palace to the service of thanksgiving on the steps of St
Paul’s Cathedral, then across the river, through south
London and back to Buckingham Palace, consisted of
twenty-five thousand troops of the British, Indian and
Colonial Armies. Twenty thousand troops lined the six-mile
route. The procession was split into two halves: the
Colonial Procession, led by Field Marshal Lord Roberts,
followed by the Royal Procession. The latter included six
naval guns, sixteen mounted bands and detachments of
cavalry regiments and seven horse artillery batteries.
There were seventeen Royal carriages and over one hundred
and fifty mounted officers, foreign military attachés and
envoys in attendance. Seven of the most striking were the
officers from the 1st Prussian Dragoons of the Guards
(‘Queen of Great Britain and Ireland’s’).
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee
Thanksgiving service in front of St
Paul’sCathedral, June 22nd 1897.
Albumen print, Royal Collection Trust / © Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2022
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The Royal procession was led by Captain Oswald Ames, 2nd
Life Guards, the tallest man in the British Army, standing
at 6 feet 8¾ inches. The blade of his specially lengthened
state sword was over 40 inches alone. In contrast,
Lieutenant Viscount Kilcoursie, Grenadier Guards, later
Field Marshal the Earl of Cavan, stood at 5 feet 3 inches.
Canon George Browne noticed ‘long Ames’ as he led the
procession past the south transept steps of St Paul’s
Cathedral. He also heard a cockney wit in the crowd call
out to a dragoon officer who followed and was as short as
Ames was long, ‘Come out o’ that there ‘elmet! I sees yer
little legs a danglin’ down’. Ames became something of a
celebrity. He was portrayed by Leslie Ward, ‘Spy’, in
Vanity Fair and his name featured in all the newspapers at
the time of the Jubilee. At the subsequent prize-giving at
Ames’s alma mater Charterhouse, the headmaster William
Haig Brown told the school and assembled guests that ‘The
school has not had any great successes this year; but all
the world now knows that at least we have high aims’.
The second element that stood out was not mentioned in the
newspapers at the time and was only noticed by some of the
spectators in Pall Mall who had sight of the Guards’
Crimea memorial. Amongst those who did notice was the
artist Hubert von Herkomer RA. Having won tickets for
himself and his wife in the club’s ballot to view the
procession, he was standing on the balcony of the Athenæum
Club. ‘From there’, he wrote, ‘my eye at once rested on
the curious group around the Guards’ Memorial. Nobody
could tell me anything about those old men, but it flashed
on me at once who they were, for, although only some were
Chelsea pensioners in red coats, others were in civilian
clothes, all had medals on their breasts. These surely, I
said, must be the old veterans of the Crimea! I soon found
out that it was the idea of General Higginson who thought
it a pretty idea to put the old men around their own
monument … There were several artists and at least one
sculptor at the Athenæum. None were struck by that group,
but it touched me on the instant, and I saw a subject
ready-made. What could be more effective than a group of young
soldiers in bronze above the living old men, solemn
and deadly still with all the strange animation about
them?’
Von Herkomer wrote to General Sir George Higginson who had
been the Adjutant of the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards in
the Crimea. He is the officer on horseback in Lady
Butler’s painting The Roll Call, now in the Royal
Collection. Von Herkomer told General Higginson that he
wished to paint the group at the memorial. Higginson was
delighted and wrote to the painter on 6th July 1897:
My dear Professor,
I am pleased! The subject treated as you, with great known
sympathy and regard for the feelings of veteran soldiers
[Herkomer had received critical and popular acclaim for The
Last Muster, exhibited at the Royal Academy in
summer 1875, depicting Chelsea Pensioners at Sunday
morning service, now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery,
Wirral], will treat it, cannot fail to stir the declining
interest which the modern world takes in the fate of the
few survivors of the campaigns of 1854–55. I can assure
you that the gathering together of these eighty old chaps
that morning in St. George’s Barracks [which used to be in
Trafalgar Square on the site now occupied by the National
Portrait Gallery] previous to marching them to their
allotted station under the memorial erected in honour of
their worthy deeds was one of the most grateful tasks I
ever undertook; I reminded them that the last time they
and I had paraded on that very same spot was on the
morning of 20th February, 1854, when we started to embark
for the Crimea. One man, unable to walk without
assistance, was accompanied by his son; another by his
daughter and her child. This will account for you noticing
a woman and child among them.
I can get you a complete list of those who were present if
you desire it…All were respectably dressed and though for
many years they had not stood in the ranks they ‘pulled
themselves together’ for the occasion with straightened
shoulders and heads erect. I think that a combination of
the Chelsea red-coat and the civilian garb would not be
inappropriate in a picture illustrating an episode which
only an army such as ours can furnish.
Yours very sincerely,
George W Higginson
Von Herkomer then arranged for the men he had seen below
the Guards’ Memorial to visit his studio in Bushey so that
he could obtain an accurate portrait of each. The names of
the Guardsmen were General Higginson, Colonel Heaton,
Sergeants Doswell and Harvey, Corporal Palmer, Privates
Crosse, Dry, James, Silby, J Waters, B Cross, J Sherman, G
Hicks and T C Fox. The little girl was the grand-daughter
of Sergeant-Major T W Lose.
The result was the monumental painting The Guards’
Cheer, measuring 295.5 by 192 cm, which Von Herkomer
unveiled a year after the Jubilee at the 1898 Royal
Academy Summer Exhibition. It was an immediate hit with
the public and became even more popular through
reproductive prints. The painting was presented to the
Bristol City Art Gallery in 1907 by Henry Overton Wills,
of the tobacco family, where it remains.
‘Ossie’ Oswald Henry Ames (‘Men
of the Day. No 643.’) by Sir Leslie Ward,
chromolithograph, published in Vanity Fair,
27th February 1896
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The Guards’ Cheer, 1898, by Sir Hubert von
Herkomer, oil on canvas. Bristol Museum
and Art Gallery © Bristol Culture, photography
by Public Catalogue Foundation
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Sources: Bonham’s, Oxford, 5th December 2012, lot
56, ‘An 1874 pattern 2nd Life Guards state sword of
exceptional size’; G F Browne, The Recollections of a
Bishop, London, 1915; J Saxon Mills, Life and
Letters of Sir Hubert Herkomer CVO, RA, London,
1923.
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