"Lady Butler’s Waterloo" Topic

"This is a story of two walks in time, as we accompany Lady Elizabeth Butler, or just Elizabeth "Mimi" Thompson as she was then, around the field of Waterloo, guided by a man who was there on the fateful day.

The most famous painting of the battle of Waterloo is probably "Scotland Forever" by Lady Elizabeth Butler. The key to the famous lady battle painter's was that her work struk a chord with the British public, if she had been a TV producer her ratings would have been off the charts. Waterloo, like the Crimea, held a special place in Victorian National conciousness. Essentially it was the beginning of the heyday of the Empire, a battle that ushered in a 50 year span of prosperity for Britain, while other naitons still struggled to find an identity, everyone that called themselves a British subject knew exactly what they were there for. Well might we modern Britons envy their sense of purpose as we look back from their shadow. Many Victorians looked back on Waterloo with a reverence bordering on religious fervour, the events of the day were known to every schoolchild, and the hero's and villains were engraved in the mind of the nation. So when Elizabeth Butler began painting subjects from its hallowed story, she could not fail to find success.

In her memoir written in 1923 she was already calling WW1 the Great War but nevertheless when she cast her "Prodigous memory" back to her tour of Belgium and the German states of about 1865, just befor she went to the South Kensington Art School, Waterloo stood out as plain as the Lion Mound does on the field today and with greater significance. Her description of her tour is a real picture of how the Victorians and even the Edwardians looked upon the legacy of Waterloo, and some of her comments strike quite close to home even today as the 200th anniversary looms. As a guide she ran across a veteran who she calls Mundy of the 7th Hussars who took her family around the field, so far I have been unable to trace a man of this name to this regiment at Waterloo and so must assume she is talking about Sergeant Cotton of the 7th who was Waterloo's first battlefield guide, there are not many people who would talk of Waterloo this way anymore, so enjoy…"
From here
link

Amicalement
Armand

an excellent account. Thanks for finding that

I have a Wilkinson "Sword" razor blades sponsored copy of her painting "Scotland Forever!" framed and hanging in my living room. It was a gift many, many years ago from my wonderful wife.

Jim

Happy you enjoyed it my friend!. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Col Campbell, thank God for wives like that. Last Saturday my Missus finally agreed to join the rest of us in a trip to "the" battlefield. Two previous visits she stayed in Brusssels, but this time the sun was shining and there was no mud. She loved it.

My abiding memory was when she said "I thought it would be bigger". That took me back thirty years to when we first met…

Bless them all…..