Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler) - The Roll Call

1874

It took a while for the sheer horror and incompetence of the Crimean war to hit home. At first characters like Lord Cardigan (whose knitted waistcoat became an enduring fashion) were treated as hero's. He toured the country making triumphant speeches. Artists generally followed the mood of the country and paintings were heroic in tone.

But as the actual soldiers (who hadn't bought their commissions) started to return, a different truth began to emerge. Even the Times eventually accused Cardigan of 'the falsification of history' and public sympathy shifted towards the ordinary soldiers who had been treated so badly and often died so bravely under the most appalling leadership.



Tennyson reflected this mood:

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Painters responded too, amongst them Elizabeth Thompson, later Lady Butler (1846 - 1933)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jbutler.htm
who in this famous painting showed the ordinary soldiers after the battle, bedraggled and exhausted being counted as survivors, as one falls dead at their feet.

At the Royal Academy it caused a sensation and had to be protected from the crowds by the Police. On tour in Liverpool, 20,000 people came to see it. 250,000 postcards were sold within a week and though it had been commissioned for £100 by a Manchester Industralist - Charles Galloway - Queen Victoria insisted upon buying it, though she agreed to sign six of the artists proofs for the engraving - though in the end this didn't happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Thompson

http://www.military-prints.com/crimean.htm

http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/WarArt/StudyGuides/Butler.html

http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/egallery/maker.asp?maker=12608
(including this picture)