"Inside the Waterloo Museum" Topic

Oh!!!… this bring me so good memories!!… (smile)

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Hope you enjoy!

Amicalement
Armand

Please tell me they have not put the Hanoverian skeleton on display…….I pray it is just a casting. That would be the ultimate in bad taste.

It was bad enough the "French Hussar" skeleton at le Caillou……..

AFAIK it is the actual skeleton. The description does not say either way, but the display gives you the impression that it is.

By memory… this is it…

Amicalement
Armand

Deadhead,

Well said! I agree with you 100% Both men deserve a decent and respectful re-burial. How would we react if the D-Day museum put a skeleton on display?

Mollinary

Hello, having previously visited the old 'museum' I can confirm that on my 200th anniversary visit, the new one is in a different league. The old wax works from the 'Napoleon village' are, as shown in the article, still there, but somehow feel relevant.

The artefacts, uniforms, history etc are all,well brought together along with the cyclorama providing a polished spectacle.

The Hanoverian, like the ''hussar' at Le Caillou is a real skeleton with a red section showing the list portion of his skull. I am not too sure how this fits in with due reverence to the dead but then again the ossuary at the rear of Le Caillou s essentially a rotting pile of bones.

I suppose, it is archeology, a bit like digging up ancient Romans at Pompeii or Egyptians at the Valley of the Kings.

Only the individual can decide but do not let it put you off visiting this excellent museum.

Chris

I visited waterloo last June. You can find some of the pics here. Mainly from the living History camps. You might like the Ardennes page as well.

jonspaintingservice.com/waterloo%202015_1.htm

Tango & jonspaintingservice: Thanks to both of you for these photos. Great stuff!!! John Miller

I'd like to visit that museum someday.

Hope that the deceased might be honored that he is in some way representing those that fell on the field of battle.

Also, it was good to see those photos from the visit to Waterloo.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I am sure the museum is superb and I really look forward to a visit. They seem to have concealed it well and I suspect the demolitions have only helped to clear the field. The Cambronne I will miss. I just loved smiling sweetly and sarcastically at the harridan that ran it.

The Hanoverian. I was fascinated by the find and studied every photo with great interest. It never occurred to me that he would be re-interred with due honours. He surely died a Christian soul and his wishes would have been anything, but to be put on exhibition. Maybe it is just me but I think this is a disgrace……it is just too soon to be an archaeological curiosity. OK, fully accept that I am happier looking at 2-3000 year old corpses, but even then I have to ask, are we respecting their wishes? The D Day comparison is a good one…….OK survivors are still around but…..

Does this Hanoverain soldier's belief and wishes count for nothing now?

Don't you put to much of your self on this hanoverian.

Do you have writings? Anything to show his beliefs?

He went into battle knowing if he died there was a good chance he would just rot in a mass grave.

I'd be surprised if a Hanoverian of 1815 would be anything other than a Christian or possibly Jewish, but obviously we know nothing of this individual….and yet, there does seem good evidence that he is not totally anonymous, with some clues as to his identity.

I just wonder if he had been asked…a mass grave or a glass case exhibition, which he would have chosen?

Fully accept there is many a skeleton, indeed embalmed body parts, on show, often just for entertainment. Even after millennia, still not sure it is right, when it is exactly contrary to their last wishes (as with the Pharaohs for example). It has been common practice, but I maybe thought we were beginning to get more insight, so we now give back Aboriginal corpse trophies to their native lands etc………

He probably wouldn't have been asked about a glass case exhibition. I'd be surprised if he had been asked about being in a mass grave as well. So to be honest, there's no way to know what he would have chosen, unless we knew exactly who he was, and had something in writing from him saying how he wanted his remains to be handled.

Then there was the Coldstream Guardsman found a couple of years ago in the dunes in the Helder from 1799. Originally it was proposed to scatter his ashes on Horseguards Parade, which seemed to me a little distasteful. I am pleased to say they chose in the end to interr his remains in the Guards Chapel.

Now that I did not know and I have to say that gladdens the heart

The remains probably belong to Friedrich Brandt, a 23 yo soldier of the KGL as Military historian Gareth Glover found out.
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Personally, I find the exhebition of his remains very distasteful.